Two Tools to Cripple the Media

The introduction of the Internet is something of a mixed blessing. It brings wider participation in the collection and dissemination of information. But there is no assurance that the information is accurate, untainted, or planted for some agenda or another. That is why there is a professional journalism, to bring elements of accuracy, reliability and enlightenment to an information-hungry world.

During the current political campaigns, you have heard fairly regular criticism of the media. Anchor people in broadcast journalism become commentators when they can’t stay objective. The media is the constant concern of political strategists that wish to create an image, accurate or otherwise.

They shouldn’t worry too much. Newspapers and television stations are doing yeoman service in crippling their own efforts. To my way of thinking, there are two ways to cripple the media, not unlike the two cuts that make up a ritual seppuku.

First, starve the media of resources. Newspaper businesspeople are slowly killing themselves when they think that they can cut their way to profitability. They will cut newsroom staff, valued sections of the paper, investigative reporting. Instead of making necessary investments to build readership or viewership, they skimp on professionalism. How many papers depend on consumer participation from the website for their online copy? And for their photography? Has the photo been altered in any way? Have the consumers fact-checked their information?

The second way to cripple the media is to make them an intimate part of the profit/loss equation. In an effort to have the news itself become a marketing tool, business executives are encouraging journalists to spend less time unearthing facts and more time on speculation or pander to baser instincts. The media’s job is facts and the contradictions between facts and allegations. Even when news sources and public figures resist, the job is relentless. But who cares what the polls will say next week…next week it will be a fact rather than a speculation. Coverage of issues fades in the face of the latest public figure pregnancy and breakup news. We’re seeing not the latest news but the latest scandal. It attracts the prurient, but that is all. Not a fact, but endless speculation.

The public has the most to lose if the business side dictates journalistic objectivity. The job is to report fully and report fairly. This may not mean the same number of column inches or minutes on the air for each side of an issue. What can be verified as true is the indicator. If the other side can’t come up with verifiable truth, it does not deserve equal space. Even if pushback takes place and lawsuits are threatened. Without professional journalistic objectivity, the truth will hide in a fog.

Advertisers in newspapers or on television news need a serious attitude change. Not only is intelligent advertising good for the business, it can be considered a public service, to make the funds available for the kind of news media that Americans deserve. So long as the business agenda is confined to the reel or the four corners of the ad, all is well.

What is essential is not to give the people what they want, but give them what they need.