I don't know, Simon - I've heard some pretty convincing arguments that "the media" behaves in a fairly predictable and somewhat uniform way, attaining monolithic unity purely by accident rather than by design.s1m0n wrote:Something about "The media are wrong" as a thesis statement that makes me stop reading, despite my appreciation for Sheehan's understanding that "media" is plural.
"The media" isn't any single thing--wrong, right, biased, liberal, conservative, whatever. The media is all of these things, and more. Any argument which attributes monolithic unity to the media can only be false.
I also find it tough to ignore the concentration of ownership of all our sources of daily news in the hands of two major corporations. In fact, the two competing daily papers in Vancouver share the same office space and the same human resources personnel. They also print the same stories, sometimes verbatim. Maintaining the illusion that they are two seperate papers is a rather cynical marketing strategy.
I also find it tough to ignore the compelling evidence that the former owner of most of our daily news sources is a criminal and a fraud.
That said, I doubt that was her point. If you read the rest, you'll notice that's not her "thesis", it's more of a passing reference to her reason for writing everything that follows. She feels "the media" she's been in contact with haven't done justice to her message.