In the L.A. Times today (9/21/11), media reporter James Rainey asks a very important question:

In a week that saw the number of people in poverty hit a half-century high and President Obama propose a tax increase on those with million-dollar incomes, will America and the American media finally dig in for a serious conversation about class?

And his evaluation of the media's performance on wealth-and-poverty issues accords with what FAIR has found when we've looked at the coverage (Extra!, 9-10/07, 6/10). Here's Rainey's take:

Even though economists say the gap between haves and have-nots has been building for three decades, the growing income disparity and its causes have come up for discussion mostly as a sidebar--removed from the front page, rarely the lead story on the evening news.

But when it comes to explaining why the media fail to cover "arguably the central story of our times," I can't help but feel there's something missing. Rainey offers several possibilities:

The media excel at stories that are instantaneous, visual and that produce clear winners and losers.... Despite the struggles of our own industry, most journalists still live more cheek by jowl with the people who are getting by.... In the years since the late 1970s, journalists have been focused elsewhere...aimed at other great socioeconomic collisions.... The working class has no obvious lobbying group or advocate to bring its interests to the fore.... A majority of the public hold an almost mystic faith in the upward mobility ideal.... They hesitate to speak out, lest they sound as though they are whining.... There's plenty of fodder for those who want to create a counter, not-so-bad narrative.... "Americans have been uncomfortable for a long time talking about class.... The idea that there is a strong class system undercuts the claims we cherish most."

There may be some truth to each of these explanations. But the most obvious explanation for why U.S. media avoid talking about growing inequality is that they are almost entirely owned by, and dependent for the bulk of their income on, large corporations that have greatly benefited from that inequality. Why should we be surprised that the institutions that control our national conversation use that power to protect their own interests?

Certainly they're not going to quit doing that as long as there's a taboo against pointing out that that's what they're doing.

They don't show--at least in any significant way, with the caveat that thousands of e-mails still remain to be released--the U.S. government seriously misleading its allies. They don't show unauthorized war, fraudulent procurement practices or unexpected assassination. They don't show America forming significant alliances with sworn enemies or visiting unexpected deceit on friends.
--James Rainey on the "dearth of scandalous behavior" in the WikiLeaks material (L.A. Times, 12/1/10)

How good do you have to be to qualify as good? I haven't killed anybody. See, that's good, right? I haven't committed any felonies. I didn't start any wars. I don't practice cannibalism. Wouldn't you say that's pretty good?
--Calvin (Scientific Progress Goes "Boink")

An LA Times column today cited FAIR's petition demanding that the TV networks include single-payer in their coverage of the healthcare reform debate,  acknowledging that there is a "gaping hole in much of the media coverage--caused by the failure to investigate practices around the rest of the world, particularly European-style, single-payer programs."

The Times' James Rainey concluded his column, "TV Needs To Deepen Coverage of Healthcare Reform," with a report on the delivery of FAIR's petition at ABC--the network that disinvited Obama's longtime physician Dr. David Scheiner, a single-payer advocate, from its June 24 "Prescription for America" program:

The liberal media watchdog group Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting and a group of progressive activists delivered a petition Tuesday to ABC News in New York (which recently excluded one of the activists from a forum on healthcare) to demand broader reporting, including an assessment of government-managed health systems.

I suspect some in the big media have tiptoed lightly on that turf for the same reason as the politicians. Better to appear ill-informed about the world of healthcare than to appear open to anything, you know, French.

James Rainey of the L.A. Times (10/22/08) quotes a colleague dismissing the size of Barack Obama's crowds as an indication of the Obama campaign's chances in November:

"Fall Out Boy gets crowds this big," Jonathan Weisman of the Wall Street Journal said at the Miami rally, referring to the pop punk band. "But I don't think they are going to end up in the White House.

"You can't learn anything about the outcome based on how big the crowd is," Weisman continued. "These are the people who are already convinced."

Of course, this is silly--you don't compare the size of political rallies to rock concerts, but to other political rallies, and compared to other political rallies, Obama's are quite large. But does Fall Out Boy really get crowds as big as Obama's?

Weisman reported that the Miami rally drew 30,000. A few moments of Googling turned up this from a South African music blog:

And then came FOB. From song one to the last song an hour and a half later, they rocked and rocked and rocked a bit more. They played only one show in SA and last night was it. They also noted that the Jo’burg concert will be the biggest crowd that they play to the entire year. I think there were close to 20,000 people in the audience.

According to the blog, then--and I have no reason to believe that its any less accurate than the Wall Street Journal--the biggest crowd Fall Out Boy played to last year was one-third smaller than the crowd Weisman attributed to Obama--which was not a particularly big crowd as Obama rallies go.

It's reminiscent of the argument made by right-wingers that an Obama rally in Portland that drew 75,000 was preceded by a free concert by The Decembrists, so the turnout didn't really reflect Obama's drawing power. Fans of the band pointed out that a typical Decembrist show will fill a club with a capacity of 1,200.