Notes on the Media - by Michael Rectenwald, CLG

(These notes updated on a regular basis.)

The idea of an "unbiased" news source or story is a myth perpetrated by journalism schools who subscribe to a kind of naive realism long ago discarded even in the philosophy of science and the sciences themselves. What we have is advocacy left and right, and now Fox has become the most blatant propaganda tool imaginable. I suggest that NO ONE EVER tell a phone survey-ist that they have EVER watched Fox. What we're lacking of course is left advocacy, due to the corporate domination of public airways. The best possible way for audiences themselves to counter this is to continue to do the KINDS of things we're doing in the Spin Room--let them know that while corporates have agendas they want pushed, the audiences have their agendas too, and without audiences the corporates have nothing. That is, we need to forward and act on a labor theory of media value, much like the labor theory of value first forwarded by Riccardo and Adam Smith, and then of course elaborated and turned into the labor power theory of value by Marx. That is, the audience creates ALL value in media--without our "labor"--subscription, viewing, etc.--the media has no product, just as capitalism relies on labor power for all its value. We are the media!