Clear Channel: Getting Ready to Own the War

Ok. I'll try to remember that.

and look at this photo

http://us.news1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/rids/20030211/i/1045001886.3758153799.jpg

and look at that photo

And it's highly worth mentioning that these same memos and mechanics are working behind CNN and any other major news agency as well. Next time you see something on CNN that makes you freak out, come back and read this memo.

And no, I don't see what's wrong with "use it" in the sense of a technical memo discussing how to assemble news coverage. "Use" is the word that is, umm, used to describe including something in media.

people don't die in regards to snickers bars!*

(*in the immediate)

I think you are desperately reading your larger opinions into a memo that does not contain them. The memo does not say "use anger and fear to keep listener counts high." It says that "the emotion of America IS part of the story" and that it should be included. This is a memo for an organization that has to plot out how they are going to approach covering something: that line reminds and encourages staff to cover a particular aspect of the story. That is all.

It's sick because it's the mercenary attitude they have about EVERYTHING ALL THE TIME. The WAR is the latest Furby or Capri pants or whatever and they have to fight for their share of the craze.

choice haha: "As Rivercats season approaches we need to make sure we are aware of our contractual obligations with regard to interruptions for news of this magnitude. We'll be proactive. Let's set a meeting with Rivercats now and make them aware of War or Terror attack plans? We MUST find a way interrupt for bulletins."

speechless.

Why is everyone so shocked that a news organization wants (gasp) listeners? We all know that when something like a war happens, people tune in to news like nuts. This memo says: "We must make sure we meet their expectations." Every business says this: when people are going to be consuming your product like nuts, you want to offer them a good product, in the hope that they'll continue choosing your product over its competitors.

Consider, again, the rhetorical alternative: "People will be consuming news like crazy. It is not at all important that we offer good coverage. Feel free to not take this seriously and do a lousy job."

Jess: you might be misinterpreting "owning." News organizations want to have news first. This is, overall, a good thing: this is what makes them proactive about finding news and reporting it efficiently. Yes, sometimes it is a bad thing: it leads them to concoct or overblow news simply so they can have it "first." But generally speaking there is nothing wrong with wanting your news organization to be on top of breaking events!

I think what people may be recoiling at is the shoddiness of Clear Channel's coverage (and the shoddiness of commercial news coverage in the US in general)--what may be read back into this memo on the basis of the imagined results. Which is different than objecting to the words in the memo itself.

Clear Channel is awful shit intended for retards. Why do you care?

Goebbels to thread plz

< /hyperboleintendedtopointoutdepressinglydefeatistattitudestowardsthemassmedia>

But if the news has gotten more "entertainmentized" over the past 25 years (which I'm not sure is true), there are three things you can blame: You can blame the news media, who decide to be more entertainy in order to bring in the money; you can blame the [capitalist] system that encourages news media to give the people what they want; or you can blame the people, for wanting entertainment instead of news because they find facts boring.

Most people on this thread seem to be taking the first route, and saying that Clear Channel is awful; Nabisco seems (I could be wrong) to be taking the third route, saying that if people wanted news-based news (rather than entertainment-based news) then they'd get it; at the same time, he's grappling with the middle route, and whether you can really blame the media for doing their job.

That's what it looks like to me; I might be miles off-base.

Also, to defend Clear Channel as bringers of multiplicity of viewpoints is just fucked.

Jess, I tried clarifying this with Tracer but I guess not enough. I'm not saying that people here are advocating restricted media -- what I'm saying is that the particular ways in which they're attacking current media actually do function as criticisms of the very basis of a free press. Look upthread: you'll find people basically saying that news organizations shouldn't strive to have viewers, and that everyday people's choices as to what they want out of their news shouldn't matter. I can agree with the pointing-out of a lot of flaws in current media but still believe this is a really bad line of rhetoric to take in attacking them: intended or not, it's an assault on one of the founding principles of the idea of a free press.

Instead we have a press that is beholden to report factual information, but beyond that can present whatevers set of facts or analyses it desires. What, then, organizes which sets of facts and interpretations people consume? In our model of a free press, the answer is ostensible "the people themselves" -- anyone is free to offer us any set of information (so long as it's not demonstrably untrue), and it's in our hands to decide which particular ones we want to consume. That's the import of the viewer's choice.

The problem, obviously, is that we have no way of validating what we're told or how it's interpreted: the whole reason we need "news" is because we can't go out ourselves and confirm the truth of what we're hearing. Our model of a free press tries to solve that problem as follows: as with politics, we have the opportunity to expose ourselves to different information from different viewpoints, and to hold them up to one another for comparison and confirmation. Then we make our choices. And while news-consumers are going to have a tendency to want to hear news that reinforces their own beliefs, that tells them what they want to hear, this whole system is based on some bedrock faith that when people want "news" about the world around them they also want that news to be TRUE (and "useful," which is to say -- "true," or at least unbiased enough that one can discuss events with others without looking like a loony; this is why, with the exception of Fox News, major news outlets do not have slants big enough for the information they present to be conversationally incompatible with news from elsewhere).

Anyway there was a lot of rhetoric above about how people shouldn't enjoy or want news and how news organizations shouldn't care whether people consume their product or not. (In ILM terms this argument would function so differently.) That's what I see as a weird shot at the basis of a free press, which is that it should be primarily people's decision that something is worth consuming that recommends it: this is the only way to avoid appointing some entity to arbitrate not only what "truth" is but which truths are important. And notice how this functions outside of capitalism: regardless of what people spend money on, I guarantee you they by and large know that Jim Lehrer's news is a better product than Geraldo's.

And hell yes, part of me wants to agree with you, and I'll take BBC World News or Jim Lehrer over MS-NBC or Fox cable news ANY DAY OF THE FRIGGIN WEEK but I'm just trying to be the (apparently lone) explainer here of why our particular free-press model doesn't run that way.

Colin: why, because people are stupid they can't make rational decisions about what radio station to turn the dial to, what channel to flip to? I half agree with you but in defense of this model I think our founding fathers would have said something like FUCK YOU YOU ROYALIST ELITIST.

Andrew, are you Uday Hussein?

Also Sterling: I was just thinking that might be an artificial dichotomy you're creating between "want" and "need." The whole reason this leg of this discussion started up was that line in the memo that basically says "loads of people will tune in if there's a war -- let's keep them listening." I guarantee you that every comparable NPR director is saying exactly the same things to his or her staff -- NPR gives you what you "need," but it works on the assumption that some people "want" what you think they "need." Please don't imagine that any person working at an NPR station isn't eager to do a bang-up job and have every person who tunes in love it and stay tuned in forever and ever, and don't imagine that their internal memos say any different. The issue here is that most of you are reading from experience into how Clear Channel affiliates would try to keep people around -- but that doesn't make the "keep people around" instinct a bad one!

Also, the Founding Fathers must be in the top-five of "dead people that wish people would stop extrapolating their opinions". Just below Muhammed and Jesus

And I also think you're forgetting that in many markets CC is already forcefeeding people opinions, albeit not as overtly as, say, The Nation or The Washington Monthly; that idelogical dominance is justified by the market-populist arguments that were also used as the justification for their station binge that turned them into what they are today.

I mean, do you think that all news should just be a bunch of people screaming at each other, hurling unsubstantiated insults, because that's what sells to demographically desirable types? Is that all that matters anymore?

Also: I know all too well the "give the people what they want" argument, but you're leaving out the crucial variable of train-wrecks; of course people (on both ideological sides) are going to pay more attention to shooting-at-the-mouth gasbags like Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh, because it's the same "what will they say next?" curiosity that keeps people listening to Howard Stern. And if anything, I find market-populist arguments more elitist than the ones wishing for something more, you know, civilized in the public discourse; those arguments are usually trotted out to defend the pushing of lower culture on a populace that (a) the people making the deciding have had little actual contact with and (b) those decision-makers have a "let them eat cake" about, because they're the great Midwestern unwashed/a bunch of snobby East Coast types/[insert your favorite generalization here]. "Well, hey, it's what they want, so give it to them, they don't know what else is out there and why should we show them if it's going to be any sort of risk for us?" That to me is a lot more offensive than people being offended by this hot pink economy's constant drive to equate louder with better and leave anything of substance by the roadside.

(And I'm going to also go out on a limb and say that the callers CC picks on its call-in shows to illustrate the anger and fear going on will be more angry at "the enemy" than about the war itself -- after all, look at the "America's War" branding strategy they're going with, and the tendency of that company to phase out the shows of DJs who lean even slightly left.)

It's the role of the free press to ask that question -- it is not the role of the free press to make money for shareholders.

(a) If the forces you describe are really powerful enough to stomp all over any iota of agency individuals might have to find and consume "good" news, why is news not 30 times more ridiculous than it is now? Why isn't Ann Coulter co-hosting CBS nightly news? In the nude? With Howard Stern? Would people watch that?

(b) What else are you going to do?

This is part of my problem here: you guys are talking as if people are so ridiculously stupid that they will always prefer made-up cartoon bikini news to actual fact. You're ignoring the fact that on some level people tune into news to hear news, as well, and any outlet that doesn't give them a sufficient amount of it is going to loose their attention!

Patience, my boy, patience

I think there's a sense among "worthy" news sources that they don't WANT to reach out -- a self-congratulatory insularity and refusal to ENGAGE. Also a refusal to acknowledge that they ARE on a mission, and not just better at being informed and impartial.

I'm not v. happy with what clear-channel will be doing with their Iraq coverage but then neither do I want to particularly lobby clearchannel about it. I think yr. right -- the newssources do what they do, and the job is to establish news from a difft. standpoint and MAKE IT ACCESSABLE and make it WANT to reach out to people.

so i'm not saying "force-feed" but rather that that's impossible -- i'm saying, convence 'em that they want it, draw 'em in AND make 'em stay, and to do that you have to start with an agenda.

and see, i think the funny thing is that no one on this thread would necessarily dispute that, just that we've been disputing clear channel's possible (eventual?) agenda. nitsuh's overly literal reading of maura's initial post on (ooh, lookit them bad corporate types with their "Internal Memos") has been him battering around marketing chestnuts, when - and i can only speak for me but probably maura too since we were talking about this before she even posted the thread - we were very explicitly reading clear channel's history and practices into the language of this memo.

By the way, Maura, on the market populism front: back when Tom Frank was going around on it I was at a reading of his here. At some point he made some deeply unparseable comment about the intelligence of average people and consumers, so I asked him, basically: what is your opinion on the actions and intelligence of the average person? And he just shrugged and said "that's not really something that concerns me much." I have been a bit pissed off at him ever since, because so much of his work concerns supposedly manipulations of or myths fed to this average-consumer populous but never ever bothers to think about what that actual populous wants or gets or chooses.

Okay, quiet now.

nabisco i am not the one assuming that people will only look at news if it has bikinis. but i don't think you can argue that bikini-clad anything -- look at the freaking national geographic swimsuit issue, although i'm using the bikini as more of a metaphor here, but still, i think that's a prime example -- is the order of the day; how is my discomfort with this the equivalent of 'oh people will only read this, tsk tsk'?? -- i'm more bemoaning the lowest-common-denominator impulses of financiers and suits who think they know what the people want because they have the metrics and charts to back it up, even though they have probably never talked to the people they supposedly 'know.' i don't know why t. frank answered your question in the matter that he did, because i have thought about what people want a lot; of course it's a tricky thing to put your finger on, depending on which focus-grouping company you ask and which questions you ask to that group. i think that truthfully it's impossible to know what the 'average person' wants in a lot of ways, but i also think that too many shortcuts are being taken by a lot of people, and i don't think it's wrong to say that yes this bothers me.

(this whole discussion is making me think too about the constant battles over tv shows that are critically acclaimed, yet get canceled first.)

Haha ironically (not really, but then everyone misuses it, or maybe really i dunno anymore) the cheapo free tabloids launched by the chicago papers (red eye and red streak) are WAAAY more sympathetic to anti-war types than the normal versions of the papers. In fact, they're nearly positively anti-war in editorial tilt.

i can pretty much say this authoritatively, too, because in my former temp-iteration i was basically a voicetracker, picking 'the best' restaurants in places i'd never been to like grand rapids. (other people in my capacity would take the easy way out and pick places like applebee's, augh) of course these features got pageviews; when someone types in a cityname on [insert name of large online service here] you get redirected right to where i work, which means you have something of a lock on traffic. but were they really useful to the community? well, how hard is it to find an applebee's or a chili's on a major road?

No real edge to it, just that they seem to know they exist for a demo which is comfortably jaundiced about the bush gang and the war, and play to that.

Even NPR news, as much as I like it more than CNN/MSNBC/etc, kinda follows the same corporate guidelines to appease their audience.. it's just delivered more conservatively, "intelligently", and more left of center.

Yes, free press is nice. But, especially with the advent of the net, it's just now easier than ever to access the news you want to hear. Seattle hippies are all gonna read the same left-wing conspiracy websites, and Orange County libertarians are always going to read the OC Register and other sites that appeal to their idea of what's right and what's wrong. etc. etc. etc. A decade or so ago, this notion may have seemed idealistic, but it's turned out to not offer as much challenge or debate as people hoped.

But at least, you can choose which horribly biased news outlet you read. And of course, a minority of people who don't like to fall into a convenient hole will exist surely. And there are a few sites that are extremely academic, analytical, and politically neutral.. but then again, even they have to cull the stories, so some bias will always exist. (Stratfor is a good example.. hope I didn't get the name wrong)

It boils down to which poison you want. Goverment controlled news? or corporately controlled news? Or both? Or neither?

Now back to the original topic on hand, my problem with the memo wasn't with the general mechanisms of corporate media as much as seeing firsthand a document produced by someone who has been so desensitized and presumably unmoved by the dire events that are very possibly about to happen. That mindset just makes me ill. I'm glad I saw the memo, because it's a great analogy to keep in mind the next time I see another threat alert or story meant to instill fear.

Overall, it's just a reminder that the very powerful people who do control the media in this country are doing their job, in relation to this war and terrorism, in a way that's ultimately destructive. (Then again, I wasn't around during the media frenzy surrounding the Cuban missile crisis.. perhaps it was even worse then)

CNN
NPR
PBS/The Newshour with Jim Lehrer
CNN - Newsnight with Aaron Brown
BBC
News World International, including "The National" With Peter Mansbridge
Websites: The New York Times; the Washington Post; the Wall Street Journal; CNN; BBC.

Still too western-oriented, I'm afraid.

(i hope you get the ref)

Ch1c4g0 Tr1bun3 - March 19, 2003

Media Giant's Rally Sponsorship Raises Questions
by T!m J0nes

Some of the biggest rallies this month have endorsed President Bush's
strategy against Saddam Hussein, and the common thread linking most
of them is Clear Channel Worldwide Inc., the nation's largest owner
of radio stations.

In a move that has raised eyebrows in some legal and journalistic
circles, Clear Channel radio stations in Atlanta, Cleveland, San
Antonio, Cincinnati and other cities have sponsored rallies attended
by up to 20,000 people. The events have served as a loud rebuttal to
the more numerous but generally smaller anti-war rallies.

The sponsorship of large rallies by Clear Channel stations is unique
among major media companies, which have confined their activities in
the war debate to reporting and occasionally commenting on the news.
The San Antonio-based broadcaster owns more than 1,200 stations in 50
states and the District of Columbia.

While labor unions and special interest groups have organized and
hosted rallies for decades, the involvement of a big publicly
regulated broadcasting company breaks new ground in public
demonstrations.

"I think this is pretty extraordinary," said former Federal
Communications Commissioner Glen Robinson, who teaches law at the
University of Virginia. "I can't say that this violates any of a
broadcaster's obligations, but it sounds like borderline
manufacturing of the news."

A spokeswoman for Clear Channel said the rallies, called "Rally for
America," are the idea of Glenn Beck, a Philadelphia talk show host
whose program is syndicated by Premier Radio Networks, a Clear
Channel subsidiary.

`Just patriotic rallies'

A weekend rally in Atlanta drew an estimated 20,000 people, with some
carrying signs reading "God Bless the USA" and other signs condemning
France and the group Dixie Chicks, one of whose members recently
criticized President Bush.

"They're not intended to be pro-military. It's more of a thank you to
the troops. They're just patriotic rallies," said Clear Channel
spokeswoman Lisa Dollinger.

Rallies sponsored by Clear Channel radio stations are scheduled for
this weekend in Sacramento, Charleston, S.C., and Richmond, Va.
Although Clear Channel promoted two of the recent rallies on its
corporate Web site, Dollinger said there is no corporate directive
that stations organize rallies.

"Any rallies that our stations have been a part of have been of their
own initiative and in response to the expressed desires of their
listeners and communities," Dollinger said.

Clear Channel is by far the largest owner of radio stations in the
nation. The company owned only 43 in 1995, but when Congress removed
many of the ownership limits in 1996, Clear Channel was quickly on
the highway to radio dominance. The company owns and operates 1,233
radio stations (including six in Chicago) and claims 100 million
listeners. Clear Channel generated about 20 percent of the radio
industry's $16 billion in 2001 revenues.

Size sparks criticism

The media giant's size also has generated criticism. Some recording
artists have charged that Clear Channel's dominance in radio and
concert promotions is hurting the recording industry. Congress is
investigating the effects of radio consolidation. And the FCC is
considering ownership rule changes, among them changes that could
allow Clear Channel to expand its reach.

Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) has introduced a bill that could halt
further deregulation in the radio industry and limit each company's
audience share and percent of advertising dollars. These measures
could limit Clear Channel's meteoric growth and hinder its future
profitability.

Jane Kirtley, a professor of media ethics and law at the University
of Minnesota, said the company's support of the Bush administration's
policy toward Iraq makes it "hard to escape the concern that this may
in part be motivated by issues that Clear Channel has before the FCC
and Congress."

Dollinger denied there is a connection between the rallies and the
company's pending regulatory matters.

Rick Morris, an associate professor of communications at Northwestern
University, said these actions by Clear Channel stations are a
logical extension of changes in the radio industry over the last 20
years, including the blurring of lines between journalism and
entertainment.

From a business perspective, Morris said, the rallies are a natural
fit for many stations, especially talk-radio stations where hosts
usually espouse politically conservative views.

"Nobody should be surprised by this," Morris said.

In 1987 the FCC repealed the Fairness Doctrine, which required
broadcasters to cover controversial issues in their community and to
do so by offering balancing views. With that obligation gone, Morris
said, "radio can behave more like newspapers, with opinion pages and
editorials."

"They've just begun stretching their legs, being more politically
active," Morris said.