 "Photo: Jacqueline Gilles/The Daily Texan")
Juan Gonzalez, a columnist for the New York Daily News and co-host of radio and television program “Democracy Now!,” addressed the future of the news media under the Obama administration at UT on Thursday.
Gonzalez, who advises minority news organizations through his involvement in groups such as the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, analyzed the current state of the mainstream media.
“We’ve constructed a media system that has many problems in it, but not a system that can’t be changed,” Gonzalez said.
Gonzalez said the key journalistic issues that will evolve during Obama’s presidency are the spread of low-cost broadband, privacy protection on the Internet and the role of the government in the production of local news.
“Generally, we are told that ours is a privately owned market-based system,” Gonzalez said. “In reality, there has been enormous involvement of government in the erection of our media system.”
Gonzalez said the Founding Fathers first influenced information dissemination in America with the creation of the postal service and later the subsidization of newspaper subscriptions. Every time a new circulation method is produced, the government decides how to organize it, he said.
“Technology knows no religion,” Gonzalez said, “It keeps moving forward, and every time it does, it destabilizes the system.”
He said the Internet adds complications to an already flawed method of news reporting.
“The problem isn’t censorship,” Gonzalez said. “The problem is we are deluged with information.”
Gonzalez said white-dominated newsrooms and a lack of minority-owned radio and television stations and newspapers have led to an underrepresentation of minorities in America.
“Who owns a station racially has a lot of impact on what they decide to cover,” Gonzalez said.
The media market is also trying to balance local news with an increasing amount of centralized news that can leave viewers misinformed on issues in their immediate communities, he said.
Journalism freshman Emily Sides agreed with Gonzalez’s analysis but said he left out some important issues.
Gonzalez emphasized the lack of reporting on racial minorities by white-owned media organizations but did not mention how much airtime was devoted to coverage of lower classes, she said.
Plan II and journalism freshman Danielle Cross similarly said she saw eye-to-eye with Gonzalez but wanted to hear more about underrepresented economic groups.“There’s a lot more diversity than just race,” Cross said.
THE T.V. NEWS SHOWS ALL ACROSS AMERICA ARE LEFT WING COMMUNIST RADICALS..
MOST ALL NEWS MAGAZINES ARE LEFT WING COMMUNIST RADICALS.
THE ONLY MEDIA THE CONSERVATIVES HAVE ARE A HAND FULL OF RADIO TALK SHOWS AND FOX NEWS.SO TELL ME PLEASE, WHY NOW THAT THE LEFT WING OWNS ALL THE MEDIA DO YOU STILL WANT
TO BLAME EVERYTHING ON THE WHITES????????????????
YOU ARE KEPT SO DUMBED DOWN FIRST BY NO EDUCATION IN THE GOVT SCHOOLS AND SECOND
BY THE LEFT WING MEDIA.
YOU HAVE ALL THE MEDIA NOW, SO WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT?
YOU KNOW THE LEFT WING IS HIDING EVERYTING FROM YOU SO WHY DON'T YOU ADMIT IT"