Who writes the news?
May 23, 2007
I think its pretty much a foregone conclusion that the news media (at least in the US) has been completely bought out by large corporations. I mean, its nearly impossible to watch the news on tv or read about it on the internet without being exposed to a wide array of product placement. Whether cnn is telling you what products to buy in order to save gas, or promoting another show, its nearly impossible to escape the commercial bombardment. The decision to promote one product over another is obviously only a factor of dollars, rather than value.For a long time, bloggers have seemed to be outside of this cycle of selling... but I wonder if that's just something we tell ourselves. I was recently reading Dezeen (one of my favorite design and architecture blogs/online magazine) and saw yet another post on Zaha Hadid. In fact, the images above are all from separate posts on Zaha in the last month or so. I know that she is a prolific designer, but the posts are so frequent that you start to wonder if Dezeen has a special relationship with her public relations department.
Now, I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with it, if my assumption is true. I mean, I've certainly been influenced in my postings by the contents of my inbox... I'm sure that very few of us would be able to say that we're not. Although, I've never been paid for a post... would there be anything wrong if I had been? Are public relations departments the real newsmakers? And on that note... if you don't have a public relations department, does that make your actions any less significant or newsworthy?
I haven't really made up my mind on this subject, but I'd love to hear your opinions... Who do you think creates the news?
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