What happens to the news when it's controlled by corporate giants? Is there
a threat to democracy when journalism is bought and sold like a product? In
short, what happens to information before it gets to us? These are some of
the larger issues that media analysts deal with.
Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) is a media watch group of journalists
and activists. At FAIR, analytical minds take time to monitor corporate control
of the media and try to answer these questions. Jennifer Pozner is director
of the women's desk at FAIR.
As a college student, Pozner was on the hunt for an organization that complemented
her values and her interests, something that satisfied her desire to make
some kind of an impact.
"I was doing research around misrepresentations of feminists and misrepresentations
of women....What I found was that women were either distorted when they were
covered or not covered at all," she says.
While she was doing this research, Pozner discovered a place that shared
her concerns: a nonprofit organization called FAIR. Now, with her own seat
at FAIR's women's desk, Pozner continues to analyze media content. The difference
is, she gets paid to do it!
"We have a very specific content critique where we look at the framing
of stories that are in our hands....You look at how those stories are framed
and whose perspectives get to guide the story," explains Pozner.
Pozner is now in a position to help budding media skeptics
follow in her footsteps. "We have interns who work at FAIR quite often, and
one of the things I say is that you need to have sort of an open mind, questioning
what you read and what you see. It's an amazingly broad job and it's different
in each place," says Pozner.
Pozner's independent pursuits have paid off. She's made an impact, as general
response to her work shows. Still, knowing she's making a mark seems surreal.
"Yeah -- it's funny," she says. "I'm at the point where I'm finally starting
to realize that. I mean, people who don't know me call me and tell me that
they have my work as a fundamental part of their research. I was told by somebody
that I had been reading for a while that her new book starts off a chapter
with a blurb from one of my articles."
Pozner adds that FAIR receives calls all the time from students, professors
and colleagues. They often speak in hushed tones, thanking the staff at FAIR
for voicing certain issues.
"[Reporters] say things like, 'That was a great piece. You're really helping
me because I was trying to bring up that critique and they were telling me
that I'm a whistle-blower!'" says Pozner.
Many analysts come from a journalism or communication background. Journalism
professor Christopher Dornan hesitates to define media analysis as a field
of work since it is rare to find full-time, well-paying work as an analyst.
However, he says that an education in journalism or communication provides
students with just the right tools for related jobs in the information industry
-- including media analysis for the lucky few!
"A journalism degree is tailored specifically to producing journalists,
and many of our students are perfectly happy to take the degree, due to the
skills and the credentials that it confers. But by the end of it, many of
them don't become journalists. They go sort of on the other side of the fence,
and they become information officers for government ministries or private
sector corporations," says Dornan.
Media analyst Lydia Miljan says there are no standards in the industry
by which to define media analysts at this point. While she calls herself a
media analyst, there are others in the information industry who call themselves
by the same name, but perform very different tasks.
"What I see in the industry is that media analysts tend to be people who
clip and just do summaries. But we do much more sophisticated content analysis,
where we actually look at every statement and make discreet observations about
it. Again, there are no standards in the industry, and everyone does their
own thing. It's tough because it's how people define it. Rather than being
a job, it's more a research technique," she says.