Quote:
Originally Posted by CliffFletcher
The business model of the traditional media has collapsed, fatally undermined by Kajiji, Craigslist, and the move to online consumption. I know people who have worked in the media for 25 years and they admit this is the twilight of the newspaper as we know it. Most of their colleagues have been laid off and moved into corporate communications It's no longer a viable business. Not when the money from classifieds has vanished, and digital ads on websites earn a small fraction of what print ads earn (and that's even accounting for ad-blockers).
So the media that are left are desperately chasing an audience. And how do you appeal to a broad audience in this day and age? Sensationalism. Click-bait. Superficial coverage that generates heat without generating light.
That's the dilemma - behave like traditional news organizations did and have a tiny audience. Or let the market dictate your content, and become no different than any other online echo chamber resounding with bias and outrage.
Take the example of the Globe and Mail. As the online version became its main platform, it gradually shed the in-depth, fact and research-heavy pieces and replaced them with columns. And not even even-handed and judicious columns, but flat-out polemics meant to champion a cause or other and outrage any who disagreed. Great for generating clicks and angry rejoinders in the comments section. Problem is that people can get dogmatic jerimiads and calls to action from any of a limitless number of blogs and forums. And the reliance on columns only fuels the belief that newspapers are all highly biased, and are not credible on important issues.
So are the media acting against their own interests? Or do they recognize that the audience for serious, thorough, balanced news is vanishingly small, and not viable in any commercial sense?
|
Great insights into the media game Cliff. I agree that there are definite problems and much if it is profit driven. But here are some things to consider as we think about our media.
Historically, the news media was a lost leader. It was not a money maker and the local owners knew this. Doing proper investigative journalism takes time and costs money, usually more time and money than can be generated in backend advertising. This is one of the reasons why freelance writers became the lifeblood of magazines. They had a publication schedule that was monthly and could get all of their work done in one shot. They paid handsomely for articles, but they didn’t have the overhead associated with carrying those human resource costs. But for interests such as the local newspaper or TV station, who produced the news, they required an expensive body of reporters, editors, producers, and so on, to generate the content for air/publication. The reason these bodies existed was because they were mandated by law and provided a public service.
This is where the vast majority of people don’t understand media. There once was law in the United States that regulated the mediasphere. The Communications Act of 1934 provided regulations to how the scarce broadcast spectrum was to be protected. This was done with the advent of commercial radio, and was designed to prevent a monopolization of the airwaves. Along with that law was the Mayflower and Fairness Doctrines, which required the media to “provide fair and equal opportunity for the presentation to the public all sides of public issues.” This provided the true fairness and balance in the media that was required. Also included in these doctrines was understanding that the mass media maintained a position of trust with the public and was the gatekeeper of the news, a function crucial to the maintenance and success of our fragile democracy. It was well known that an ill-educated electorate would lead to an illiberal democracy, if democracy could exist at all. The job of media was to hold the powerful accountable and present the facts of any issue that directly affected the public.
This golden age of the mass media gave us people like Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite. Newsmen that the public trusted and who people gathered around their televisions to watch and eat their dinner with. This public trust maintained a good relationship between government, the media, and the electorate. There was a cultural respect between all bodies.
This all changed with Vietnam and the Nixon administration. Nixon hated the mass media. He blamed them for his loss to Kennedy in the 1960 election and he wanted to end their power, especially the effect they were having on support of the Vietnam War. He went out of his way to be combative with the media and he was the first to label them the “liberal media” from the Oval Office, putting a twist on Barry Goldwater’s “Eastern Liberal Press” from the 1964 campaign and Edith Efron’s The News Twisters, where she concluded the networks followed an elitist liberal line on all issues. Things only got worse when Nixon was investigated and taken down by Woodward and Berstein from the Washington Post, resulting in Nixon’s impeachment. [Historical side note – after Nixon was impeached and removed from office there were boxes and boxes of the The News Twisters found the White House and Nixon’s private residences].
Fast forward a bit and we get into Reagan’s term in office. In 1985 Reagan appointed Mark Fowler to the position of Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). One of Fowler’s first acts as FCC Chairman was to release a report stating the Fairness Doctrine hurt the public interest and violated free speech rights guaranteed in the 1st amendment. Of course both of these claims were ridiculous as the Fairness Doctrine was a compact that enforced balance in the mass media and gave a voice to those without one. As a result, the Fairness Doctrine was abolished in 1987, and with it the social contract which existed between the public and the press.
What the loss of the Fairness Doctrine did was set us on a course to where we are today. Once the doctrine was eliminated the many regulations which prevented political proselytizing in the mass media, and restrictions on media ownership, were the next targets. Deregulation of mass media became a mission for Republicans and they went after it with gusto. Once they controlled both houses of Congress, and had the President in a corner, they rammed through their grand bargain. With a Republican controlled Congress, the Telecommunications Act of 1996 was passed into law, and with it removal of the vast majority of the restrictions on media ownership. Prior to this law no one interest could hold ownership of a newspaper, a radio station or a television station together in a geographic region at one time. After the passage of the new law one could not only own all three in the same region, but in the same city or town. The diversity in opinion and voice, the regional representation in the mass media, was put on life support with one stroke of a pen. Mass media outlets were bought up and consolidated. Buy-outs and mergers happened to where are today – where five major corporations in the United States own 98% of media. That’s right, 98% of what you see, read or hear in any day is controlled by only five corporations.
It was the death of the Fairness Doctrine and the Telecommunications Act of 1996 that opened the gates of media hell. From it was born Fox News. Without the entrenched protections of the Fairness Doctrine in the laws which governed the broadcast spectrum, fair and balanced only became a catchphrase for a network who clearly wasn’t. It started us on this slippery slope, and now we have to live with it. Fake news sites and all.
Canadians honestly don’t know how good they have it when it comes to media. You guys can trust your media because the CRTC still holds the media to a standard that no longer exists down here in Jesusland. When I get asked what new sources people should review for good information I always point to Canadian and British sources (not all) as they are held to a higher standard. I always point to interests that are forced to maintain long-standing journalistic integrity and ethics. There are still a few in America (NYT, WaPo, etc.) but they are few and far between. For the past 40 years the right has systematically attacked the press and delegitimized them in the public’s eye. We now live in the middle of the media swamp they so badly wanted. Canada, please don’t follow us into this mess. Hold your own and hold your press in high regard.