OT and getting further OT all the time! Re: Off-topic, but interesting (Fiorina fired)

From: Eric Smith <eric_at_brouhaha.com>
Date: Thu Feb 10 17:45:33 2005

Bill wrote:
> Most of "The Media" does not exist to inform, enlighten, or educate.
> It exists to sell products.

Evan wrote:
> Bill: get real. That's an incredibly immature and uninformed
> generalization.

Which happens to be completely true.

Do you really think that your advertisers have any objective *other*
than selling their product? And if the Media is funded by advertisers,
and thus beholden to them, do you really think that selling product
is *ever* going to take a back seat to any other concern, except in
very minor (essentially irrelevant) matters?

If you really believe otherwise, you are incredibly naive.

> As a real reporter, I find your comemnt very, very offensive.

That's a shame.

> As I've tried
> explaining on this list before, the vast majority of we real reporters
> are perfectly honorable, well-intended, upstanding citizens.

That may well be true, and yet it does not in any way contradict what
Bill said. The objectives of "Media" and the objectives of reporters
are not necessarily the same. The extent to which they are aligned
depends largely on how discerning the audience is. At some point even
Fox News might cross the line such that they lose audience. Such an
event would most likely be corrected very quickly. In fact, something
like that happened with CBS, and they're still trying to recover.

Eric
Received on Thu Feb 10 2005 - 17:45:33 GMT