On The Media

"Reporters and editors like to think of themselves as watchdogs for the public good. But in recent years both individual reporters and their ever-growing corporate ownership have defaulted on that role. Ted Stannard, an academic and former UPI correspondent, put it this way: 'When watchdogs, bird dogs, and bull dogs morph into lap dogs, lazy dogs, or yellow dogs, the nation is in trouble.'" --Helen Thomas, dean of the White House press corps, 2000

"Most of what we know, or think we know, we have never personally experienced. We live in a world erected by stories. . . . Our stories used to be hand-crafted, homemade, community-inspired. Now they are mostly mass produced and policy-driven, the result of a complex manufacturing and marketing process we know as the mass media." --George Gerbner, media scholar, 1999