Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> Nathan Newman wrote:
>
> >but home
> >town papers and television stations matter far more. I believe studies
> >consistently show that average folks watch their local news channels far more
> >consistently than the national news.
>
> You're right about this - I've made that point to Jim Naureckas,
> editor of Extra!, but to no effect, since FAIR still focuses on the
> big media.
I think both you and FAIR are correct. You are correct on the empirical point, that small papers, now and a hundred years ago, are in many ways more influential (and usually more vicious) than the consolidated media. And that is important because nostalgia always is implicitly an apology for capitalism -- even when it is marxists (of any stripe) who are falling victim to the nostalgia. (The result in the latter case is to become a bourgeois moralist dressed in red clothing.) The key point about the "old days" is that capital defeated the revolution, and defeated it badly. Apparently that "free press" (even when it had a 'working-class' tinge) did a pretty good job of defending capitalism.
But FAIR is correct in their policy. (1) It would be an endless task for them to go to war with a hundred local papers or tv shows. (2) The 'big' media (NYT, AP, etc) are the source from which the local papers draw, selectively, their garbage. If FAIR handles the national news media, they are actually helping local activists, like me, more than if they were to waste time "exposing" the local Pantagraph.
Carrol