Thursday, November 10, 2011

The Greek Debt Crisis

How Mass Media Sees Greece


Currently, Greece is in debt due to max tax evasion which limited the revenue for the Grecian government. As Greece’s government ran out of money, it decided to borrow billions, causing it go into further debt. Once the situation became worse, Prime Minister Papandreou called for a referendum in order to resolve whether the country should take the deal offered by the European Union. Given this deal, Greece struggles to decide if wants to enter the agreement (along with the repercussions) or face certain consequences.

“The Greek Crisis” via the National Public Radio


National Public Radio (NPR), a United States radio network, recently covered this emerging story on the Grecian crisis. It is interesting to note that since the stories are relayed through an audio format, voice intonations and fluctuations play a large role in the presentation of the information. The reporters emphasize words like, “shocking,” “dwindled,” “snap,” and “enormous,” to make their point. As a result, the listeners are subject to the reporters’ innate opinions leaking out through their voices, an issue which is irrelevant when stories are read. It can also be observed that heavily opinionated statements are presented as facts such as: “[Papandreou] has lost an enormous amount of credibility” or, “[Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi] is the wealthiest and most powerful man in Italy and he has a strong patronage power and he's likely to spend the next few days wooing errant deputies back to his party.” This again adds to the point: the reporters are essentially imposing their own opinions onto the public.
Moreover, as was described in the novel by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky, the propaganda model proposed in its third step that: the media relied on the information provided by government, business, and experts. “Newsworkers are predisposed to treat bureaucratic accounts as factual because news personnel participate in upholding a normative order of authorized knowers in the society. Reporters operate with the attitude that officials ought to know what it is their job to know.... In particular, a newsworker will recognize an official's claim to knowledge not merely as a claim, but as a credible, competent piece of knowledge.” To put this in a concise manner, officials provide the facts, and reports relay them. This is directly supported by an second article on NPR, again focusing on the Greek bailout/referendum, represented through a literary format, not audio. However in this case, the article is composed of material from various outside media sources: The Guardian, AP, Reuters, The Dow Jones Newswire. NPR likely had to buy the rights to these stories. Directly quoting each of these media outlets, NPR composes its own report on the situation in Greece.

The BBC on “Trouble in the Eurozone”


We turn next to a news source straight from Europe: the BBC News. The British Broadcasting company, though well-known for its news reporting, is in the minority when it comes to news media sources in England. Unlike American, the British still rely heavily on newspaper for their daily headline. The three biggest papers in the United States-The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and USA Today- together have 2 million readers, while Britain’s The Sun alone holds 3 million. Though the BBC News can hardly be called a cash cow like its printed counterpart, the station holds greater accuracy…or at least less hype. So how did their coverage of the Greek Crisis unfold? First and foremost, the reports are very cut and dry. In a certain news segment entitled “Eurozone in Trouble”, the BBC attempts to cohesively explain the Greek Crisis from its origins in the late 1990s to current. The piece, along with a corresponding timeline, also has a glossary of economic terms so even lay people could comprehend the complex terminology. In another article entitled “Government Talks to Go on Fourth Day,” the BBC again recaps the Greek happenings as well as the political nature of the problem. However, when describing both the ongoing meetings between various global leaders and the current Greek president, Lucas Papademos, they describe both the actions and reactions of the leaders in great details. The BBC’s correspondent is asked for his opinion on the effects of such dealings on the British population (which he states in a very indifferent fashion) but never is this opinion reiterated by the newscast as truth. This opinion, again, is not set against opinions of other reporters or ‘analysts.’ Instead, the BBC looks to have a controlled bipartisan reporting style.
In large part, the BBC’s want for such a blasé style of news can be accredited to its main sponsor: the British government. The BBC directly reflects the British government. It has a certain level of integrity to uphold. Still, it doesn’t surprise me that their prospect for the British population in the fallout of the Greek crisis is very optimistic. In the “Eurozone in Trouble” article sited before, the BBC postulates that Britain’s fiscal stability will hardly be affected at all. The reporter does mention a tangential issue that may arise (that Ireland, one of Britain’s main debtors will run into issues) but a total of one sentence in a report spanning pages is devoted to this problem. It seems as if the BBC (or the British government), in an efforts to calm public distress over the Greek Crisis, may be willing to compromise the integrity of their news in the face of a ‘national fear’ developing. So the Greek Crisis becomes a crisis for the rest of the world.
The BBC, like many news sources, is swayed by a higher power. In the BBC’s case, the power belongs to the government. This does not detract from the validity of Chomsky’s opinion that the media is highly controlled and tailored; though the BBC may not rely heavily on advertisements for revenue, they are still pushed to please the audience they cater to, to calm the masses of British that worry over the economy in the midst of a Eurozone Crisis. True, the BBC does try to maintain a high level of factual basis in their reports. However, it is difficult to ignore their financial and political motives.

The Greek Economy through the Associated Press


Through following The Associated Press’ reporting on the Greek economic crisis, I found out that they gathered information for their articles by having actual reporters in Athens, so that they would receive their stories first hand, rather than through other media outlets. The reporting done by The Associated Press seems to be rather impartial and unbiased which agrees with their mission, which is to “be the essential global news network, providing distinctive news services of the highest quality, reliability, and objectivity with reports that are accurate, balanced and informed.” I appreciate how the writers on the staff of the AP try to remain objective in their reporting, because it let’s the readers make up their own opinions on the matters being discussed, however I think there is something to be said about the different media outlets that are more opinion based, because it shows how free they are of the pressure and censorship that can sometimes be placed on larger news sources by the companies that own and fund them as Herman and Chomsky discuss in Manufacturing consent: a propaganda model. The articles that I read were very facts based directly presenting things that were said or done. According to The Associated Press’ website it “considers itself to be the backbone of the world’s information system, serving thousands of daily newspaper, radio, television, and online customers with coverage in text, photos, graphics, audio and video.” This shows how The AP is a major news media outlet that many other news sources use in order to write their own stories. The Associated Press is one of the most trusted sources for news, which is why other news sources can utilize the information that they provide.

Chomsky and Media Sources


As Edward Herman mentioned in his reflection on the propaganda model, “Government and large non-media business firms are best positioned (and sufficiently wealthy) to be able to pressure the media with threats of withdrawal of advertising or TV licenses, libel suits, and other direct and indirect modes of attack.” This is why sites such as Twitter and Blogger have become so popular. They are not required to abide by a certain ‘code of conduct’ where the editors and posters have to be approved by a higher authority, which is usually governed by high stake pressures such as TV licenses and libel suits. But the problem that arises here is that these public sites are not deemed as ‘credible sources’ because they aren’t edited and approved by a higher power.
Few news media sources are thought of to be impartial in their presenting of information, however The Associated Press has made it part of their mission to remain objective in their writing, leaving them to be one of the few sources that present news in a mostly unbiased perspective.
As described by Herman, the propaganda model suggests that the mainstream media, “commonly frame news and allow debate only within the parameters of elite interests.” Yet this provides an interesting point in relation to the news source National Public Radio. NPR news is commonly criticized to be geared towards one political party over another. Research presented by the Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism, a non-partisan organization that uses data to evaluate media performance, found that more Democrats than Republicans find NPR's stories believable. However, an article on NPR itself declares that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the quasi-governmental agency that provides $430 million to public broadcasting, may cut NPR’s funding if it continues to be biased more towards a certain political party. This may greatly influence future news stories presented by NPR.
When looking at the BBC in comparison to National Public Radio, it represents a minor source of news within the UK, where television news is less used than newspapers. The BBC, unlike both the Associated Press and NPR, receives many grants and funds directly from the government. Though it may seem like the BBC acts in part as an extension of the British government to coax any anxiety surrounding the Greek Crisis, it acts in a very similar fashion the AP and NPR. All three sources look to their sponsors for guidance. In NPR’s case, sponsorship in large part comes directly from listeners. The Associated Press sells their reports to other stations that are not willing to invest in correspondence; for them, the stories must be catchy, must hook the attention of a society looking for a good story.
The AP and NPR find little reason to advertise on their website. They maintain their funding through self sponsored advertisements where they ask followers to buy their merchandise. For example, NPR has a section titled “SHOP” on their front page which includes items they’re selling (anything from coffee mugs to radios); while the Associated Press sells their stories, videos, photos, books, audio clips and many other items in their “shop” section of the site. One item to note here is that there are no advertisements on either of these websites. In contrast, BBC has advertisements on their front page for outside companies (Viagra, American express, L.L.Bean, etc). They even include a link to “advertise with us”, hoping that companies will pay BBC to advertise their goods. In relation to the second point mentioned in the proposal, “advertising as the primary income source of the mass media,” AP and NPR defy this commonality.

Important Links

Audio Link:
http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=142031027&m=142032041
Transcript NPR:
http://www.npr.org/2011/11/04/142031027/political-turmoil-in-greece-reaches-a-climax
NPR story #2:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/11/02/141943971/reports-aid-to-greece-wont-be-paid-without-reassurances
Associated Press- Mission
http://www.ap.org/pages/about/about.html



Project Courtesy of: Natasha Kapur, Jules Ellis, and Henisha Dhandhusaria

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