The majority of NPR's Marketplace Report told me nothing about financial issues with the public interest in mind. Frankly, I think it is wrong for them to even propose to cover financial issues with the public interest in mind when they devote roughly 2 minutes and 30 seconds of a 3 minute and 11 seconds piece to the quarterly performance of corporations. This well comes down to how one chooses to define the “public”. If we define the public as the portion of the population that chooses to invest, then Marketplace Report does well. But, if we choose to define the public as the broader mass of American citizens, I would imagine that non-investors massively outnumber the investors--hence, you have bad coverage of public interests by NPR in this particular segment. Accepting the latter definition of "public," I think this observation completely jives with Alterman's argument that media largely caters to "the audience with a significant stake in the stock market" (pg. 122). The family that struggles to live from paycheck to paycheck does not need to know simply that “Allstate [was forced to cut] their profit forecast for a whole year in half.” They need to know how it affects them.

Furthermore, what was particularly interesting is that the one time NPR's reporter Alex Chadweck mentions the truly public subject of "problems for home-owners insurance premiums in the very near future," the Marketplace Washington Bureau representative responds in terms of how the increase of premiums will not be an increase all across the board, and then blends directly back into talking about how non-affected car insurance premiums are also profitable for Allstate. Mr. Chadweck proceeds to ask about the airline industry instead of being further critical of the matter. This, to me, is a manifestation of "the media's love affair with the stock market" (pg. 123). It’s a simple example of the blind zeal with which the media lopsidedly cover salient financial issues.

From my perspective, we are so surrounded (and "inundated") with these slanted corporate news feeds that we don't even realize what news is absent (left uncovered). Dominance of corporate performance to inform investors has become an expectation for us. I would agree that the place for the flip-side--a market watch segment that actually covers financial markets with the public interest in mind--is not within segments like Marketplace Report (which has the goal of providing market news for investors). However, the main point is that this flip-side is not given any coverage at all.

i agree with pzovath about the program being helpful for the stock holding public. it's important for them to get information on how their stock is doing. plus, this is a business report for npr, so it should have more to do with the business side. in addition to the market report, i clicked on the section "your money" and on the report of winter heating. this report focused totally on the consumers and the direct and indirect consequences of the soon to rise (at least doubled) heating bills. so, i have to disagree with previous postings against npr, in general. i found the your money information helpful and informative. it doesn't talk about options, but it raises concern for consumers' pocketbooks. hence the "your money" title, though.

Immigration came up so frequently in the transcript I read (October 18, 2005), but the economic conditions of Mexico were never mentioned. I bring this up mainly because, if there is such a significant or obvious increase in illegal immigration recently, one question I want to ask is why. I think that focusing on that question is probably an easier way to look at the solution than solely focusing on what to do after they come or to prevent them from coming. I truly don't have any idea about this kind of thing, but could NAFTA have something to do with the increase in illegal immigration from Mexico. I ask because if it could then Lou Dobbs is possibly being a shill at this point. It would be possible that he is preserving the idea of free trade, "new economy" mentioned in Alterman. He is avoiding such an obvious question that a liberal arts major with NO economic class above an inadequate intro class in high school taught by a former cop slash wrestling coach (no offense to cops or wrestling coaches)would think of it. That is suspicious. Why would he do that? Why would such a glaring ommission be left out?

He also did really give it to a politician from Chicago that dared to suggest that the economy might be benefitting from immigrants as well as the fact that they are already a part of the economy - a fact that even in my naive economic state I find significant and not deserving of the shrug off Dobbs gave it.

On the other hand, there were many issues I was happy to see covered in a not so corporate sympathetic manner. Although I must admit that I, like londiem, could not see his face or hear his voice, so perhaps I missed some anger or frustration toward his guests. (I will say that it seemed from his transcript that no one is given very much time to articulate any point clearly.) Most guests came on to discuss the negative aspects of Walmart's bid to start banking at their stores. (Scary, idnit?) I don't think he had on one pro-WalMart guest. I say don't think, because it was toward the end, and my eyes were literally crossing.

The NPR report I heard was very brief and as always told from the corporation's perspective. Continental was doing well with higher prices that were sticking. Yay! Southwest did well because of hedging. I don't know what hedging it, but NPR made it sound ingenious. Plus, out of all the things they could discuss on a finance report - I now am aware that the professional basketball union is fighting a dress code!

Not having cable, I can not watch Lou Dobbs, although I really would like to, but I find it very interesting that NPR, widely viewed as more progresiive and to the left, does not really deal with consumer interests. You would think their audience would be concerned with those issues. Or does NPR realize that their audience are really just baby boomer yuppies (the Whole Foods/Volvo/Soccer Moom crowd), the ones that would like to consider themselves liberal, even though they are pretty much just as concerned with making money as their conservative counterparts. The only difference is that they didn't vote for Bush.

I'm really not sure what Alterman is all fired up about. After reading his bit about CNN and Dobbs, I expected a lot more party-line pushing and maybe something would be thrown or Dobbs would burst into flames. Then again, I haven't had basic cable for more years than I care to admit. So, I cannot remember the last time I watched CNN; I really don't know what to expect from the channel. I read today's transcript of the Lou Dobbs show and, excluding the hurricane coverage and the bits about Delay and that lady who was murdered, I thought that he did a pretty good job of raising some provocative questions in response to the news reports. "What are Americans so unhappy about? Scandals, mounting casualties in Iraq, the Katrina disaster, a huge budget deficit. The economy? Yes, even though economists say the economy is doing pretty well." I think that this is a good series of questions, but the depth of the response was pretty weak; they shifted to gas prices and holiday spending.

In a report on the increase in visas granted to temporary workers, Dobbs brought up the secretary of labor's argument that it is important to serve the economy when considering issues of immigration reform. To this, Dobbs says, "No mention of the middle class American citizens, or higher values that made this country great. And today, we have people talking about -- suggesting it would be a disservice to the business community without concern for anyone else?" And then... dismissive comment, cut to global war on terror, hurricane, murdered lady.

I thought that the report on the rising cost of tuition was the most insightful segment, by far. They addressed global education rankings and the piss-poor place in which the US resides. They addressed the educational gap between the excessively wealthy and middle class/working class kids. They questioned the ability of certain states to appropriately fund public colleges, as well as the inability of university admins to resist the whims of private donors. Lots of good stuff about an issue that directly affects a large section of the public. Then again, the response to these charges was minimal... They featured an over-simplified poll and then shifted focus to another topic.

I wouldn't hazard any hard and fast judgements about Dobbs or his program. I only read one transcript and maybe the magic of tv imparts a much different feel to the program.

NPR's Market Report does focus more on corporate interests. They focus on what the stores are doing and why they're doing it (displaying Christmas merchandise earlier because they fear gas proces will lead consumers to rein in their spending) instead of focusing on how it may affect the consumer. It's basically about how businesses are trying to maximize profit.

Alterman claims "Contempt for the questioning of globalization and free investment is of a piece with the media's total embrace of corporate values in virtually all matters of political economy." Obviously he holds a view similar to that of McChesney and Nichols that corporate ownership of media sucks. Alterman emphasizes that there is a bias in the media to support corporate interest and that "this bias is virtually everywhere, even in alleged bastions of left-liberalism like NPR, which prefers to offer its listeners regular "NPR business updates" frequently during the day along with the daily program Marketplace, augmented by the weekly Sound Money. Alterman is criticizing Marketplace for not dealing with the issues of the lives of workers. After listening to some of the Marketplace report I must confess it did not go into detail about how the rise in gas prices would affect workers personally but it did focus on the fact that retailers will have to start Christmas marketing campaigns early this year. Thus, Alterman may be right that NPR's program only focuses on the business interest in the economy and not the labor interest. However, Lou Dobbs seems to focus very much on the Labor perspective. He lists companies that are exporting jobs both on his website and TV show. Lou Dobbs' stories are things like "Still ahead tonight, why the president wants to give jobs to foreigners that he claims Americans won't do. And why his theory is, as we will demonstrate here tonight, nothing more than a colossal myth." It seems to me that Dobbs and Alterman would get along quite well. If Lou Dobbs is a corporate shill then I don't know what kind of crazy campaign Alterman is looking for. I cannot see Dobbs being one of the journalists "showered with Enron cash" during the Enron crisis that would make him not report on how it was making people lose jobs. Alterman says of Dobbs However "The CNN Anchor is not only a pro-Enron, pro-Arthur Anderson conservative, he is willing to humiliate and vilify his own reporters on the air should anyone contradict his biases." The example given does not seem to hold up to me as a real pro-Enron stance. A reporter says Enron gives money to republicans, then dobbs says don't they give money to democrats too? and the reporter agrees but says they give more to republicans and then dobbs says that he doesn't want to hang public opinion by not including facts like Enron giving money to both parties. This does not to me sound corporate shillish but Alterman seems very angry throughout his mess of a chapter.

Dobbs had Elaine Chao the Secretary of Labor on his show and didn't let her get away with the statement in support of giving jobs to Mexican immigrants "We need to serve America's economy by matching willing workers with willing employees, willing workers with willing employers in a clear, efficient and timely process." DOBBS: "In any city of the country where there are reasonable wages, there are Americans ready to do those jobs."

Just as Alterman lists journalists who have received big money to be corporate shills, Lou Dobbs lists companies who have received big government tax breaks to send jobs overseas and the big money companies are getting by hiring immigrants at illegally low wages.

Dobbs' comments about Arthur Anderson and how by indicting the company the Justice department is punishing "85,000 working men and women" for the acts of a few did not seem out of corporate shillness but out of his usual commentary on people losing jobs. Perhaps Alterman knows him personally and can read more into his show than I can but I have to say that from what I've seen of his show, Dobbs seems to hate corporations.

Altermans attack of Dobbs being a Republican and therefore automatically against workers is ridiculous. Maybe he's just against crazy tax increases. Maybe he is pro-life. Maybe he prefers their conventions. I have no idea but it does not have to be necessarily because he is anti-workers. This is narrow-minded unintelligent political bashing. I am very surprised that Alterman was given the opportunity to publish his thoughts in this angry rant-like manner.

I could be wrong. This is just one person's take.