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This paper was presented at the Association for Education in Journalism and
Mass Communication in Toronto, Canada, August 2004.
If you have questions about this paper, please contact the author
directly. If you have questions about the archives, email
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(Oct 2004)
Thank you.
Elliott Parker
************************************************************************
Quiet Control:
How American Journalism Obstructs the Democratic Ideal
An Institutional Analysis
Seth Ashley
University of Missouri – Columbia
Doctoral Student
112 Hubbell Drive
Columbia, MO 65201
573-489-8337
[log in to unmask]
1. Transforming Reality
In the capitalist economic market, the facts about a product or service
are superseded by the opinions that must be held or at least advanced by
the seller in order to earn a profit. The seller promotes the "truth" that
his product is superior to all others. That is, until the seller goes to
work for another company and must perceive his new product as superior to
his old one. The "truth" about the product in the seller's mind depends
entirely on his point of view. And while the seller initially may only
pretend to favor his new product over his old one, he is likely to
internalize and believe his feigned opinion in order to deny his
self-deception. This idea of "mobile truth" is described in Alan
Harrington's Life in the Crystal Palace[1] and is discussed by Erich Fromm
in his afterword to George Orwell's 1984:
It is one of the most characteristic and destructive developments of our
own society that man, becoming more and more of an instrument, transforms
reality more and more into something relative to his own interests and
functions. Truth is proven by the consensus of millions; to the slogan
"how can millions be wrong" is added "and how can a minority of one be
right."[2]
While it is not the aim of this paper to discuss the ills of capitalism,
the economic free market provides a helpful analogy for understanding the
metaphorical marketplace of ideas, which does not end with John Milton's
appeal to let truth and falsehood grapple.[3] Milton's ideas set forth in
Areopagitica were useful for condemning the outright censorship practiced
by licensing boards in 17th century England, but today's marketplace of
ideas faces a reality far more grim. The controls of information and ideas
in a purportedly "free" society are far subtler than simple censorship. As
George Orwell wrote in his originally unpublished introduction to Animal
Farm, titled "The Freedom of the Press": "The sinister fact about literary
censorship in England is that it is largely voluntary. Unpopular ideas can
be silenced, and inconvenient facts kept dark, without the need for any
official ban."[4] The prevailing social orthodoxy often dictates which
facts and ideas can be discussed in the media. Orwell goes on to discuss
the media's interest in perpetuating the status quo:
If publishers and editors exert themselves to keep certain topics out of
print, it is not because they are frightened of prosecution but because
they are frightened of public opinion. In this country intellectual
cowardice is the worst enemy a writer or journalist has to face, and that
fact does not seem to me to have had the discussion it deserves…
At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas which it is
assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question. It is
not exactly forbidden to say this, that or the other, but it is 'not done'
to say it, just as in mid-Victorian times it was 'not done' to mention
trousers in the presence of a lady.[5]
Adhering to societal conventions and accepting orthodoxy without question
cannot be options for any media outlet that wishes to participate in true
democracy. If the press does wish to participate in the democratic
process, the best answers it can offer are the ones that lead to new
questions, ranging in topic from the claims of a presidential candidate or
the intelligence that leads us to war to the rising cost of health care or
the tendency toward habitual overconsumption of resources. As Orwell
concluded, a static mind is the enemy of progress and truth:
For all I know, by the time [Animal Farm] is published my view of the
Soviet régime may be the generally-accepted one. But what use would that be
in itself? To exchange one orthodoxy for another is not necessarily an
advance. The enemy is the gramophone mind, whether or not one agrees with
the record that is being played at the moment.[6]
One example of "gramophonism," to coin a term, is in the two-party system
of American government that rules today's political landscape. While the
plight of minor parties may seem to some an insignificant example of
media's limitations, the limitations here are the proverbial tip of a
hidden iceberg and are symptoms of greater problems. When the marketplace
of ideas is closed to ideas or individuals that are on the outskirts of
acceptability, the media cannot expect to do more than maintain the status
quo.
This paper stems from my interest in Ralph Nader's Green Party
presidential campaign in 2000 and the media's virtual blindness to
it. Nader declared his candidacy on Feb. 21, 2000, to "an impressive
assemblage of media,"[7] including all the major television networks, and
radio and print reporters. That evening, none of the networks reported
Nader's announcement, and the next day, the story received only brief
mentions in The New York Times and The Washington Post. In the months that
followed, the media's coverage of the campaign never grew beyond colorful
personality profiles and admonitions that Nader was "spoiling" the election
by stealing votes from Democratic candidate Al Gore. Reports of campaign
events and issues were generally marginalized or ignored.
This marginalization is noteworthy not just because of the disservice it
provides to media audiences by disregarding a legitimate presidential
candidate. More significant is the marginalization of the democratic ideal
promoted in Nader's campaign. High on Nader's list of issues was his
concern for the state of American democracy in the face of the monolithic
two-party system, largely under the control of wealthy corporate special
interests that debase the democratic ideal by reducing the voice of the
citizenry. That a dissenter like Nader was ignored by the press comes as
no surprise; in his criticisms, he was speaking out against the powerful
and wealthy elites who control and influence the media just as they do the
major political parties. Nader concluded: "Whatever the desires of
reporters and their editors, the top echelon of these [media] companies are
not eager to examine the consequences of corporate power in the context of
political campaign coverage."[8]
This work attempts to address a few of the apparent desires of newsmakers
that obstruct the democratic ideal. It is my thesis that control of the
media is not limited to the interests of wealthy elites, but extends to a
set of conventional values and practices that are held and followed by
journalists and their managers.
In discussing the democratic ideal here, I use "ideal" to mean "goal" or
"model," rather than to suggest an unattainable dream lacking
practicality. While the Nader campaign is not necessarily the embodiment
of the democratic ideal, I cite Nader's example to provide some additional
context for appreciating the discussion that follows. These pages address
the concerns shared by many media scholars that certain news values and
practices hinder realization of the democratic ideal. Progress toward this
ideal is essential to understanding our world and protecting our freedom.
2. "All the News That's Fit to Print": The Manufacture of a Common Will
When Walter Lippmann wrote about the manufacture of consent in 1922, he
described the inevitable irregularity of public opinion in the absence of a
common force working to unite members of society under a common
will.[9] The purpose of democracy, Lippmann argued, was to streamline the
process of consent manufacturing and to facilitate government's efficient
management of public affairs. Democracy, in Lippmann's view, is not a
means to an end but an end in itself, because citizenship and democratic
self-governance are futile goals and lost causes. Why is the outlook so
hopeless, and why did Lippmann posit that the solution is to let government
be run by an army of bureaucrats far from the public eye?
Because of the news media, of course. With the rise of the mass media, the
ideal of democratic self-governance continues to be washed away by a tidal
wave of propaganda and manipulation caused by powerful and moneyed
elites. In Public Opinion, Lippmann did not necessarily blame the news
media for actively harming democracy, but instead described a fatally
flawed system in which elite interests have the power to tailor public
opinion to their liking:
That the manufacture of consent is capable of great refinements no one, I
think, denies. The process by which public opinions arise is certainly no
less intricate than it has appeared in these pages, and the opportunities
for manipulation open to anyone who understands the process are plain enough.
The creation of consent is not a new art. It is a very old one which was
supposed to have died out with the appearance of democracy. But it has not
died out. It has, in fact, improved enormously in technic, because it is
now based on analysis rather than on rule of thumb.[10]
The creation of consent remains today a vibrant art form, and it takes
place largely in the mass news media. While politicians, businesspeople
and other leaders of society certainly do their part to rally support and
create consent for their interests, their difference is that they generally
do not claim to be objective or agenda-free. The media, however, are a
highly effective tool of socialization—perhaps even more so than
advertising—because they operate under the guise of dispassionate,
impartial neutrality.
Lippmann's view of the role of propaganda in influencing public opinion
was among the earliest indictments of the interplay between news media and
democracy as we know it today; his work inspired and enraged countless
scholars and critics, and began a tradition of media criticism that
continues to encourage awareness and critical thought in the consumers of
media. Continuing in this tradition, this paper highlights a few problems
that arise from the manipulation of media and examines the works of several
scholars who have considered the media's role in manufacturing the public's
consent for the policies and interests of America's powerful and moneyed
elite. These processes are an example of how journalistic practices limit
and control the idea marketplace.
3. The Manufacture of a Common Will
Even before Walter Lippmann, Upton Sinclair penned a fierce indictment of
journalists as propagandists in his 1919 The Brass Check:
Journalism is one of the devices whereby industrial autocracy keeps its
control over political democracy; it is the day-by-day, between-elections
propaganda, whereby the minds of the people are kept in a state of
acquiescence, so that when the crisis of an election comes, they go to the
polls and cast their ballots for either one of the two parties of their
exploiters.[11]
Lippmann responded negatively to Sinclair's strong ideological argument,
which suggested that capitalism was solely to blame for the press's
ills. Lippmann believed that an anti-capitalist press suffers under a set
of influences and restrictions just as severely as a capitalist press does;
both press types are forced to propagandize on behalf of their owners and
operators.[12]
More recently, titling their book Manufacturing Consent after Lippmann's
phrase from Public Opinion, Ed Herman and Noam Chomsky have become
influential in furthering Lippmann's argument among a new generation,
highlighting the media's role as propaganda propagators.[13] Herman and
Chomsky "introduced an entire generation of progressives to a critical
position regarding mainstream journalism," stressing that "the capitalist
news media are far more about generating support for elite policies than
they are about empowering people to make informed political decisions."[14]
Similarly, Michael Parenti criticizes the news media for relying too
heavily on institutional authorities and therefore becoming disinclined to
be too critical of those established news sources. He cites studies that
demonstrate a general absence of views in the news that do not coincide
with the ones propagated by U.S. foreign policy elites and the U.S.
government. "Much of what is reported as 'news' is little more than the
uncritical transmission of official opinions to an unsuspecting
public."[15] Parenti reminds his reader that "journalists may or may not
endorse or even recognize the value parameters within which they
work."[16] But he continues:
No matter how [journalists] happen to see themselves, the fact remains that
they do not and usually cannot investigate the questions that rub against
the ideological limits of their employers. These include why wealth and
power are so unequally distributed in the United States and between
developed and exploited nations; why corporations have so much power and
citizens so little; why capitalism is in a chronic state of crisis and
instability; why unemployment, inflation, and poverty persist; and why the
United States is involved militarily in Central America and is hostile
toward any nation that moves in a noncapitalistic direction.[17]
The reason for these limits appears to be the need of special interests to
manufacture consent and approval among American citizens for certain
policies and practices. The powerful elites in government and business
recognize that the media are poised to influence public opinion and create
widespread support—or at least indifference and apathy—so that the
interests of the elites will be served. And as Lippmann wrote in Liberty
and the News, "There can be no liberty for a community which lacks the
information by which to detect lies."[18] But Lippmann was also among the
first to argue that such lies would never be detectable because of not only
the irredeemable shortcomings of the press but also due to the public's
inability to comprehend truth even if it were accessible.
In The Lonely Crowd, published in 1961, David Riesman wrote about what he
called the mass media's "attitude of tolerance that becomes the mode of
experiencing and viewing everything, including politics."[19] The attitude
of tolerance is the mindset that accepts propaganda and manipulation, and
does so not necessarily willingly or openly, but indifferently and
unquestioningly. The press, Riesman writes, "is subject to a variety of
pressures brought by groups seeking protection from attack; and these
pressures are internalized in the very structure of management and
distribution of the media."[20] Riesman points to pressures beyond those
coming from powerful elites, such as a heterogeneous audience that gives
larger media outlets a wider constituency to mollify:
Again, the larger the scope of the medium, the more likely it is to be
edited and produced in a large metropolitan center where the pressures
toward other-directed tolerance are greatest. While freer from pressure of
advertisers and local cranks than small-town editors and broadcasters, and,
in general, often considerably more daring, big-city media with a city-wide
audience cannot help being aware of those attitudes that may offend the
complex constituencies.[21]
Today's media constituencies are far more complex than the ones Riesman
wrote about, and they get even more tolerance and appeasement from editors
and broadcasters.
Riesman concludes by highlighting the media's interest in pleasing a wide
audience and marginalizing complaints or criticisms. He refers to the
media as "tutors of consumption," suggesting a need to appeal to mainstream
tastes and ideas. He writes about the media's "other-directed tolerance,"
wherein individuality and autonomy must be suppressed to achieve mass
appeal, particularly when it comes to lessons in consumption:
Indeed, since the chief strategy of the media as tutors of consumption is
to introduce and rationalize changes, enrichments, or discontinuities in
conventional tastes and styles, the media have a stake in tolerance of
taste. They cannot afford to have people overcommitted to a taste that
they may want to change tomorrow. But it is hardly likely that they are
aware of this perhaps most fundamental aspect of their commitment to
tolerance.[22]
Like Parenti, Riesman acknowledges that journalists may not be aware of
their own value parameters, but this is hardly an excuse for an uncritical,
unquestioning press that accepts manipulation and control from powerful
elites and heterogeneous audiences. It is unfortunate that a more
heterogeneous audience leads to more watered down, homogenized news
fare. As larger media attempt to appeal to a diverse mass audience, they
strive to provide consistent allure for the most easily placated majority.
As the mass media grow and become more homogenized, their appeal to the
majority begets growth among that majority. When the mainstream media
provide access only to the views of the mainstream majority, the diversity
among that audience is quelled and a new homogenization takes place. As
long ago as the 19th century, the European aristocrat Alexis de Tocqueville
offered a prophecy regarding media homogenization and its effects. De
Tocqueville wrote in Democracy in America, "When many organs of the press
adopt the same line of conduct, their influence in the long run becomes
irresistible."[23] In analyzing American democracy, de Tocqueville
expressed his concern for the potential tyranny of the majority as the
media grow and become able to socialize and homogenize a greater audience.
The word socialization was unfamiliar in de Tocqueville's day, but the
phenomenon was recognized at least by that thoughtful visitor. He saw how
a press that reflected popular values reinforced those values and
contributed to a pattern historian Richard Hofstadter identified more than
a century later as the anti-intellectual impulses in American life.[24]
Therefore, it appears that the American press tutors the homogenized mass
audience in uncritical, anti-intellectual impulses. Is this the ultimate
destination of democracy, the manufacture of an uncritical common will?
4. The Limits of Direct Action: Yes or No
From the homogenization of the citizenry and the streamlined process of
consent manufacturing comes a thwarted democracy that offers little
opportunity for diversity or debate. As Walter Lippmann wrote, "The limit
of direct action is for all practical purposes the power to say Yes or No
on an issue presented to the mass."[25] Of course, anything more would
probably require direct democracy rather than a representative form. But
the opportunities for the presentation of issues are limited when the
marketplace of ideas is closed to diverse or unpopular views.
Still, as Lippmann points out, there are some flaws inherent to our
democracy, such as our two-party system:
The democratic revolution set up two alternating machines, each of which in
the course of a few years reaps the advantage from the mistakes of the
other. But nowhere does the machine disappear. Nowhere is the idyllic
theory of democracy realized.[26]
Lippmann goes on to suggest that some of us have not accepted this reality
of democracy, and that it would be best if those people would concede that
true self-governance is simply not an attainable goal:
Democrats have never come to terms with this commonplace of group
life. They have invariably regarded it as perverse. For there are two
visions of democracy: one presupposes the self-sufficient individual; the
other an Oversoul regulating everything. Of the two the Oversoul has some
advantage because it does at least recognize that the mass makes decisions
that are not spontaneously born in the breast of every member.[27]
While there is some reality in Lippmann's dichotomy, his two visions of
democracy are both too extreme to be practical. Members of a democracy
need not be self-sufficient, but they do need to be informed and educated
so they may keep a watchful and critical eye on the "Oversoul" and its
policies.
Theories of democracy do rely heavily on an informed public, a public that
is afforded exposure to diverse ideas. But currently the practices of the
mass media may be the greatest barrier to true democracy, as Ben Bagdikian
points out:
The inappropriate fit between the country's major media and the country's
political system has starved voters of relevant information, leaving them
at the mercy of paid political propaganda that is close to meaningless and
often worse. It has eroded the central requirement of a democracy that
those who are governed give not only their consent but their informed
consent.[28]
It seems that Bagdikian highlights a distinction that Lippmann failed to
make. Manufactured consent is dangerous to democracy because it is wielded
as a tool for beating malleable government policies into forms that agree
with the interests of rich and powerful elites; consent becomes a means to
an end. But informed consent is precisely the goal of idyllic democracy,
and it is an end in itself. The expression of diverse views and rich
debate are the means for achieving informed consent. While manufactured
consent allows the public to be used by the elites, informed consent aims
to keep the elites in check and the public in power. But to have informed
consent requires more than a Yes-or-No democracy.
5. Neutralizing the News: Squelching Dissent
Informed consent demands exposure to diverse views. A Yes-or-No democracy
limits the opportunities for dissenting voices to be heard or
expressed. The media's ability to limit dissent is critical for achieving
an air of neutrality in the news. But it is a delicate balancing act,
because some dissent must be present to let audiences know that the system
is not authoritarian. Furthermore, dissent must sometimes be expressed so
that conventional mainstream views can be given an opportunity to dominate
among the would-be dissenters. J. Herbert Altschull writes in Agents of Power:
Dissent is permitted, even encouraged, under the code of objectivity;
however, its limits are proscribed, and the counterbalancing orthodoxy is
assured a voice—not only a voice but the most powerful voice, because
orthodoxy is represented by the powerful, whose command of financial
resources and of newsworthy authority assures it of dominance in the press.[29]
For example, third-party presidential candidates must be given a slight
voice so they can be depicted as threats to the prevailing orthodoxy. Too
much voice, however, would be dangerous to the media's interest in
perpetuating the status quo. Michael Parenti describes the danger in
giving voice to third parties:
There is nothing in the limitations of time, space and staff that oblige
the media systematically to ignore third-party presidential candidates
while assigning an army of journalists the agonizing task of having to file
a 'new' story every day of the campaign about major candidates who seldom
say anything new. But there is something about progressive third-party
candidates themselves, their attempts at raising questions about the
desirability of the corporate capitalist system, that makes them
politically unsafe for national media coverage.[30]
This view extends to other dissenters who are subject to media control of
both voice and image. Strikers and protesters, like third parties, are
frequently presented in the media as aberrations and oddities that have
disrupted the smooth operation of mainstream society with a cause that is
either idealistic and naïve or idiotic and incomprehensible. Upton
Sinclair describes the "rule" for covering strikers:
Journalism follows this simple and elemental rule, if strikers are violent,
they get on the wires, while if strikers are not violent, they stay off the
wires; by which simple device it is brought about that nine-tenths of the
telegraphic news you read about strikes is news of violence, and so in your
brain channels is irrevocably graven the idea-association:
Strikes—violence! Violence—strikes![31]
Similarly, Parenti addresses coverage of protesters and rallies, suggesting
that the news often "seems more concerned with describing the protesters
than with telling us anything about the content of their protests, about
why they were out there in the first place."[32] Parenti breaks down the
media's control of dissenting voices to a set of methods employed to
discredit protests. They are: the "scanting of content," or ignoring the
meaning or political content of the protest in favor of the spectacle
created; "trivialization," or "ascribing irrational and frivolous motives
to the demonstrators"; "marginalization," or presenting the protesters as
deviant and unrepresentative of any real community; "false balance," or
countering dissent with a disproportionate appeal to the prevailing
orthodoxy; "undercounting," or making groups of protesters sound smaller
than they are; "omission," or neglecting to cover protesters at all so that
the wider public never has the opportunity to know or understand the issue
or grievance being debated.[33] Whatever form dissent takes, it generally
does not receive the media attention that is necessary for robust
democratic debate and a healthy marketplace of ideas.
6. Finding the Middle Ground: In Search of Moderatism
The media's role in squelching and marginalizing dissent appears to be
part of a greater trend toward moderatism. Herbert Gans describes the
enduring press value that favors a defused or neutralized society: "The
idealization of the individual [a different press value] could result in
praise for the rebel and the deviant, but this possibility is neutralized
by an enduring value that discourages excess or
extremism."[34] Individualism is acceptable, even encouraged, but only to
a point: "Individualism which violates the law, the dominant mores, and
enduring values is suspect; equally important, what is valued in
individuals is discouraged in groups."[35] Individuals holding strong
views that do not gel with conventional wisdom also do not have a home in
the media. In fact, part of the consent manufacturing process involves
encouraging individuals not to hold unconventional views:
Much news media framing is designed not to excite or incite but to
neutralize. While we think of the press as geared to crisis and
sensationalism, often its task is just the opposite, dedicated to the
graying of reality, blurring popular grievances and social inequities. In
this muted media reality, those who raise their voices too strongly against
social and class injustices can be made to sound quite shrill.[36]
Bagdikian highlights the origins of neutralized news and the press's
preference for moderate viewpoints. Beginning around 1900 when the mass
media started to grow and monopolize, newspapers "neutralized information
for fear that strong news and views pleasing to one part of the audience
might offend another part and thus reduce the circulation on which
advertising rates depend." Bagdikian continues:
Where once it was profitable to pursue particular issues and ideas of
interest to the newspaper's particular group of readers, such pursuit now
became a threat to larger profits. Newspapers, and later broadcasters,
wanted all potential affluent consumers regardless of their personal
political interests. Consequently, if a group as a whole were poor, as was
true of some minorities, papers wished to avoid news of them and their
issues. Problems affecting lower-income communities generally did not
become news until they exploded and therefore affected affluent consumers.[37]
Not only was content affected by this trend toward neutralization, but so
was the form of the content's appearance. The issues and topics selected
for coverage became as bland as the coverage itself. "American journalism
began to strain out ideas and ideology from public affairs, except for the
safest and most stereotyped assumptions about patriotism and business
enterprise."[38] Together these trends helped the media become a system of
socialization that would help indoctrinate Americans to mass consumer
culture. But even more significantly, neutralized news precludes much
serious reporting of social inequality and injustice, leading to the
alienation and disillusionment of large portions of American society from
not just the media but democracy as well.
7. Journalism and Social Capital: Getting People to Care
The democratic ideal is a worthy aspiration because it empowers citizens to
consider their role in the global community and to understand and
appreciate diversity. To help revitalize American democracy, the media
should strive to embrace diversity at every turn and expose the audience to
a true plurality of well-articulated opinion. Furthermore, as it stands
now, many people seem to be duped about the ways government and media and
society exert control over individuals, not to mention the reasons for this
control. Striving to reach the democratic ideal is more than a matter of
embracing diversity; it is an opportunity to achieve maximum freedom as
individuals by understanding and reducing external control.
Ideal democracy requires high levels of social capital, an abstract measure
of the individual attitudes and energies that facilitate collective action
and cohesion in society. Of course, "cohesion" does not mean that every
individual must think and act the same way, but simply that every
individual think and act. The democratic ideal will not be attainable
without a greater wealth of social capital and an increased interest in
civic life and citizenship. Only when Americans as individuals begin to
take responsibility for the policies of their government will the
democratic ideal be possible.
If the democratic ideal is to be reached in America, the American media
will play a significant role in reaching it. With the public's current
unprecedented level of reliance on media for obtaining the information and
ideas that predominate in our society, those media are our best opportunity
for enriching diversity and freedom. This work has attempted to show that
American democracy is threatened by the very institution that is meant to
foster it. Rather than providing the audience with a wealth of diverse
information and ideas, the news media, in the service of powerful interests
residing throughout government, business and society, limit the idea
marketplace and paint a distorted picture of reality by marginalizing or
ignoring unpopular voices.
Most significantly, many of these unwelcome minority voices have a real
interest in enhancing democracy by putting power into the hands of the
people. Ralph Nader's presidential campaign in 2000, for example, was
based on the notion that the influence of wealthy elites should be removed
from government. But Nader also did not receive more attention in the
press because he was a third side to a two-sided story, and his campaign
promoted values that conflicted with those of the mainstream press. As
slaves to corporate interests and institutional conventions, the news media
will not do more than protect and sustain the status quo, and the
democratic ideal will remain blocked by the undemocratic forces discussed
in this work.
For now, I would suggest a few specific things that journalists can do to
encourage progress toward the democratic ideal, as no legitimate piece of
media criticism is complete without suggestions for reform:
1. Exposing "Doublespeak," Inflated Speech and Empty Rhetoric. Currently,
it is a violation of the objective method for a journalist to accuse a
speaker of saying one thing then contradicting it with the opposite notion,
either in their speech or action. (Unless of course that speaker is Saddam
Hussein or some other acceptably "evil" figure.) This should
change. Similarly, the press should reproach speakers, whether they are
public officials or ordinary citizens, on their attempts to sound important
by inflating their speech with unnecessary words or insincere language.
2. Going Beyond Local News: Creating Citizens of the World. As media
audiences turn to cable and the Internet for news from beyond their
community, local news operations have taken to ignoring non-local affairs
or, at best, offering a quick "30-second roundup" of international news on
television and a smattering of two-paragraph wire stories in
newspapers. Often, that 30-second bit or wire-story smattering consists
only of reports of natural disasters and celebrity news. Smaller news
operations should not hand over international news duties exclusively to
CNN and the New York Times. Rather than filling pages and airtime with
inane pleasantries and advertisements disguised as news, smaller news
outlets should take that space and time to address issues, international or
otherwise, providing depth, substance, background, context and meaning.
3. Eliminating Fake Risk Reporting. Much of the news media today is filled
with an overabundance of risk reporting, ranging from a rural community's
lack of preparedness for dealing with a biochemical terrorist attack to the
most recent contradictory study on the health risks or benefits of drinking
coffee. Information like this, which is never conclusive and usually
overblown, only serves to terrorize and stress the audience. The news
media feel obligated to include fake risk reports because the topics are
often timely or fashionable, but they are also rarely
newsworthy. Furthermore, the cost of the overabundance of fake risk
reporting is the exclusion of serious news and analysis.
4. Fueling the National Debate. Some say that the only place to find real
news in America is on the editorial page. Unfortunately, there is not
enough thoughtful opinion, analysis or debate that makes it to the paper or
the screen. The audience could be inspired to thought and action with the
inclusion of more opinion and analysis. Some of this happens on cable
television, but the debates are often frivolous and overstated. This type
of debate and the empty speculation that usually comes with it are worse
than no debate at all. The press should provide audiences with issues for
discussion, not just hollow reports of events that can only be regurgitated.
5. Revitalizing Individualism. It will be difficult for the homogenized
news to inspire the audience to hold fast to their principles and to avoid
conformity in the face of societal pressure. But the democratic ideal
demands a significant move away from the prevalent herd
mentality. Recharged individualism will make it easier for audiences to do
their own work when it comes to detecting doublespeak and empty
rhetoric. A rebirth of individualistic "inner-directedness" will help
citizens to discover external controls that reduce autonomy of thought,
word and deed.
These suggested reforms may seem minor here, but they are just the
beginning. And they are examples of ways that journalists can start
working toward the democratic ideal right away without great expenditures
of time or money. Taking small steps such as these is crucial to the
press's role in reaching the democratic ideal and creating a world
community. But this will be no perfunctory task, and journalists should
not view their careers one story at a time; they should examine their
overall contribution to the realization of the democratic ideal. As one of
the greatest socializing forces in America today, the media have a duty to
wield their power responsibly. In the interests of freedom and truth,
American journalism must not stand in the way of the democratic ideal.
[1] References
Alan Harrington, Life in the Crystal Palace (New York: Alfred A. Knopf
Inc., 1959).
[2] Erich Fromm, in George Orwell, 1984 (New York: Signet, 1950) p.263-264.
[3]
John Milton, Areopagitica (Wheeling, Illinois: Harlan Davidson, Inc.,
1951) p.50.
[4]
George Orwell, "The Freedom of the Press," unpublished introduction to
Animal Farm.
[5]
Ibid.
[6]
Ibid.
[7]
Ralph Nader, "My Untold Story," Brill's Content, Feb. 2001, p.100.
[8]
Ibid., p.154.
[9] Walter Lippmann, Public Opinion (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997).
[10]
Ibid., p.158.
[11]
Upton Sinclair, The Brass Check, 9th rev. ed. (Long Beach Cal.: The
Author, 1928) p.222.
[12]
Lippmann, op. cit., pp.212-213.
[13]
Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent (New York: Pantheon
Books, 2002).
[14]
Robert McChesney, "Upton Sinclair and the Press of Capitalism," Monthly
Review 54 May 2002, p.1.
[15]
Michael Parenti, Inventing Reality (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1986) p.51.
[16]
Ibid.
[17]
Ibid.
[18]
Walter Lippmann, Liberty and the News (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction
Publishers, 1995) p.58.
[19]
David Riesman, The Lonely Crowd (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1961)
p.192.
[20]
Ibid.
[21]
Ibid.
[22]
Ibid., p.193.
[23]
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, ed. Phillips Bradley, vol. 1
(New York: Vintage Books, 1945) qtd. in J. Herbert Altschull, Agents of
Power (White Plains, NY: Longman Publishers, 1985) p.29.
[24]
Altschull, op. cit., p.29.
[25]
Lippmann, op. cit., p.147.
[26]
Ibid., p.146.
[27]
Ibid.
[28]
Ben Bagdikian, The Media Monopoly, 3rd ed. (Boston: Beacon Press, 1990)
p.192.
[29]
Altschull, op. cit., p.63.
[30]
Parenti, op. cit., pp.214-215.
[31]
Sinclair, op. cit., p.353.
[32]
Parenti, op. cit., p.94.
[33]
Ibid., pp.99-102.
[34]
Herbert Gans, Deciding What's News (New York: Pantheon Books, 1979) p.51.
[35]
Ibid.
[36]
Parenti, op. cit., p.222.
[37]
Bagdikian, op. cit., pp.178-179.
[38]
Ibid., p.179.
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