While it’s true that the media is a business, it’s not usually treated as just a business. Journalists claim to have a higher purpose in informing the public, holding the government to account, etc. The media has often been called the fourth estate because of its importance and influence, and press freedom is one of the ways we judge the health of a democracy.
Is making money the only thing that matters or should we expect more?
“The media” is often short for “the news media”; but it can also mean “entertainment media” or “communications media” more generally. I hope I’m not being too pedantic, but for this particular question, I think it’s an important distinction.
And yes, I think the news media have a responsibility to do more than just whatever makes them the most money. Arguably, a big part of the reason America is so messed up right now is that so many Americans have been getting their “news” from sources that have been wildly skewing it in order to make money and gain political power.
This is not a new problem. As long as there has been a USA, there have been wildly partisan news sources. But it seems to have been worse in some eras than in others.
Every business of every kind has more responsibility than just making money. If it doesn’t benefit the public in some important way while ostensibly abiding the law it’s no more than a criminal enterprise.
Whence comes this responsibility? To whom is it owed, and why? How could we enforce this responsibility? This isn’t rhetorical, I am really interested in your (and anyone else’s) answer.
Media owners use money to put together a package that includes advertising and journalism and other things, and try to make it attractive to the buying public. The better ones aren’t necessarily going for “the most money” but they do have to survive in a very competitive market, and they do have to get a return for their investment. Some owners clearly are abusing the notions of journalism and news for the sake of money and power, but I don’t know what anyone can do about them except not to contribute to their success, and to support those of their competitors that are least unworthy. All of their income depends on their audience. Can you shrink the audience for those owners abusing the idea of journalism? I’d sure like to know how.
I was, of course, using business in the sense that Milton Friedman did when he created shareholder theory, that a firm’s sole responsibility is to its shareholders. You can trace virtually everything about today’s economic and class inequalities and inequities to corporations gleefully embracing this policy. I’m agin it.
The real purpose is to serve the interests of their owners or controlling interests. This could be to generate a profit or to push an ideological agenda.
That’s such a weird way of stating things. After all, legally speaking, the shareholders are the business, so what he was saying in effect, was that a business’s sole responsibility is to itself. Which I get, I suppose, I just don’t understand why businesses are always behaving as if looking after their shareholders is some kind of an altruistic act. That’s what they hired you to do!
Well, I was being facetious about strip clubs - I support sex workers but not their exploiters and from what I understand strip clubs exploit their workers and many are indeed engaged in illegal activities.
But your question is an interesting one. How many people do work for businesses that fail to give back to their communities, fail to properly pay their workers, refuse to take steps to clean up manufacturing and waste disposal, scant on pensions and health care, fail to hire potentially excellent workers because of discrimination, and all the hundreds of other schemes to retain money for stockholders, especially top management and the board, who now expect to be made rich through stock and stock options?
My bet is that the number is extremely high. Are those practices criminal in the legal sense? Hmmm, yeah, some of them indeed are. Do the businesses feel the weight of the law? Seldom and in tiny measures. Fines in the millions mean nothing to corporations whose net revenues are in the billions. Realistically, many fines are in the thousands, laughably small.
We can all see that some members of the media are lie-spewing propaganda machines. The First Amendment covers all their activities except for libel and slander but again the penalties are puny compared to the money to be made from the gullible. Who taught them that? Milton Friedman laid it all out. Two generations later, we’re reaping the whirlwind.
I agree. I used to work for a Fortune 100 company that was famous for ripping off the government in contracts. The business ethics class I had to take was hilarious knowing this. All the examples saying stuff they did was something you shouldn’t do involved their competitors, not them.
Yes, I mean the news media in this thread. As @Exapno_Mapcase pointed out, most businesses have the potential to do harm if they focus on profit at the expense of everything else, but I think this is especially true of the news media, and there is a stronger expectation or desire for them to maintain some sort of standards.
This is one reason I was surprised to see other posters endorse the idea that the media is just a business. If getting eyeballs on ads is the only thing that matters, why do people complain about Fox news so much?
I think a significant part of confusion in this thread is due to the fact that, as a society, we no longer agree on what is “moral”, what “duty” is, or what a person/company “should do”.
This is why I try to avoid words “moral”, “right”/“wrong”, or “purpose”, as I simply no longer understand what other people mean when they use these terms, since everyone uses them so differently. (when I’m being philosophically strict, they’re still useful on a everyday/informal basis).
Instead, I think it is better (easier to be more precise) to discuss things like, what we we want to happen, what others want to happen, what does happen, and what is beneficial or not beneficial. (beneficial-ness is still very complicated of course, but at least it is simpler then what something is “supposed” to do).
I have a strong suspicion that we all more-or-less agree about what the US (from the discussion, I assume this is US-centric) media is doing, why it’s doing it, and that this is not beneficial for society as a whole.
I think the only real discussion here is if “duty” is a real thing or not. Personally, I’d rather discuss how to change societal incentives and fix the issue than worry about what other people’s “duty” is. (not that I’d know where to begin, given where the US is right now societally speaking).
The thing to get into account is that sure, FOX will get many eyeballs from the right, unfortunately the chances for getting more eyeballs and revenue are diminished as most of the population does realize that there is more spin, omissions and even falsehoods coming from FOX than from other sources of information.
The claim: “There’s no evidence that white supremacists were responsible for what happened on Jan. 6. That’s a lie.” — Tucker Carlson, Fox News host.
During the segment, Carlson, whose prime-time show is among the most-watched cable news programs, interviewed the author of a blog post that argued the riot did not amount to an armed insurrection. PolitiFact previously rated that claim Pants on Fire.
PolitiFact rating: False. Law enforcement officials said the the attack involved extremist and white supremacist groups. Not all of the rioters at the Capitol were extremists or white supremacists, but several people with known ties to white supremacist groups were involved, including some people now facing conspiracy charges.