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out of touch, out of focus
Feb. 8th, 2005 10:30 pmI think this might have happened about a week ago, very early Wednesday morning. It might have been very early Thursday morning. Or it might never have happened at all. It was early enough in the morning that I was very uncertain about the boundary between one day and another, as well as the boundary between dreaming and listening. Of course, the boundary between satire and direct observation of US politics has been hopelessly unclear for years, regardless of time of day.
My clock radio is tuned to the local NPR station. I'm accustomed to listening to the morning news program as I wake up, wash and dress. (Or struggle partly awake.) It's my only regular exposure to the "mainstream" media, now that I don't live in a house with a tv. Now that it's so hard for me to read a newspaper without flinching at the bias, as well as at the bad news. Between NPR, conversation with friends, and whatever tidbits of news outrage my corner of the blogosphere, I pick up enough news for situational awareness and a little activism, but not so much I can't sleep. Anyhow, I'm very accustomed to hearing, "WBUR is supported by the Thus-and-so Company, which does This-and-that good works, and sells Fine Antique Doohickeys in downtown Auburndale," or things of that nature. This "underwriting" is different from buying advertising, in ways that are clear to those learned in the art. An underwriting company is generally just identified so people will know and appreciate its good works in helping the community, the focus is not on the products the company sells.
That morning last week, I woke up to, "WBUR is supported by Wal-Mart," a statement I found so shocking I didn't remember the details of the next phrase. It was something about how good Wal-Mart is to its many employees. Then there was an identity tag about Wal-Mart having superstores with everyday low prices, and the announcer went on to talk about something else. It was really frighteningly good PR for Wal-Mart, partly because of the reputation public radio has as being part of the liberal media, and partly because underwriting public broadcasting is regarded as warm+fuzzy community building. It's also an effective way to advertise to a particular demographic (before they're fully awake, in some cases, which makes them more suggestible). As I said above, I'm not certain I actually heard this on the radio. I might have dreamed it. I found it shocking and offensive, but not implausible, that WBUR would have Wal-Mart as one of their underwriters, with a tag-line about supporting their many employees. There's a limit to how much you can use an information channel for advertising and propaganda, before it becomes useless for anything else.
I haven't had much time for LJ recently. This post has been percolating in my mind for most of a week. At the end of last week, I went looking online for a list of WBUR underwriters, and couldn't find them. So I couldn't confirm whether or not Wal-Mart is one of them. I thought I could at least confirm the story that Wal-Mart is horrible to their employees. Surely everyone knows that! I've been seeing it for so long, how could anyone not know it? (I say "it" like it's one story. There have been lots of stories about Wal-Mart being horrible to their employees in different ways. Discrimination, low pay, union-busting, dangerous work conditions, fraud, exploitation.) In fact, an awful lot of anyones don't know these stories. People who don't read fringe publications, or don't take them seriously, could miss this the same way they missed the Maher Arar story. Mainstream quiet moderate publications, like Gannett, seem to ignore them, and conservative organizations like Fox or WSJ actively debunk them. C'mon, when some little weekly that does one big investigative story at a time to go with its 30 pages of reporting on the local alternative music scene, most people are going to have a hard time believing they'll scoop the New York Times. Unless the New York Times has gotten in the habit of making fairly serious mistakes. So it's really remarkable to wake up to hear WBUR on the opposite side from my expectations, despite the weakness of WBUR's liberalism in recent years.
My clock radio is tuned to the local NPR station. I'm accustomed to listening to the morning news program as I wake up, wash and dress. (Or struggle partly awake.) It's my only regular exposure to the "mainstream" media, now that I don't live in a house with a tv. Now that it's so hard for me to read a newspaper without flinching at the bias, as well as at the bad news. Between NPR, conversation with friends, and whatever tidbits of news outrage my corner of the blogosphere, I pick up enough news for situational awareness and a little activism, but not so much I can't sleep. Anyhow, I'm very accustomed to hearing, "WBUR is supported by the Thus-and-so Company, which does This-and-that good works, and sells Fine Antique Doohickeys in downtown Auburndale," or things of that nature. This "underwriting" is different from buying advertising, in ways that are clear to those learned in the art. An underwriting company is generally just identified so people will know and appreciate its good works in helping the community, the focus is not on the products the company sells.
That morning last week, I woke up to, "WBUR is supported by Wal-Mart," a statement I found so shocking I didn't remember the details of the next phrase. It was something about how good Wal-Mart is to its many employees. Then there was an identity tag about Wal-Mart having superstores with everyday low prices, and the announcer went on to talk about something else. It was really frighteningly good PR for Wal-Mart, partly because of the reputation public radio has as being part of the liberal media, and partly because underwriting public broadcasting is regarded as warm+fuzzy community building. It's also an effective way to advertise to a particular demographic (before they're fully awake, in some cases, which makes them more suggestible). As I said above, I'm not certain I actually heard this on the radio. I might have dreamed it. I found it shocking and offensive, but not implausible, that WBUR would have Wal-Mart as one of their underwriters, with a tag-line about supporting their many employees. There's a limit to how much you can use an information channel for advertising and propaganda, before it becomes useless for anything else.
I haven't had much time for LJ recently. This post has been percolating in my mind for most of a week. At the end of last week, I went looking online for a list of WBUR underwriters, and couldn't find them. So I couldn't confirm whether or not Wal-Mart is one of them. I thought I could at least confirm the story that Wal-Mart is horrible to their employees. Surely everyone knows that! I've been seeing it for so long, how could anyone not know it? (I say "it" like it's one story. There have been lots of stories about Wal-Mart being horrible to their employees in different ways. Discrimination, low pay, union-busting, dangerous work conditions, fraud, exploitation.) In fact, an awful lot of anyones don't know these stories. People who don't read fringe publications, or don't take them seriously, could miss this the same way they missed the Maher Arar story. Mainstream quiet moderate publications, like Gannett, seem to ignore them, and conservative organizations like Fox or WSJ actively debunk them. C'mon, when some little weekly that does one big investigative story at a time to go with its 30 pages of reporting on the local alternative music scene, most people are going to have a hard time believing they'll scoop the New York Times. Unless the New York Times has gotten in the habit of making fairly serious mistakes. So it's really remarkable to wake up to hear WBUR on the opposite side from my expectations, despite the weakness of WBUR's liberalism in recent years.
