Chapter 11: "All the News That's Fit to Print"

The Revolving Doors section in Chapter 11 "All the News That's Fit to Print" interested me because of the truth to the statement that the media habitually fails to report on itself. Additionally, the media fails to report on the PR industry. When a TV news show airs a video news release, the PR firm that produced the segment pays for all the costs of scripting, filming, and editing.  Likewise, PR-supplied experts enable reports to produce authentic-sounding stories with a minimum of time and effort.  The public rarely notices the bias that creeps into the news with these stories. It is a problem that corporate advertisers have such power to influence news coverage, even though editors' state the contrary.  Furthermore, the idea that "business and editorial decisions in the press and media are totally separate is a myth." An interesting quote from Susan Trento appealed to me when finishing this section.  She stated, "Nothing seems to change.  Nothing seems to get done.  Nothing seems to get cleaned up... it seems that the same people are doing the same things over and over, and never getting punished--and no one seems to care.  The triangle--the media, the government, and the lobbying and PR firms--protect each other."