Chesapeake: Media manipulator
Texas publications are aggressively covering Chesapeake Energy's development of the Barnett shale, partly because drilling in incorporated cities is a little harder to ignore than drilling in the hinterlands.
Chesapeake, as you may know, is headed by Aubrey McClendon, one of the major Swift Boat financiers, and you can get an idea of his cynical view of media manipulation in this article. They haven't moved beyond the blanket infomercial stage here yet, but Texas has seen more media massaging.
In the wake of Chesapeake's infomercial comes Shale TV, a daily talk show about the Barnett Shale set to air this fall. The company has hired three award-winning Dallas broadcast journalists to produce the show.
Julie Wilson, Chesapeake vice president for corporate development, says she understands there's skepticism about the objectivity of Shale TV, but she insists it's no different than the rest of corporate media.
"Well, I think we pay those journalists — whether on Channel 8 or Channel 11 or the Star-Telegram — in terms of advertising support," Wilson says. "We see this as pretty much instead of running the ads on the program, we're just writing the check direct."
Comments
That's why it's called the "Media Whores."
Posted by: Cato![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.arktimes.com/blogs/arkansasblog/nav-commenters.gif)
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August 6, 2008 11:21 AM
If you ever needed a reason to quit paying for PROGRAMMING this is it. Read: Kill your television. Or at the very least PROGRAM it yourself. If you really want quality hypnotism, click on the link.
Posted by: Roderick A. Bryan![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.arktimes.com/blogs/arkansasblog/nav-commenters.gif)
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August 6, 2008 11:53 AM
Facists have always understood propaganda.
The "media" will get worse before it gets better. Ditto Democracy.
Posted by: Fletch![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.arktimes.com/blogs/arkansasblog/nav-commenters.gif)
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August 6, 2008 12:27 PM
Absolute fascism indeed.. and where oh where is the liberal media? It doesn't exist... links at my name.
August 4 was the twenty-first anniversary of the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine -- the rule that gave us the concept of "equal opportunity" in the media. Its repeal had been engineered by various groups, including wealthy conservative media tycoons looking to take certain conservative AM radio talkers, such as Rush Limbaugh, to a national audience, using their money and influence to drown out non-conservative voices. Big Media hated the Fairness Doctrine and are grateful to the GOP for ending it, but they also like the nice corporate tax breaks and the gutting of FCC regulatory authority that Bush and the Republican Congresses gave them. As Joe Conason pointed out way back in 2002, the US media chiefs, especially of the electronic media, are Republican as all get out:
Editor & Publisher polled the nation's newspaper executives just before the 2000 election, and found an overwhelming preference for George W. Bush.
We also know that Jack Welch, former chief of NBC (and GE) is an ardent Republican. So was Larry Tisch when he owned CBS. So are Richard Parsons and Steve Case of CNN (and Time Warner AOL). Michael Eisner (Disney ABC) gave to Bill Bradley and Al Gore, but he gave more to Bush and McCain -- and he supported Rick Lazio for the Senate against Hillary Clinton. Rupert Murdoch and John Malone are big Republican supporters of the Cato Institute. So why isn't anybody complaining about the "conservative bias" of media executives?
Posted by: Eureka Springs, AR![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.arktimes.com/blogs/arkansasblog/nav-commenters.gif)
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August 6, 2008 02:09 PM