Richard Wolfe writes that journalism is facing an existential crisis:
It’s long past time to wake up to the existential threat facing the media on both sides of the Atlantic. It’s time to ask the tough questions of our politicians – and the tough questions of ourselves.
Those politicians are making it harder for journalists to ask questions:
Back at today’s White House, CNN’s White House reporter Kaitlan Collins found herself barred from a press event for having the temerity to ask a question at all. As the reporter for the collective White House media, known as the “pool”, she lobbed a question at Donald Trump and the EU’s Jean-Claude Juncker, just like hundreds of reporters before her.
The officials managing communications for Trump’s White House deemed the questions “inappropriate” and excluded her from a Rose Garden statement the same day.
The decision was made by Bill Shine, the new White House communications director and former Fox News executive, whose career rose with the man who is quite probably the most dumb and offensive anchor on television: Sean Hannity.
When the official political institutions of a country have been corrupted, there are only two checks left -- the courts and the press. In the United States, the Supreme Court has almost been captured. That leaves the press:
In the UK, there is a more aggressive culture of media questioning in part because of the parliamentary tradition of prime minister’s questions – the live and televised weekly grilling of the leader of the government.
In the US, without any equivalent of prime minister’s questions, there are only the informal and irregular opportunities the media finds to pop off questions to a president. Thus the importance of that rare event in the Trump presidency: a full press conference. Of course, Congress could and should ask questions of the executive branch, but that kind of oversight – and balance of power – has shriveled under this Republican leadership with this president.
If the press can be neutered, the game is over. Consider what has happened in Turkey:
There are the courts and there are independent news organizations. Anyone who has watched the systematic crushing of Turkey’s vibrant media knows that today’s wannabe dictators have wised up to the power of the press to shatter their deceitful hold over their people.
This is a moment of supreme crisis. Make no mistake.
Image: Montgomery County PA
6 comments:
It,s a big problem, Owen. I think the downfall in the West started back with the amalgamation of big media and neo-lib economics. Newspapers became tabloids which became wrappers for ads. Then it spread to television. Even CBC's The National is full of crap and so many ads that I turn it off. The BBC in England is becoming (at times) a joke.
So, where do people get their news? As always, over the back fence, at Tim Horton's or the modern versions, Facebook and Twitter; all gossip. Decent reporting has almost become a myth.
BTW, nasty regimes like the one now in Turkey would have a much tougher time of it if the West had good reporting.
I agree, Toby. We have allowed media organizations to become conglomerates. And we have reduced the number of voices. Newpapers and large televison networks serve their main master -- profit. William S. Paley, the guy who founded CBS, used to say that he did not expect his news divsion to make a profit. He hired people like Jack Benny to do that for him.
It's a Supreme Crisis for Big Corporations and their Big Shareholders. (Even for the little Mediocre bottom-feeders who eat the slivers of meat that fall from the jaws of the sharks.)
It's the end of the world as we know it (they said the same about FDR) and I feel fine.
-YKW
I'm not convinced its the end of the world as we know it, YKW. But when Trump tells me I should not believe what I see or hear, I look for people and organizations who can find the facts and report them.
We rarely discuss what constitutes a free press or the essential role a free press plays in maintaining liberal democracy. My view is that a free press is a national media that is widely held (owned) and that delivers to the public easy access to the broadest range of information and opinion across the entire political spectrum. That is the key to preserving a properly informed public without which there can be no meaningful informed consent at the ballot box.
The Davey and Kent commissions taught us everything we need to know about the value of a free press and how to maintain it but our political masters stood by and allowed the media to be swallowed up wholesale by a few rival corporate interests. Concentration of ownership and media cross-ownership ensued, a race to the bottom. Journalism became an endangered career. Newsrooms across the country were gutted. The range of voices and outlooks narrowed. The delivery of factual information yielded to messaging. The public came to believe whatever they were told over and over again. This was all purposefully engineered and the payoff is in the state of our conditioned society today.
It's no coincidence that hacks like Ibbitson, Coyne and Murphy now dish up garbage. There are no Doug Fishers, Alan Fotheringhams or Jack Websters, the old ink-stained brigade, any longer. They were flawed, to be sure, but still a damn sight better than the current offerings.
There are hopeful signs, oddly enough in the United States where the media are collaborating on the catastrophe in Washington. News organizations now freely exchange information. They build the story on each other's contributions. McClatchey has this, WaPo has that, the NYT has learned this, CBS adds this while NBC has a look at something else. Together they're building a powerful information matrix. No longer are they confined to packs, all covering the same story and only that story. It works because they freely credit each other for their contributions in order to incorporate that piece of the puzzle into their own story. It even has the news side of FOX, especially Shep Smith, supporting the collective. Ya gotta love it.
It's interesting that some reporters are crediting other reporters from rival news organizations, Mound, and building on the work of their confreres. Perhaps they understand the gravvity of their situation. If they don't hang together, they'll all hang separately.
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