It seems a bad time for newspapers to be out of money. Actually, any time does. We depend on them, yes. It would be bad for them to go away. But it suddenly struck me that having them almost go away is a catastrophe, too.
Bill Maher, on his Real Time show week, was offering a couple of examples of newspaper headlines about the flu that differed really dramatically in the amount of hype they were doing about the so-called swine flu. In some ways that's actually probably normal. Some newspapers sell based on hype and others based on news. Some have a reputation for drama and some for being so deadpan you assume it must be drug-induced.
But it occurs to me that there's a huge risk of conflict of interest in times like these, which are full of serious human drama. The possibilities of pandemic and terrorism are perennial issues in our society. They're real issues. But they are not always crises. Yet a newspaper in financial distress needs to sell papers, so they can easily create a crisis where none exists.
The Bush Administration seemed to want us in a perpetual state of crisis because we were more maleable in that state. I sometimes think I'll vomit if I hear again the claim “9/11 is when we finally woke up as a nation.” It is not. It's when we finally went to sleep. Before that, if you had talked about terrorism, each of us individually might have had an answer. Maybe we'd have underestimated the severity. But we would have attempted to reason through things. After 9/11, we were drones who yielded control Command Central saying “we don't want to think about this, please think for us.” We willingly yielded our brains; in effect, we collectively went to sleep.
Given the chance, the news media will manipulate us into a similar state of compliance by turning everything into a sensation in the relentless and losing battle to keep pace with the too-easy urgency of the web. In such a frenzy, the newspapers are the ones we usually look to to help us sort things out. But if their only chance for success is to do the same hype, we'll lose the one thing we really value in newspapers: their calm objectivity. We need a way to preserve the stabilizing role of the papers.
Often millionaires run for national office because they're the only ones that can afford to. But I sometimes think we actually like to elect millionaires, even though they're often detached from the problems we “little people” have, because we secretly cross our fingers that someone who is financially set will be incorruptible by the inevitable offers of money that will come. A person, or a business, that is short of money will have their ethics compromised. It is very hard to turn down an option to make money when it one is presented and no others are on the horizon.
It's bad enough trying to distinguish real news from faux news with newspapers disappearing all around us. We depend on the solid reporting that newspapers provide to feed many other aspects of the information industry. But almost worse than these institutions disappearing may be them almost disappearing but instead surviving right on the edge, turning themselves one by one to the National Enquirer merely to stay in business when the wolf is at the door. And all the while us thankfully consuming what they offer as if nothing has changed.
Solution? You're looking for me to offer a solution? I'm sorry, but all I had at just this moment was the insight that this was an emerging and subtle risk. I hadn't noticed it before and haven't had time to formulate a theory of how to combat it. But there's a waiting comment section below if you have any ideas to offer.
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Comments
The kind of conspiracies Hollywood has popularized are "over the top," but collusion of sorts can crop up. All it takes is a couple of editors with overwhelming ambition and political connections to try and shape public policy and opinion by the way they run there newsroom. The placement or flat out omission of stories influences a lot and it certainly occurs because I've witnessed it firsthand.
Now that the advertising and classifieds that formerly provided funding to keeping the presses humming has dried up, print media is desperate for readers. In that search, some are sacrificing relevance.
These things and more add to a distrust of the Fourth Estate that compounds the cycle into which we've fallen. The public refrains from indulging in the news, purveyors resort to more sensationalistic methods, so the public distrusts it even more and downward it spirals.
Rated.
We have "rules" for OS espoused here and there telling us to keep our blogs to 1000 words or less. That benefit is questionable but certainly allows for the readers here to jump around from article to article looking for one that resonates.
Newspapers are finding themselves with decreasing readership and a change in how they present information and points of interest, I would posit as much for this reason as any other.
As to a solution, I am as devoid of concrete answers as the next reader may be. We all see it happening around us and yet feel the pull to particiapate. I was just feeling as I typed that sentence that my comment is getting too long and I want to get over to a couple other blogs, one with video which I breezed by earlier. We just plain don't take the time to pause and think. It's insidious.
Dear lord. The majority of the group I worked with, mostly business students, were morally bankrupt fools and liars. Most of the rest were extremely gullible idiots. Probably I'm among those.
I would never do it again. Ever. Even at gunpoint.
I've got no insights for the news situation. None.
odette, it's true, and yet if it's hopeless, why do we continue to have a democracy? Does it accomplish the illusion of our having a say and keep us quiet and disinterested in an uprising? Is that its goal? I was struck one day by someone on the radio saying we should just replace voting booths with wishing wells because they're cheaper and just as useful. I hope it's not that bad. But some days it feels that way. I think that's why people like Obama. He gives us hope the system could work. If it doesn't under him, that's a bad sign.
My belief is that any system in the space we're talking about is easy to abuse, and it's not so much that I don't see the pitfalls you're talking about as that I don't think your proposal offers the practical virtues you are promising. I do think it's a reasonable discussion, but I think in particular I have a problem indulging the belief that people can or will deal without a leader. Not because they would individually self-destruct. I'm sure they'd get by fine on their own. But because the leadership position would sit there like that ring no one wants to wear in Lord of the Rings (not my favorite movie but I sort of think I get the general concept of the ring), waiting to sucker someone into wearing it. And during that time, there would be a lot of machination out of the view of the public leading to a sudden abrupt correction rather than an organized one. You can believe differently but we're really disagreeing over things we have scientifically no way to success, just our own intuitions. I don't assert you're wrong, I assert that I simply don't believe your scenario will be predictive. :)
Also, importantly, you seem to believe that the world without leaders would be fine, whereas I believe that when there are no leaders, bullies will lead. That is, I do not believe in the philosophical concept that there can be no leader. Rather, I believe there can be no formal leader, but that people will still be led. This is rather like believing (and here in Boston I use this rule routinely) that it is better to step into traffic to cross the street against the light because you know where the enemy is than to do it when the light favors you because then your enemy is someone in violation of the law, and that could be anywhere. :)
The so-called Fourth branch of government in the US (the free press) is indeed an important part of the stability and success of the democracy.
But I think you overstate the importance of newspapers, as the only vehicle that can provide that service.
My guess is, we're seeing right now the transition from city-based newspapers for "objective" reporting, to things like blogs (Open Salon among them).
On economic issues, you've got people like Paul Krugman (on the left; NYT) and Greg Mankiw (on the right) doing commentary and analysis on the important issues of the day. Or Joe Klein (Time magazine) or The Anonymous Liberal on politics. They're careful thinkers and good writers; I'm not sure how much is added by their columns appearing in some official newspaper.
The main difference is that you can no longer rely on an editor-in-chief at your local town, to assemble the information sources for you. You have to go out and find them yourself, and judge their objectivity yourself.
But I think the important function in US society, that newspapers have served for the last century or so, can still occur. Different for sure. Worse in some ways. But actually better in others.
First, I certainly agree blogs can mostly take up the slack of the opinion part. There is ample opinion. Though I think we gain something almost ineffable from the canonical nature of universallly known sources. It is more true that everyone knows Krugman or Dowd or Will or whomever than that they know us little people. That allows for enormous shorthand in public dialog, not because these people are right but because they are canonical. When people moved from place to place, they would talk about the weather, because the weather is something that is common experience. And now they can talk about television, but a lot is schlock like American Idol. Meet the Press or Fareed's GPS are closer to that kind of canonicality for the Impatient Generations, but they are not deliberative. The magazines fill that gap and there needs to be such a thing. We talk about the town square in terms of its qualities (the benches, the box to stand on, the crowds assembling) but we sometimes forget to talk of its singular nature (or of the fewness). The web is too big and sprawling to have a singular nature. I think that's unfortunate. You may disagree, but you should know that in fact that's what is happening. You're not just correcting an oversight in what I've said, you're pointing to a material disagreement about how we see the word and how it works.
Second, and somewhat related because it's easier to acquire when canonicality is there, funding. Bloggers don't have large funds. Newspapers need to. Yes, there are people, and hence bloggers, everywhere, but it's different people and so one loses the ability to read into what someone writes the notion of how they perceive this relative to other things. There is no normalization. Just as there is a difference between twenty reports by any given reporter and one report each by twenty random people.
Third, although newspapers hurt for money, the writers of the newspapers are indulged in many ways with the luxury of not caring. The lack of shield between a typical blogger and their money source is a worrisome factor that makes the entire industry fragile. Certainly the need to do advertising here, not even commercial advertising, but sensationalizing to get people to read is evident all around Open Salon. But look also to this story (click here) for an example of how even an ailing company can indulge the illusion of impartiality in a way that most bloggers cannot.
Fourth, the presence of an Editor to enforce sourcing requirements and other ethical issues, as well as to even out style so that it's efficient for people to consume is important.
I could probably go on, but you get my point. If you want to claim bloggers can pick up this slack, you need to make a stronger case.
Few vs. many: it used to be that there were only three television networks, and the whole country was forced to watch one of the limited choices. Now, with many more choices, the audience is far more fractured. I agree with you that "cohesive culture" comes from shared experiences, but nonetheless I don't lament the change in viewing habits.
Funding: most bloggers are unpaid (for blogging). In that sense, they have less conflict than traditional newspapers.
Editors: I granted (in my first comment) that the selection of content streams is more labor-intensive now. But keep in mind that some (most?) bloggers actually function as editors: they spend their time searching the web and sifting results for their readers. You no longer have an Editor-In-Chief, but you do have editors.
In any case, I'm not trying to argue that blogs are a 1-to-1 replacement for newspapers. But in terms of a function of democracy, when you say in the opening paragraph of your post that "we depend on them", I think blogs have the potential to serve that same function in society.
Meanwhile, with the war, the economy, and climate change, we need every resource to be functioning now, not in the future. I'm not saying things can't evolve over the long haul. I'm saying that sometimes short term effects matter hugely. And this is simply a bad time for a transition such as you're describing. Too much is already broken for me to take this particular shift as a part of an acceptable shift.
On the specific points you mentioned, by the way, I didn't buy your claim “most bloggers are unpaid (for blogging). In that sense, they have less conflict than traditional newspapers.” One has a conflict of interest not if they're paid but if biasing their writing might improve their chances of getting paid. It depends on the individual and various other factors who's corruptible, but surely some people are just hungry.