Why the Big Media Continue to lose their Audience(Nick Berg Story)

Instapundit ^ | 05/13/04 | Glenn Reynolds

[Pikamax]

May 13, 2004

WHY THE BIG MEDIA CONTINUE TO LOSE THEIR AUDIENCE: Neal Boortz observes:

This morning in most of the newspapers I scanned during my preparation for the show the top story was still the Iraqi prison abuse scandal. Nick Berg had already disappeared from many front pages, but the prison abuse stories remain. May I suggest to you that there is a reason for this? Maybe it's just this simple: The prison abuse scandal can damage Bush, the Nick Berg story can only help him. Given the choice many editors will chose the stories that serve their cause, getting Bush out of the White House, rather than one that hurts it.

Such cynicism about the media, these days. But he's right. The Berg video wasn't shown on TV, and -- as Boortz notes -- the big media leaders seem almost desperate to keep the story on Abu Ghraib, even to the point of running already discredited fake porn photos purporting to be from Iraq. (And issuing lame and incomplete pseudo-apologies when caught out.)

But on the Internet, where users set the agenda, not Big Media editors and producers, it's different. As Jeff Quinton notes, Nick Berg is the story that people care about:

Right now the 10 phrases most searched for are:
nick berg video
nick berg
berg beheading
beheading video
nick berg beheading video
nick berg beheading
berg video
berg beheading video
"nick berg"
video nick berg

Likewise, Rod Dreher of the Dallas Morning News reports that that's what his readers care about:

Our letters page today is filled with nothing but Berg-related letters, most of them demanding that the DMN show more photos of the Berg execution. Not one of the 87 letters we received on the topic yesterday called for these images not to be printed. My sense is that there's a big backlash building against the media for flogging the Abu Ghraib photos, but being so delicate with the Berg images. People sense that there's an agenda afoot here. As somebody, can't remember who, wrote yesterday, "Why is it that the media can show over and over again pictures that could make Arabs hate Americans, but refuse to show pictures that could make Americans hate Arabs?"

These guys are marginalizing themselves with their agenda-driven coverage. And they're so out of touch they don't realize it. As Andrew Sullivan notes:

My gut tells me that the Nick Berg video has had much more psychic impact in this country than the Abu Ghraib horrors. I even notice some small evidence for this. Every political blog site has just seen an exponential jump in traffic - far more than anything that occurred during the Abu Ghraib unfolding. My traffic went through the roof yesterday, and, according to Alexa, so did everyone else's. People who have tuned the war out suddenly tuned the war in. They get it. Will the mainstream media?

My prediction: Nope, and they'll continue to lose audience to the Internet.

UPDATE: It's not just Jeff Quinton. Here's what Lycos reports as its top requests:

Nick Berg is the new number one search term on the Lycos Search engine over the past 24 hours. The top 10 search requests Web users are specifically searching for regarding Nick Berg are:

1. Nick Berg video
2. Nick Berg Beheading
3. Nick Berg and Iraq
4. Nick Berg Execution
5. Nick Berg Beheading Video
6. Nick Berg Killing
7. Nick Berg murder
8. Nick Berg assassination
9. Nick Berg decapitation video
10. Execution of Nick Berg.

The video showing the beheading of U.S. captive Nick Berg, combined with the multitude of search activity for the War in Iraq and searches for the Iraqi prisoners of war, is generating 12 times more searches than the #2 search term, Paris Hilton.

I don't think Google releases this sort of information. Am I wrong?

ANOTHER UPDATE: Steve Verdon has more, and Ann Haight notes that she spotted the fake porn photos as fakes on May 2d.

Meanwhile, Rod Dreher emails to make clear that the Dallas Morning News did run the Berg picture. (I knew that, and I didn't mean the DMN when I said "these guys," though I can see how that could have been confusing. Sorry!) And he adds:

I pointed out to Keven Ann Willey, the DMN's editorial page
editor, that I initially got the idea for this editorial from doing my usual
bedtime run through the blogosphere, and seeing what a huge issue this Berg
video vs. Abu Ghraib photos was becoming. We've been talking for some time
about how editorial pages have got to make much more use of the blogosphere.
Kev gets it, she really gets it, and readers of our editorial pages will
continue to see big strides in making ourselves more exciting and relevant
to our readership. I'm the editor of Points, a new Sunday opinion and
commentary section that we'll be launching in July. I'm going to run an
old-media section that will be well-informed by the edgy debates and the
lively style of the blogosphere. I firmly believe that editorial pages have
got to understand that by far the most interesting debates and commentary
are occurring not on the nation's editorial pages, which are filled with
material written by middle-aged, middle-class professionals who live in
Washington, New York, Chicago and L.A., but on blogs, with their spectacular
diversity and intelligence. We've got to figure out a way to tap into that
in a serious and sustained way.

So some Big Media folks get it. And, finally, Google does track search requests, but only once a week and the last one, on May 10, missed the Berg story.

Nick Berg's topping the Yahoo! search charts, too.

posted at 01:34 PM by Glenn Reynolds

[dennisw]

How has Fox News coverage been? I know they didn't report much when the Swift Boat Vets group slammed Kerry

[txradioguy]

Too bad the alleg3ed "big three" don't get it. I have MSNBC as my start page on my computer. They've marginalized the Berg story to a small box in the top right corner since it broke and the "alleged" Abu Ghraib abuse story has remained very large and right in the middle of the page.


Can't let the viewers forget what's REALLY important...right?

[txradioguy]

FNC seems to be running about 45% Berg 55% Abu Ghraib in their coverage of the "top stories" in the news.

[Blood of Tyrants]

The left just doesn't get it. They screamed and howled and claimed that all the right cared about was sexsexsexsexsex when the 'toon was impeached. Yet they cannot understand when they post pictures of sex scandals in the military, people are more interested in the brutal beheading of a poor, misguided American whose only crime was being naive enough to think that his good will would keep him alive.

[rllngrk33]

I have MSNBC as my start page on my computer.

Maybe you should think about swithcing to a page that is more "balanced".

[txradioguy]

If FNC's website had a way to add content from the local area the way MSNBC does I would in a heartbeat. In the interim I've switched back to my Yahoo start page.

[dennisw]

Thx much for the info!

[sergeantdave]

The big media dinosaur is dying, falling readership for newspaper, falling viewership on the networks.

The big media is stuck in the 1960s, reliving Vietnam and civil rights marches. As it becomes more irrelevant it will become more brazen in its left wing cheerleading, until it looks ridiculous. It senses its impending death but can't do a thing about it. It will rationalize that it's better to die than give up its left wing utopian dream - the state is god; all people must be guided by the left elite; and we know what's best for you.

We're witnessing the death of a psychopathic left wing institution.

[Mark in the Old South]

"The big media dinosaur is dying, falling readership for newspaper, falling viewership on the networks."

I suspect you are right. I watched the TV mostly for the news, when the hurricane last year blew it out I didn't even bother to get it fixed. I haven't missed it one bit. I don't buy the local newspaper the Richmond Times Dispatch. It has a conservative reputation but still too liberal for me.

God bless the Washington Times and the Internet.

[Thom Pain]

They have made themselves irrelevant.

[txradioguy]

"We're witnessing the death of a psychopathic left wing institution."

And the death is being caused by the very people who created it. Think about it, most of the prominent libs are baby boomers who were part of the "Peace & Love" generation of the mid to late 60's. The foundation of modern liberalism. Well it would appear that the ting that they created will now destroy them...kinda like Frankenstien's monster!

[oceanview]

FNC is not showing the video - they are only slightly better then the rest, they are becoming more "mainstream" day by day. I watch them less and less.

[oceanview]

don't over-estimate this, the big media still reaches a tremendous amount of people.

[BushisTheMan]

Here's my barometer: my daughter

Yesterday she said she was sick of the abuse photos and spent all day yesterday crying for Berg.

She told me about the Saturday Night skit about England and said it was really funny. I explained that was how Hollywood and TV diminish respect for the military -- by making them all out to be white trailer trash like England. I told her not to be fooled by the "intent" of shows like Saturday Night Live.

She is voting for the first time this year. Straight Republican ticket except for Ron Paul.

[txradioguy]

My sympathies for having RINO Ron Paul "represent" your area of our great state.

[Badeye]

Fox has gone back forth,hour to hour on which story "leads" between the Prison abuse and Berg.

What I found interesting was last nights "Special Report".

Mor Kondracke was mad as hell about the media "already forgetting the Nick Berg story...."

Kondracke is a self admitted liberal...but he knows this is in fact a war of annihilation. Pity the rest of the Democratic Party doesn't understand these fanatics won't rest til they acheive world domination. They don't care what political party you belong too. They only care about killing "infidels" be they John Kerry, George Bush, or me and you.

Reminds me of some politicians in this country in 1939 and 1940, to be honest.

[lilylangtree]

In my local paper, not one story nor one picture of Berg's horrific assassination. However, on the front page is an article about Abu Ghraib with a continued upper half page. Story entitled "Latest Iraqi-abuse photos stun lawmakers." Makes me ever more angry and offended than I was yesterday at the media's duplicity.

[txradioguy]

I'm beginning to think that Mort and Zell Miller are about the only RATS who truly understnad what's at stake over there and how it directly affects this country.

[Dog]

There is a big backlash coming the medias way .....you can see it brewing.

[Republicus2001]

Your speaking of the Big Media Industry of course. I also include the NY and LA Times along with CBS, ABC, CNN and CNN.

I see that the NY Times has been busted for running fake "porn" abuse photos of the prisons in the Boston Globe. Apparently they lifted them from an acual $ porn website. Where's the apology?

[unlucky320]

This morning in most of the newspapers I scanned during my preparation for the show the top story was still the Iraqi prison abuse scandal. Nick Berg had already disappeared from many front pages, but the prison abuse stories remain.

The reason that the Iraqi prison abuse scandal is still so visible is that it paints Americans as the "Bad Ones". I'm not condoning what those guards did to the prisoners. Yet at the end of everything, guess what they get to go home to their families, Nick Berg won't, well he may, but only in a coffin. The Nick Berg beheading, to me, was anti-American, and the newspapers and stations here don't seem to want to offend anyone, by showing what we (America) is really up against over there in Iraq. They seem to want everything to be more of what bad we, (America) did, and not what bad they, (Iraq) did.

[ishabibble]

Don't stand on one foot waiting for an apology from any of them! The Globe tucked the porn pictures in the second section, as there just wasn't enough room what with every Leftie Loonie's personal outrage taking up the front.
ProJo had the Nick Berg story on Page A-12. The lead Front Page was...Yep. You guessed it!

[Republican Red]

Thanks for posting. I knew we couldn't be the only people that cared about this story. I feel it in my gut that most are outraged. Ever since I read about NBC's Today show coverage this morning, I've been taking my anger out on NBC all day. I've searched out numbers I've been calling throughout the day. The Washington News Desk employee that answered earlier was taken aback that I was so upset. She really didn't get it. It's not on THEIR AGENDA so we can't be interested.

I also think that the young people 18-25 are searching out this video in droves. Maybe their motives are not in the right place. They probably were simply interested in the goriness. However, after seeing it I think it will greatly affect them.

[rllngrk33]

In the interim I've switched back to my Yahoo start page.

I've had Yahoo as my start page for a while. Even though I can customize it, their news comes straight from reuters and AP. Not what you can call fair and balanced. I turn to Free Republic for the news. I can read about stuff that'll show up in the "news media" 3-7 days later.

[TheLion]

Checked NPR Wednesday to see what they were up to.....they were falling all over themselves about the abuse story....how awful, etc. Everytime I turned it on they were discussing this!

[freeangel]

I agree. The AJC was also up to its usual too. Not a mention of Nick on the front page or the lack of condemnation by the arab world--just more of the usual tripe about the poor abused terrorists.

[FITZ]

The letters to the editor in the paper here show outrage over what happened to Berg --- not much outrage for the panties over the heads of a couple Iraqis. More proof that people aren't bothering to get their news from the traditional media because the traditional media is trying very very hard to downplay the murder of Berg. Their agenda has become far too obvious for any serious news-reader to make them their main source for news.

[goodnesswins]

"I also think that the young people 18-25 are searching out this video in droves. Maybe their motives are not in the right place. They probably were simply interested in the goriness. However, after seeing it I think it will greatly affect them."

Our generation had its Vietnam & Moon Landing....this generation has its 9/11 and beheading.....I believe for them, and for us, this MAY turn the tide in these United States toward sanity.

[goodnesswins]

What show?

[AlexW]

"Checked NPR Wednesday to see what they were up to"

I could not care less what they are up to. In the 70s and 80s I
donated every year to my local station, but cut the string in 1992 and have not tuned in since... Who is it? Danial Shore? If I had a dime for every time he used the word "contra", I would be a millionaire.
I tuned out and never went back to the elitist snobby jerks.

[Badeye]

Mort has stated three times since last week this is a war about "World Domination" by the terrorists.

I suspect he will be voting for Bush, although he would never admit that on the air, or for attribution.