July 13, 2009

"Guiding" Light

The fourth edition of The American Heritage Dictionary defines the term “democracy” as the following:
1. Government by the people, exercised either directly or through elected representatives. 2. A political unit that has such a government. 3. Majority rule. 4. The principals of social equality and respect for the individual within a community.
I offer this because it is supposedly at the heart of a soon-to-be released book by Alex S. Jones entitled Losing the News: The Future of the News That Feeds Democracy from Oxford University Press. The description of Losing the News is as follows:
What is wrong with the news?

To answer this dismaying question, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Alex S. Jones explores how the epochal changes sweeping the media have eroded the core news that has been the essential food supply of our democracy.

At a time of dazzling technological innovation, Jones says that what stands to be lost is the fact-based reporting that serves as a watchdog over government, holds the powerful accountable, and gives citizens what they need. In a tumultuous new media era, with cutthroat competition and panic over profits, the commitment of the traditional news media to serious news is fading. Should we lose a critical mass of this news, our democracy will weaken—and possibly even begin to fail.

The breathtaking possibilities that the web offers are undeniable, but at what cost? The shattering of the old economic model is taking a toll on journalistic values and standards. Journalistic objectivity and ethics are under assault, as is the bastion of the First Amendment. Pundits and talk show hosts have persuaded Americans that the crisis in news is bias and partisanship. Not so, says Jones. The real crisis is the erosion of the iron core of “accountability” news, a loss that hurts Republicans and Democrats alike.

Losing the News is a vivid depiction of the dangers facing fact-based, reported news, but it is also a call to arms. Despite the current crisis, there are many hopeful signs, and Jones closes by looking over the horizon and exploring ways the iron core can be preserved.
Dan Rather, who stood behind CBS’s use of fraudulent documents while George W. Bush was dictator-in-chief, gives Losing the News a glowing review, which leads me to believe that I’ll bypass this if I see it on the shelf at my local Barnes & Noble. That aside, I caught an interview with Mr. Jones on C-SPAN’s BookTV this weekend and found it a bit odd that this book was even written.



Why do I say this? Well, it’s based on a contradiction: democracy must be saved, but the people who make the democracy shouldn’t have a say in what happens.

During the BookTV interview, Jones elaborated on his love of The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer as well as printed newspapers and magazines. He lamented over the obvious decline of print media with the growth of the “new media” on the Internet.

What I found troublesome was at one point during the interview, he said that while the Internet can be a powerful thing, our society needs to be “guided” in the right direction toward print media. He explained that while people might let the Internet overtake print, we shouldn’t just let it happen on its own.

Here’s the contradiction that makes me question the basic premise of this book: If the book has been written under the guise of “saving” democracy, how can Jones also become upset when the members of that same democracy—in this case, the United States—are the very people who have decided that print is no longer what they want?

Moreover, if you have to be “guided”—more than likely by the federal government—you no longer have any element of democracy. If anything, you have a situation where an authoritarian government telling the people what’s best for them.

The sentiment that Jones expresses is similar to that of newspapermen a few months ago who called for a “bailout” of the newspaper industry when it became apparent that printed newspapers were dying with the rise of the paperless Internet. These newspapermen were upset to see their industry threatened, and quickly used the same defense: they wanted government intervention to “save democracy”—even though their own democracy is the one that showed little interest in what they were offering.

I agree with Jones that much of our current news media is essentially a joke. I’ve been critical of it on several occasions, especially when I see both major news Websites as well as smaller outlets offering fluff pieces as major news stories. My local newspaper Website, for example, has begun to routinely list news on reality television shows next to stories about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as reports on the Iranian protests.

Obviously—at least for me—these stories don’t belong together. Having crap articles about mindless entertainment next to serious news is ludicrous. But unfortunately, they’re doing it because they know that it’s what their readers want. This is what their readers enjoy and whether anyone likes it or not, this demand is going to affect advertising revenue. Advertising revenue is what pays the bills and allows the Website to stay in business in the first place.

Who are these readers? The readers are the same people who make the democracy. The readers are the same ones who lost interest in the print media. And yes, sadly the readers are the ones who lost interest in hard news.

I don’t say that because I like it; I say it because it happened and it continues to happen. If, however, we have the government come in and “save” the print media field—or the “traditional” media, if you prefer—we’re actually violating the very premise of the fight.

If you need to “guide” the citizenry, there’s nothing democratic about it. As such, you shouldn’t even bother using the term “democracy.” At that point it’s no longer a democracy; it’s a nanny state.

Ω

No comments: