Monica Kempski AMST265 Response Paper 1 Final Draft

When one turns to a news channel on their television, they are immediately bombarded with

the most recent news stories. Newscasters inform the viewers about these stories, feeding information

that initiates people to form opinions. The media’s content is particularly dangerous if the accounts of

the media are not true, or the media is not telling the full story. This is considered misinformation, or

“spin” by the media (“Constructing Public Opinion”). Spin is used to cause the viewer to formulate

specific opinions that justify the media’s cause or outlook on a situation. In the documentaries, The

Revolution Will Not Be Televised and This Is What Democracy Looks Like, one can see both corporate

media and individual accounts of the fall and return of Hugo Chavez, as well as the protests against the

WTO meeting in 1999. After further research, it can be concluded that independent media is a more

accurate source of information because media owned by corporations are overly spun.

Who is the media? The shocking answer is that eight different corporations own fifty percent of

all media in the United States (Chomsky, 2002). For Example, General Electric owns NBC and Telemundo,

Disney with ABC, NewsCorp with Fox, and Viacom owning ten stations itself ("Freepress-Reform Media.

Transform Democracy"). Many news stations are owned by these companies, who can control the

media by influencing their output of news stories. Because the media is in control, they can decide

whether or not to publish a story, cover it accurately, or spin the information to make it in favor of their

own view (“Constructing Public Opinion”). Therefore, the mass media cannot be trusted. The media

covered in class are prime examples of this because a person can see that corporate news coverage and

independent news coverage differ substantially.

The documentary The Revolution Will Not Be Televised justifies that the media may broadcast

whatever it desires to achieve their goal. The fall and return of Hugo Chavez, the president of Venezuela,
was documented in this segment. Footage from private viewers as well as corporate mainstream media

had been shown. However, the accounts were covered inaccurately by the corporate media. The media

attempted to turn the people of Venezuela against Chavez and his supporters. For instance, when

protesters against Chavez voiced their opinions in the streets, snipers fired into the crowd. To generate

hate of the Chavez supporters, the media gained footage of men who were shooting at the snipers.

Then, the media clip was manipulated. It did not show the snipers, and made it look as though the

Chavez supporters were firing at the crowd. This footage was repetitively shown to drill into the people’s

heads that Chavez supporters were assassins of innocent protesters. In a second attempt to show

Chavez supporters in a bad light, the media used the same clip of people who the media said were

Chavez supporters firing a gun off of a bridge onto a street. The reality is that no one was on the street

at the time. In contrast, truthful footage shot by independent people display more of the truth and

reality to the situation.

The documentary also featured newly installed President Carmona’s media pulling a stunt on

CNN to imply that Venezuela was still under control of their government despite rumor. However,

Chavez was gaining power. A squabble over the constitution was at hand in Venezuela about whether or

not Carmona’s initiation as president was legitimate. In reality, Chavez’s government had regained the

palace. Still, Carmona’s government (who was in control of the media) refused to admit of the return of

Chavez, achieving their goal to make the public think they were still in power.

Moreover, the US media had changed which opinion they chose to promote at different time

periods of the concern to make them look good to the public. In a study published in Investigación y

Desarrollo, the authors discovered that articles by pro-Chavez supporters were granted more

opportunity to publish after the takeover, while the opposite was granted to anti-Chavez journalists.

Furthermore, before the takeover, the United States’ media had allowed more articles of anti-Chavez
authors than supporters. For instance, on April 13th 2002, post coup, page sixteen of the New York Times

stated, “With yesterday’s resignation of president Hugo Chavez, Venezuelan democracy is no longer

threatened by a would-be dictator. Mr. Chavez, a ruinous demagogue, stepped down after the military

intervened and handed power down to a respected business leader, Pedro Carmona.” Yet, in result of its

publication, international governments criticized the US for admiring the illegal expulsion of Chavez.

Then, to look good to the public eye, the media shifted to articles authored by people who supported

Chavez (Gill et al., 14).

Another documentary, This Is What Democracy Looks Like, also effectively verifies that one

should not trust the corporate media because it is overly spun. The content of the documentary focused

on the three days of the World Trade Organization protest in Seattle, Washington, and how it was

handled unjustly by the police who had the media in favor of them.

In November, 1999, the World Trade Organization (WTO) was scheduled to hold its last

meeting in Seattle. Because of its anti-democratic policies, protesters had blocked the street to the

convention center where the meeting was to take place. After 50,000 people had gathered, the Seattle

police claimed that the protesters had become unruly and used harmful and potentially fatal OC spray

and CS gas to rid of them. In the news coverage of the event, the media claimed that the rowdy actions

of the protesters made police take action of threatening the protesters, but no spray or gas was shown

being used. In the independent coverage featured in the documentary, a protester claims “you knew

what was being portrayed by the media is not what really happened on the street.” For instance, the

New York Times declared that the protesters had thrown Molotov cocktails at the police. Later following

the failure of the WTO meeting, the publisher posted a correction noting that nothing was thrown at the

police and that the protesters were peaceful (Christian, 2000). Sadly, this is more evidence that during

the protest, the media wanted to look good to the public by supporting the policemen and making the
protesters seem like a violent disruption. Then, after the protesters had won, the media’s stories

changed. In response, the New York Times wanted to regain the trust of the public, so they posted a

correction to their lie. The Seattle City Council also lawfully refutes the cocktail reports found in the

Report of the WTO Accountability Review Committee- Seattle City Council (Seattle City Council, 2000).

Further on in the documentary, we see a corporate news segment with the newscaster claiming that

“the protesters turn on one another.” In contrast, the independent media footage shows the protesters

joining hands in a most peaceful manner. This is another display of how the media misinformed the

public to justify their position on the issue. Finally, on the last day of the protest, a policeman was

featured on the news saying “we have done everything correctly.” This can hardly pertain to the usage

of harmful gas and spray on the protesters, as well as the arrest of 630 innocent people. Here again, the

police are using the media to try to justify themselves to the public. Finally, after such a monumental

event happened, not much of the event was covered by the national media (Shah, 2001). This was

probably due to the shame that the media had felt because they formed lies about the protesters and

police. If they were to expose nationally that a part of the nation’s media had lied to enforce their

opinions and look good, how could the national media look good themselves?

In conclusion, the corporate media is not to be trusted because the corporate owners

purposefully misinform the public to make themselves have a credible reputation, and to convey

messages to promote their interests. Manipulation of media in This Is What Democracy Looks Like and

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised all show evidence of conflicting portrayals of events between

corporate and individual media. Thus, the two documentaries had accomplished what they set out to

do; open people’s eyes to the lies of the dominant media.

APA Works Cited

Chomsky, N (2002). Media Control. Canada: Seven Stories Press.

Christian, N. M. (2000, June 04). Police Brace For Protest In Windsor and Detroit. The New York Times,

(1), pp. 16.

“Constructing Public Opinion: Politicians and Mass Media Misrepresent the Public.” Online video. Google

Video. 07 October 2009. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-

3332036626702728686&hl=en#.

Gill, J, Arroyave, J, & Soruco, G (2006). COVERING CHAVEZ IN U. S. MEDIA: HOW ELITE NEWSPAPER

REPORTS A CONTROVERSIAL INTERNATIONAL FIGURE.. Investigación y Desarrollo, 14(2).

"Ownership Chart." Freepress-Reform Media. Transform Democracy.. Freepress.net, Web. 7 Oct 2009.

<http://www.freepress.net/ownership/chart/main>.

Seattle City Council (2000, September 14). Report of the WTO Accountability Review Commitee Seatle

City Council. Retrieved from http://www.cityofseattle.net/wtocommittee/arcfinal.pdf:

Shah, A (2001, February 18). WTO Protests in Seattle, 1999. Retrieved from

http://www.globalissues.org/article/46/wto-protests-in-seattle-1999#MediaPortrayal