Question about news media, competition, and "conspiracy theory"

Factual Questions
1

This is based on a discussion a friend and I were having.

My position is that news sources (CNN, Fox, NBC, New York Times, LA Times, and so on) are in (major) competition with each other. That is, they are all trying to scoop each other and be the first one with some breaking news or have some new angle or interview relating to existing news. While I generally agree that there is information and news that never reaches the public, this is due to the lack of access the news media have to the information. In other words, the government certainly censors or withholds information, and sometimes the news has poor or fraudulent sources which may provide misinformation. However, my overall point (and the origin of the discussion) is that the news organizations themselves don’t all get together and collude not to report on certain things. It seems that this would be against their best interest if they are indeed in competition with each other.

My friend’s points:

  1. All the news media seem to report the same exact thing. I clarified that we’re not talking about the Associated Press, which is an entirely different matter.

  2. If I’m correct about competition, how come there are several examples of news or events that are reported heavily in, say, Europe, but get narry a peep in the US news. An example he cites is the recent news of capture of a high ranking al-Qaida person. However, non-US news sources were quick to correct that person was actually #15, not #3 (or whatever) that was originally reported. Why doesn’t the US news report on the correction?
    Any supporting or opposing facts you might have? Who is right here (probably somewhere in between)?
    Any thoughts on how I can proceed with my argument?

I’m thinking there should be enough factual angle for this to be a GQ thread, but should it need to go to GD, so be it.

2

Some days they do, other days they don’t (at least, they don’t give the same story the same emphasis).

Most news stories come from a single source or location. And all news organizations have to decide what stories to run. In most cases, they all make the same decisions for the same independent reasons. For instance, last night everyone led with the hand grenade that was thrown at Bush. That’s a no brainer (I’m referring to the story): you report it, and you report it as extensively as you can. Most of the information came from official sources, so the general outline of the story is going to be the same. The only differences depend on who the news location talked to, and what they said. Occasionally, someone might know a bit more about an event, giving that organization an edge. But if no one does, the news reports are going to be very similar.

They may, but give it less play. And part is laziness: if they’re told he’s #3, that’s what they report unless they have a reason to examine the claim. When the facts come in, the news has moved on to another story.

3

What you’re asking about is “news judgement” for which there is no factual answer.

What is a fact is that news reporters, editors and producers tend to have roughly the same background, education and experience. From this it may be inferred (although not proven) that they tend to look at things through the same set of glasses. Add to this the ubiquitos market research which shows that American viewers say they like this and don’t like that, and the time and space restrictions and you tend to get a certain sameness.

I recently read an article (sorry, I can’t cite) from a reporter who followed Dan Rather around on his last day anchoring the CBS Evening News. Rather predicted what stories would run on the other two networks’ newscasts. Not only was he by and large accurate, but he was also pretty accurate in predicting the order the stories would appear.

An apt comparison is fast food. Most fast food hamburgers contain the same amount of meat, the same basic condiments and the same type of bun. Most fast food restaurants serve the same size fries and drinks. Most of them only offer chocolate, vanilla and maybe strawberry shakes. Does your friend think there’s a conspiracy among the leading fast food chains?

4

Well, you are correct that they are in competition with one another, and your friend who sees a conspiracy of some sort is, in my opinion, incorrect. The problem, it seems to me, is detrmining exactly what they are in competition over. Your own analysis suggests that the competition should be over news itself, that news organizations should battle one another for different or unique stories so that they don’t simply reproduce each other’s stuff.

The problem is that, for news networks—indeed for all capitalist media outlets—the news itself is actually rather incidental to their mission. The competition they are engaged in is not for news, it is for advertising, because that’s what pays the bills and generates the profit. Sure, they want as many viewers as possible, but in the media business the viewer is someone whose needs are only considered to the extent that they will allow the media company to generate more ad revenue.

When the news media judges the importance of a story, they are not asking themselves some deep, philosophical question about how important this particular topic is in the big scheme of things. Rather, they are asking themselves, “Are American viewers going to watch this—and hence also watch the advertising that goes along with it—or are they going to find it boring and switch to another channel?” If American news outlets fail to show certain news stories from Europe, or wherever, it’s not that they are engaged in some sort of collusion or conspiracy, it’s that they all think that they have a pretty good idea of what will keep their audience tuned in.

If you do any reading in the history of global media, you will see that American media is usually thought by most media historians to be less concerned with international news than the media of most other Western democracies. American media has tended, over the years, to be more insular, only focusing on international issues when they directly affect the United States in some way. Some commentators have actually noticed a reversal in this trend since 9/11, with many Americans—and hence American news outlets—becoming more interested in what is going on around the world. Still, it seems to me that international news is only really addressed in any detail in the American media when it has some direct impact on this country (war in Iraq; Israeli/Palestinian relations, etc.), or when it has some massive shock value (the recent tsunami in Asia).

Noting that American news outlets tend to show the same sort of thing, and that they tend to focus on some issues at the expense of others, is not a conspiracy theory; it’s an institutional observation and analysis that takes account of the political economy of the media and the need for audiences and revenue.

Of course, this whole issue leads into the time-worn question of whether the media actively determines what the public gets to see and what the public wants, or whether media content is simply a response to public demand for certain types of programming. The answer probably lies somewhere in between, and attempting to determine exactly where has cost many media analysts a whole lot of time, effort, and ink.

If you’re interested in looking at this in more depth, there are plenty of interesting books on the subject. Some i would recommend include:

Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, by Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky.

The Known World of Broadcast News: International News and the Electronic Media by Roger Wallis and Stanley Baran.

The Media Monopoly by Ben Bagdikian.

In terms of the actual news gathering itself, there are also factors there that contribute to the sameness of the news. Most news organizations, even the 24 hour cable news channels, have, over the past decade especially, tried to cut costs by having fewer reporters in the field. This is especially the case in international locations. This means that if a story suddenly breaks in a place where no American news outlets have anyone on the ground, if they want to report on it they either have to send someone out, or they have to pick up the story from one of the big international organizations like Reuters, AP, or even the BBC.

In many cases, media outlets seem to believe (maybe correctly, maybe not) that the American people have a very short attention span when it comes to international news stories. Look at the case of Afghanistan. Once the Taliban were kicked out and “peace” was restored, it virutally fell of the news map, despite the fact that the country is still subject to considerable violence, opium production is as high as ever, and authority in the country is still stringly contested. Same with the Darfur region of the Sudan, which got a few weeks of heavy airtime last year but has hardly been heard of since, despite the fact that things are still very bad there.

Unfortunately, the American media believes it can get by almost exclusively on American politics, sports, and large doses of celebrity crime stories, like Laci Peterson, Michael Jackson, the bride who ran away, etc., etc., ad nauseum. Hell, anyone who watches the cable news shows knows that they are now so bereft of actual news-gathering and reporting that they actually have segments devoted to telling us what internet blogs are saying. As Jon Stewart said on The Daily Show last night, by doing this they have “combined the visual pizzazz of a text file with the deep insight of a 90 second cable segment.” It’s the saddest fucking thing i’ve ever seen on television, i think.

5

I’d wager it’s a combination of

(a) laziness,

(b) sensationalism (which news article will get more audience interest, the latest event in the Michael Jackson trial, or a correction that the al Qaeda dude that was caught is really a flunky),

and

(c) a desire to not piss off The Powers That Be. News that reflects poorly on infulential people have consequences that some publishers don’t want – corporations will pull advertising (GM pulled out of the Los Angeles Times recently due to an unflattering car review), and politicians will restrict/deny access for groups they dislike (Fox News gets more exclusive interviews with Bush Administration officials than any other outlet).

I agree for the most part, though sometimes I’m baffled at some of the sensationalist news that doesn’t get more press time. A recent example is the leaked intelligence memo during the recent UK elections, which showed that the Bush Administration was distorting intelligence to build a case for war with iraq as early as July 2002, and that Tony Blair was gladly going along with it. It’s certainly not as if the Iraq war is a non-issue with the American public, but while it made major headlines in the UK, it’s barely gotten a peep over here.

“Liberal media,” my ass.

6

This gives you a glimpse into how quickly things have changed over just the last two decades:

Speaking of “the liberal media,” I came across this bit of information:

globalissues.org

It also bothers me that although there are more news outlets than ever, there are fewer and fewer owners. That means less competition, not more.

Ever noticed how stations break for commercials at exactly the same time?

7

I had just posted when I looked up at my news scroll and saw that Yahoo! News is reporting that Yahoo! Music is priced so low that it is hurting its competition. Talk about stinky journalism!

8

Also relevant is that news organistions will, in general avoid reporting stories that are likely to decrease their ad revenue. If GlobalMegaCorp has substantial advertising bugets at all major news outlets and has made it clear that they take a very dim view on news organisations that put a negative spin on GlobalMegaCorp’s products. Then it could quite easily arise that a “consipracy” may form even if nobody ever meets in smoky rooms.

Similar allegations have been made against the White House informing journalists that they would restrict access to those journalists who publish negative information about them. The dependance of news media on advertising revenue creates a massive conflict-of-interest.

9

Not only that, but some corporations take a dim view of their advertising appearing anywhere near anything that might be considered a “negative” story.

This has been going on for quite a while. There’s a great article in an old edition of the Wall Street Journal about the problem. Big companies made very clear to magazines and newspapers that they didn’t want advertisements for their products running opposite or next to any story that might be considered controversial or in “bad taste.” Examples of such bad stories, in these companies’ minds, included anything to do with homosexuality, violence, or other hot-button topics.

I can’t link to the story, because it’s only available online through a subscription to the ProQuest newspaper database, which i have access to courtesy of my university, but here are a few relevant paragraphs from the 2,000-word article:

There’s more in that vein, but i don’t want to cut and paste any more for fear of running afoul of copyright issues. But you get the picture.