PBS Pres Assails 'Media Industrial Complex"

Of course she's part of it. The Cornell Daily Sun reports:

    Yesterday evening, Pat Mitchell, president and chief executive officer of PBS gave a lecture entitled "Media Consolidation, Convergence, Connection: The Good, the Bad and the Downright Dangerous" at Ithaca College (IC).

    ....Mitchell spoke for an hour and a half to a packed hall of journalism undergraduates about the recent trend of media consolidation.

    "The power center of America has shifted from the military complex to the media-entertainment centered empire," she said.

    Mitchell suggested the marginalization of "hard" news was prompted by the past decade's three biggest news stories, the deaths of Princess Diana and John F. Kennedy Jr. and the O.J. Simpson trial.

    Her speech focused on the negatives aspects of this shift and the domination of the media by a handful of multi-national conglomerates, such as Disney, Bertelsmann, Newscorp, GE and AOL Time Warner.

    "These corporations are the gatekeeper's for us and the rest of the world, determining what we and they see," Mitchell said.

    She did not only blame the media conglomerates though.

    She also commented on this summer's success of American Idol, pointing out the fact that more people voted online for their favorite pop idol than those who voted in last week's national elections.

Well, it's easier to vote for American Idol than to try to sort out civic elections - right?

Article tags

Spread the word
Bookmark and Share
Profile image for eric-olsen

Article Author: Eric Olsen

Career media professional Eric Olsen is honored to be the founder and publisher of Blogcritics.org, which, quite frankly, rules - as do his wife and four children.

Visit Eric Olsen's author pageEric Olsen's Blog

Read comments on this article, and add some feedback of your own

Article comments

Add your comment, speak your mind

Personal attacks are NOT allowed.
Please read our comment policy.
Please preview your comment.

blogcritics lists for Nov 25, 2009

fresh articles Most recent articles site-wide

fresh comments Most recent comments site-wide

most comments Most comments in 24hrs

top writers Most prolific Blogcritics for October

top commenters Most prolific Commenters in 24 hrs