cryofan

the chron is just the same as any other large media entity

The following is a letter sent to a houston chronicle reporter regarding a story today dealing with the upcoming implementation of municipal wireless here in houston. /////////// You hang around this planet long enough, and ya try to learn stuff, learn about nature and about man, and after a while, ya start to figger out some few things. Like, for example, this municipal wireless thing, and how the mass media portrays it. Interesting how the advantages of muni wireless are portrayed for the readers. Now, before we go into the gory details, let us consider the ways of nature and of our friends in the animal kingdom, shall we? Animals evolve over time so as to better survive. THey themselves are beautiful machines, designed by evolution to best pass on their genes to the next generation. Witness the snowy fur and skin of the polar bear-- it serves many purposes. The outer hairs are hollow, the better to insulate from the cold. These hairs are also white, the better to hide in the ice from its prey, the seal. But the skin is black, the better to absorb what little radiation there is from the sun in the arctic. But the bear never knows about its own wonderful skin or fur. It just uses it, blithely unaware of how many millenia of evolution it took to evolve every wonderful detail of that skin and fur. Same thing for the mass media reporting on things like muni wireless. Now the mass media-- such as local papers like the Chron -- try to increase readership by running stories that are helpful to their readership; stories that matter to them, stories that help their readers and give them some advantage. RIght? A common thing, right? So, how did the chron slant the muni wireless thing? It did not deal with the advantages to the MAJORITY of its readers, but instead dealt with the advantages to a distinct minority of readers--"the poor." Ah, yes, the poor. That demonized faction that has been a major target of propaganda from the rightwing for a least 25 years now. In fact, one good way to turn the white majority against any project or idea is to sell it as something meant for the poor. Because that takes advantage of all those years of propaganda that pushed the idea that the poor are eating up all the govt taxes, when all along it has really been the military. So what is the ultimate effect of your article? To give the idea to your middle class readers that muni wireless is something for the poor. Not for them, but for the poor.... But there is yet another aspect of this that we have to discuss: the fact that the real benefits of this muni wireless would go the majority--the working middle class. They are the ones that are paying exorbitant fees for high speed internet and moble phone calls. THe muni wireless would cut those costs dramatically. But you did not mention that. And the chron never really dwells on that aspect of it. In fact, your article is not the first chron article about muni wireless to paint muni wireless as something primarily for the poor. A large percentage of all such chron articles do the same thing--talk about the benefits for the poor, but never mention the benefits to the middle class workers. Why is that? Well, MAYBE it has something to do with the fact that cell companies, cable companies and phone companies are going to be losing a bunch of revenue when muni wireless becomes operational here. Hey, ya know what?? Those cell companies, cable companies and phone companies are also MAJOR advertisers in the Chron! Gosh, do ya think THAT has something to do with why the chron slants these muni wireless articles the way they do? But your articles never mention the hundreds of millions that working middle class Houstonians will save through muni wireless, do you? Nope, you just push that "poor" thing....curious and curiouser.... And did you yourself come up with this strategy? Did you, the reporter, devise this devious scheme? No, I think not. Like the polar bear, you simply follow the path set out for you by years of evolution. Mass media has been evolved by the forces of money over decades. Certain aspects of reality are not made the focus, and others are. Ah, the wonderful ways of mother nature.... -randy smith P.S.: Look for this letter on the internet, too, as I do not want it buried.