I’ve been told Capitalism’s basic tenet is “Find A Need An Fill It” if you are a Media outlet this means find disenfranchised readers and engage them. You can’t sell stuff to customers you don’t have. If you are trying to engage “Black Readers” you do an expose on “Black in America” or some such, or “Latino” or any other group or subgroup you’d care to name. You also have to tailor the product to your customers. “The Customer is always Right” so you tell them what they want to hear. You don’t tell a Skinhead guy that “The “Black President Guy” went to Harvard and is a much more capable person than he could ever hope to be”…well not, if you want to Sell him anything! Even Nutcases are customers. Readers want to feel included and listened to, every media outlet knows this hence the “Comments” section after every “News” story. In this economy with everyone scrambling to keep their businesses afloat it seems that balanced reporting has given way to keep them entertained at all costs. If your readers are “White Rural Twenty Somethings” then is it racism to write about things that interest them? A three page article on sickle-cell anemia would
be a waste of space that could be better used to sell Gun and ATV advertising, likewise would “Black Urban Twenty Somethings” care about “How To Hunt Elk in Montana”? I think not. The need to “Keep our Phoney Baloney Jobs” seems to be a larger driving force in Media Bias than Ideology or racism. News is a business and it tailors it’s “Products” to it’s customers needs if they didn’t they wouldn’t be in business long. These days there is a media outlet for every Ideology and political view just Google it and within seconds you can find someone to tell you that you are included and listened to no matter how extreme your views maybe. I just wonder if the ” I’ll only tell you, what you want to hear. ” type of Business model is “aiding and abetting” the divisions in our country. I also wonder about the unintended consequences of this sort of “BUILT-IN” Media Bias?

Quorumforum * “Some Assembly Required”