In the thread about fighting ignorance in America, I contended that the American media does not do a good job of informing Americans about foreign policy. I was looking through some articles, and came across this column from a BBC correspondent in Washington who contends that American reporters are willing to accept the word of an authority figure much more so than British media. His depiction makes it seem that U.S. reporters cower from authority. The reporter claims that this is a reflection of the U.S. culture, in which we are taught to accept the words of authority figures.
Anyhoo, it’s not a rosy picture if it’s true that we’re getting all our news from reporters too timid to question authority, or too lazy to have all the facts to question an authority figure’s statement. And, you have to ask yourself, if this is an accurate picture, why is it that they media outlets accept this type of work from their reporters? Any Reporting 101 student can tell you that it’s important to be prepared and ask followup questions.
Some excerpts. I bolded some parts I found particularly interesting.
I believe it is worth noting that, at least in political journalism, the coin of the realm is “access”. A journalist’s standing in the food chain is determined by their level of access. Access is granted by the folks in power being questioned. The current administration gives the impression of being quite open about threatening to cut off access to any journalist who “strays too far.” The result is a meek press media.
I have a relative who is rather high up in the media heirarchy (you undoubtedly know his ever-so-slightly bent face) who suggests that it’s not so simple. Some agencies and reporters do jostle for access, and they are willing to kowtow to get it. But others are just lazy or cost-saving: it’s easier to re-type warring press-releases and cover press conferences than it is to go out and get a story.
In my opinion, the everyday “press” is becoming more and more the “regurgitated press release.”
Yeah, if the goal of the journalist is to get the story “first,” this is a way to do it. Let it be known that you’ll unquestioningly report a source’s thoughts. This leads to a lot of anonymous sources with the understanding that the story is an exclusive, “insider” piece.
But, when at a press conference, how many times did you see American reporters openly questioning a statement by Rumsfeld? Like in this example, where a Brit was interviewing Rummy:
You just don’t see that in American journalism. Not often, anyway, and certainly not enough to give the American public a true picture of our government. I just have to believe that lazy, unchallenging journalists had to be a big reason that America was led to believe that Iraq was a major threat to our security.
You have to wonder why a media outlet puts up with this from its reporters. Why not demand more from your workers? OR … Is it that the corporate media doesn’t mind this style of journalism when it comes to covering foreign matters? Does the corporation owning the media outlet encourage reporters to question the nation’s leaders, or does it prefer a “patriotic” approach that results in providing our leaders a mouthpiece to the public in times of pending war? If a media corporation truly OPPOSED something, I’m certain its side would be properly covered in its pages or on the airwaves. The fact that this didn’t happen with the Iraqi war – there was almost zero news from the peacenik’s standpoint in the mainstream media – shows me that the media corporations had little to gain by avoiding a war.
In one interpretation, you may say that the “product” of the news media is news and the “consumer” is the reader/viewer.
In another interpretation, (looking at the financial model of the business) you may say that the “product” of the news media is viewers and the “consumer” is advertisers. The news media delivers viewers (customers, in the form of ratings) to advertisers (who pay the news publishers).
So, if I’m the news media, in general, I don’t want to alienate my advertisers, and I don’t want to alienate my viewers. I keep the news within a generally accepted framework, and I don’t antagonize the public by antagonizing popular leaders with too many tough questions. I keep my finger to the wind and if it starts blowing the other direction, I follow.
Icarus, my point is that our media has pretty much sold its soul in the name of capitalism. We have freedom of the press. But, what good is that if they don’t try to pursue all sides of the issue? How the heck did we just go to war under the auspices of stopping a brutal dictator from attacking us first with WMD? When there were no WMD. And, when said dictator didn’t plan to attack us.
But, we don’t have a problem propping up dictators elsewhere, who brutalize their own population. And, the media doesn’t seem to care. Doesn’t even ask questions or draw comparisons. Or, does so rarely.
My point is that the media should at least try to inform us, in good faith. They shouldn’t take their cues from our leaders. They should try to get us all the facts. They should work to give a broad range of views.
Do we just say, “Oh well, they’re out to make a buck,” and not at least demand more from our press? The large media conglomerates are taking freedom of the press, and turning it into freedom to turn a buck. It’s difficult to swallow, but I don’t know how it will ever be fixed.
Anyhoo, I go to the Internet to learn what’s really happening. I got to alternative sources to find other views. I have friends who are constantly posting information that you never see in the mainstream news. I just hope the Powers-That-Be don’t decide to censor the Internet and take over that form of communication, because it will turn into the same thing.
It just makes me sad that we aren’t informed. How can you be a great nation, and have its people uninformed?
**Clucky, ** what’s equally sad is that no one * has * to be uninformed. There are countless books on any subject that’s currently in the news, and dozens, if not hundreds, of independent news organizations on the Web. Information is not kept from us-- it’s just not spoon-fed to the masses in the major media.
To stay informed, you have to watch more than CNN, and you need to read more than * USA Today. * However, most people aren’t willing to do that. Simply put, most people just don’t care. A good portion of Americans don’t read even a mainstream newspaper, or watch the news on television.
My husband teaches at our local university branch campus. Prior to the war, he took a poll of how many had read a newspaper or watched the news in the previous week. Very few hands were raised. Most got their “news” through word of mouth: what their co-workers, pastor, or friends had told them about current events. All had loud and firm opinions, though few knew the details.
I think one of the factors that leads to this relative indifference to really knowing about what’s going on in the world is our nation’s wealth and stability. International turmoil doesn’t affect our daily lives, so it doesn’t seem relevent to some. There are no major changes in our government when administrations change, nor are there any economic crisises to keep people on the edge of their seats.
The mainstream media has no desire to rock the boat. Hostile questions to the administration might lead to less access to politicians, and stories which might offend the corporate sponsors are utterly unthinkable. The purpose of a media outlet is to make money, pure and simple. A hot story might temporarily sell more papers, but if it makes a sponsor pull its ads, that could be a loss of millions of dollars.
Orwell was an idiot. Big Brother has no need to censor the media: the media will happily police itself. There’s no need to silence the smaller media outlets, because only a few malcontents read them anyway, and no one really cares what they think. They could shout the truth from the rooftops and no one will take notice, except to mentally dismiss them with the thought, “What a nut!”
The information is out there, for whomever cares to read it. No one is censoring the independent media. Getting people to read it is the trick.
It isn’t a matter of “putting up with it.” It’s the outlets pushing the change, not just the reporters. When you spend less money on research and travel, you can spend more on development and marketing.
It’s one thing for journalists to kowtow to the military. It’s one thing for journalists to become so “embedded” in the military that they start to identify with their military overlords.
It’s quite another thing for journalists to identify so strongly with the military that they start leading the soldiers!
I think the American print media does a good job on the whole. Sure there are questionable episodes like the Judith Miller story linked above and the hyping of the Jessica Lynch story but there is also a lot of tough reporting and commentary. There were plenty of reports in the NY Times and WaPo even before the war about the doubts in the intelligence community about the administration line. There have been a series of tough articles by Seymor Hersh in the New Yorker. Even commentators like Fareed Zakaria who supported the war have been deeply critical about aspects of the Bush policy. Etc etc.
However the OP is probably correct when it comes to broadcast journalism particularly when it comes to interviewing public officials. Journalists simply aren’t aggressive enough. Incidentally this doesn’t apply just to the networks and cable. Public TV and radio are some of the worst culprits when it comes to interviews; they are just too polite and deferential eg.Jim Lehrer. However, at least on PBS, the same show will often have excellent in-depth reports.
In short the picture is a bit more complicated than the Justin Webb article portrays but he is at least partly right when it comes to broadcast journalism.
Why does our media refuse to inform us about international events? Because we exist in a state of willful ignorance. For example, each and every person has/had an opinion on the War in Iraq. An AP poll found that 18% of college students could find Iraq on a map. Somehow, the average “educated” person doesn’t care enough to know the LOCATION of a country that were were/are engaged in armed combat with. The question is, why should America be informed about concepts and movements that are beyond our scope? How can we understand the socio-political movement of groups if we can’t grasp geography? In a democracy, we get the government we deserve and in capitalism, we get the news we deserve. Intellegent news will only come when there are intellegent consumers.
Looking back at the softball questions-cleared-in-advance press conference George W. Bush had right before the start of the Iraq war, I have to say I completely disagree. Even if the press conference itself was lame and superficial, there was plenty of opportunity for a hard-nosed reporter/news outlet to shred the show and expose it for the meaningless puff piece that it was. It was a fat, plump, juicy, vulnerable target, yet none of our “tough” reporters took up the mantle.
I agree that the media doesn’t do a good job at press conferences and interviews. But that is only one part of journalism. There are plenty of tough stories on the front pages of the NYTimes and WaPo or inside the New Yorker. There is probably a bigger problem with broadcast journalism especially cable news. But even on TV there is some quality reporting: PBS News Hour and Nightline for example.
I picked out these quotes to address a broader issue: Is it that Americans get what they deserve? Or, is it that they have been conditioned to think a certain way? My contention is that the latter is true.
Let’s use the Iraq War as the example, since that’s fresh on our minds, and because the mainstream media is just now starting to catch up to the truth.
We know that the average American is busy. For lots of reasons. Mostly because we want to make money and live the “American dream,” which I think in general means that we have all the modern creature comforts provided by our industrial/technological society. We also have kids and other responsibilities. We have to fix that running toilet, mow our lawn, walk the dog, etc. And, we have to unwind, and usually that means partaking in popular entertainment. Watch TV. Read a book. Go to a sporting event. Go to the park. Go to the movies.
Where does getting the news come into this? At what point do people become informed? Well, usually, a busy family does this by turning on the news, and possibly reading the front pages of the newspaper. So, you know, we at least know the “major” happenings from around the world.
Well, in this type of society, what’s happening is that the media conglomerates have decided what you’ll learn. Which isn’t much. As Apos says, the news agencies are less worried about investing in the news than they are investing in their marketing departments. I’m sure he’s right. And, thus, the news is packaged as a product not to inform, but to bring in as much money as possible. If you don’t realize this about the news, then you willfully believe that you’re getting somewhat informed. You take the information on face value. Add the myth that the news is “liberal,” and you have people being skeptical for the wrong reasons.
So, you have a media that doesn’t care to attack our nation’s foreign policy – in fact, in the case of Iraq, pretty much endorse it – and a busy, on-the-go populace that doesn’t realize this, so doesn’t see the need to even look into the “alternative media.”
If Americans knew they weren’t getting the facts on important issues, I think they’d be upset. But, they don’t know that. And, because they’ve grown up with this type of media coverage, it’s not easy to convince them that they’ve been duped. In fact, people get defensive, I think because they think their intelligence is being attacked. I argue they’re not stupid at all. Just in the dark.
Now, what rjung said:
A lot of people, I think, took the President at his word. I think that’s fair to say. As was argued in the articles I posted, Americans tend to believe authority figures. We give them every benefit of the doubt, as evidenced by this Iraq War. The media is a part of this culture. Add to that the fact that absolutely NO major media outlet wanted to skewer the President for fear of losing advertising dollars. It was “all Patriotism, all the time.” That’s what the average American was exposed to on TV.
Americans’ opinions were already colored by the narrow scope of news coverage. Then, the President comes on TV and reiterates his spiel, to which he was given softball questions.
At this point, it was a slam dunk for the neocons in charge. Go time. Let’s attack, and let’s embed reporters, so we continue to get this great media coverage.
I just can’t blame the average American for falling for this stuff. I would have also, if I hadn’t met some people who showed me where to find the facts about this mess. Not everyone has access to the Internet, either, and unless you do, it’s hard to find these alternative sources. It’s certainly near impossible to learn what the rest of the world is learning.
Well, press conferences are one part of journalism we can actually “see.” It’s also the only time, generally, reporters get to ask questions directly of the President. And, the ENTIRE nation was watching at this press conference. I think it’s significant that during this very important press conference – what’s more important that deciding on whether to start a war? – we saw only softball questions.
When looking at the impact of the mainstream press, you can’t just pick and choose a few good stories here and there. I think you have to consider the big picture, because a few investigative pieces that really look at all the facts isn’t going to make a big impact if the rest of the news we see all day is from just one point-of-view, and ignore all the facts.
I agree that the media should do a better job at press conferences and interviews.
However I don’t think it’s fair to dismiss the print media as just doing “a few good stories here and there”. At least in the quality papers like the WaPo and NYTimes there has been a steady flow of critical articles. Where did we learn about the Niger uranium blunder? What about the looting of the weapons sites in post-war Iraq? What about the doubts within the intelligence community about some of the claims made by the administration? What about the problems in Afghanistan? The quality papers have covered all these stories in detail.
Probably TV hasn’t done an adequate job but even here the problem is mainly with the cable news channels. You still have plenty of quality reports on PBS or ABC.
I learned about the Niger uranium blunder right after Powell’s UN address, well before the war. But, not from the mainstream media. The mainstream media didn’t touch that story. Not until recently.
Same thing about the doubts in the intelligence community. While it was “out there” in the mainstream media before the war, it was not a focus of coverage. And, why wasn’t it brought up by those reporters at Bush’s important pre-war news conference?
The post-war coverage has been much better, I’ll give you that, but it’s a little late. The rest of the world seems to always find out about America’s foreign policy before we do. The Jessica Lynch story’s a good case. BBC did the first story pointing out how Lynch didn’t gun down a bunch of attackers, and that she was treated pretty well in the hospital there. American media outlets slowly have come around to the actual circumstances of that rescue, after blindly reporting the first version from the military’s PR department.
“While it was “out there” in the mainstream media before the war, it was not a focus of coverage.”
I don’t know what you mean by “focus of coverage” but I recall several front-page stories in the WaPo and NYTimes and which quoted insiders(annonymously) who were skeptical of the Bush policy. It wasn’t a secret that many senior soldiers and intelligence people believed that the containment of Iraq was working and should be continued.