September 14, 2013
Atul Singh
Atul Singh
“The sole aim of journalism should be service” (Mahatma Gandhi).
Media is in crisis globally, and democracy as we have known it is
under threat. Democracy works when voters make informed choices. The
American colonies fought for independence because Tom Paine wrote
“Common Sense,” which was published widely. India’s independence
struggle was boosted by Gandhi’s decision to publish newspapers such as
“Young India” and “Harijan.” Over time, most societies have come to
accept that media has a public duty. At the very least, media is
expected to inform citizens, and at best, it is supposed to keep the
mighty in check by questioning their actions. Repressive regimes
recognize the danger that media poses and try to rein it in. Democracies
weaken when media is manipulated. The classic example is Italy. Silvio
Berlusconi, a media mogul, peddled propaganda to retain power for a
decade despite his numerous scandals. He was able to do so because
mainstream Italian media started providing titillation instead of
information, and voters chose poorly as a result.
Lest we snigger at Italy a touch too smugly, we could do well to
remind ourselves that media decline is a global trend. Sensationalism
has reached its apogee. Headlines shriek at us. In an age of Facebook
and Twitter, attention spans have shrunk. Our minds are in a state of
Brownian motion because of incessant overwhelming stimuli. Media strives
to gain our attention by creating noise. As a result, there is little
investigation, reflection, depth or analysis anymore.
Partisanship is also on the rise. MSNBC and Fox News are classic
examples of networks with greater allegiance to political parties than
to journalistic principles. The Internet was supposed to herald a brave
new world, in which the world’s best information came to our fingertips.
Instead, it has created echo chambers, where people go to websites that
confirm their prejudices. Discourse has become toxic. The other side is
too often vilified. Washington faces a gridlock that owes its origins
in no small measure to the venom spewed by the likes of Rush Limbaugh,
Glenn Beck and The Young Turks.
Even more alarming is the lack of contextual reporting. People do not
know the background or the importance of issues under discussion. This
is particularly true of foreign issues. For instance, few Americans can
point out Egypt or Syria on the map. Yet, as citizens of the world’s
superpower, their votes have a major bearing on the entire world. During
my lectures across the length and breadth of the United States, I have
been shocked by the level of ignorance among the public. Even students
at Harvard, Yale and Stanford studying politics or public policy often
do not know about the Balfour Declaration or about quantitative easing.
Too many American schools have prioritized test scores over learning.
Education has turned a touch too mercenary. For many, it is now merely a
means to commence a plum career or gain a high paying job. The Ivy
League schools are now watering holes on the path to Goldman and
McKinsey. Educational institutions are abdicating their public duty to
create informed citizens, behaving like glorified trade schools instead.
Poorly educated citizens care less about consuming good information. As
stated earlier, this trend is global and not restricted to one country.
Hitherto reputable newspapers such as The Times of India have turned into tabloids. Even Britain, with its enviable media heritage, has seen a decline of great institutions such as The Times, now a shadow of its former self. The scandal that caused Murdoch’s News of the World to implode led to a number of its journalists ending up in prison.
The decline of the media owes itself to many causes. Poor education
systems have lowered the demand for quality media. At the same time,
there is a supply problem. The old media model that funded quality
journalism is dead. In developed markets such as the US, people no
longer flip through newspapers every morning. Instead, they go online,
where Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and a host of websites compete for
their attention. Advertising, once the mainstay of newspaper revenues,
has fled to Google. The giant search engine is in reality an advertising
company that matches advertisements with individual interests far more
effectively than any newspaper. Even venerable institutions such as the San Francisco Chronicle are tottering. While there seems to be a new surge towards subscriptions, the jury is still out whether The New York Times or Financial Times model of charging readers online is going to work.
Simply put, budgetary pressures are eviscerating media companies.
Among others, CNN shut down its investigative team. Foreign
correspondents are no longer affordable, and local experts are not
contacted to replace them. For every person who works at a newspaper,
there are four people working in PR. Consequently, press releases often
masquerade as newspaper articles. We live in an age of spin and TV
channels such as CNN and Fox News hire good looking anchors rather than
incisive, intellectual interlocutors. The metrics for evaluating a media
company are reach and revenues. This popularity contest and quest for
cash is triggering a race to the bottom. Few sources of information are
credible anymore.
Given the dire state of affairs, the question arises whether the “for
profit” model for quality journalism is the right one. The
philosophical premise of capitalism is that managers should maximize
gains for shareholders. Gooey eyed academics and their acolytes like to
talk about other stakeholders and corporate social responsibility, but
what essentially matters is the price of a company’s stock. If media
companies are “for profit” companies, a conflict between two contending
principles is inevitable. These companies will be torn between
maximizing returns to shareholders and fulfilling their duty to inform
the public.
It is an irrefutable fact that sensationalism and partisanship sell
better than analysis and objectivity. The tabloids in England have long
known this. They use the “tits quotient,” a center page spread of an
attractive topless woman, to keep their cash registers ringing. They
also have headlines such as “Immigrants Stealing Babies” that generate
sales. The News of the World focused on celebrity scoops and
salacious sex scandals. It was phone hacking and bribery that led to its
collapse, not a lack of funds. If it was an oil company or defense
manufacturer, an apology and monetary fine would have sufficed. However,
this highly profitable newspaper had to shut down because of our social
standards for the media. Even a tabloid is expected to adhere to some
principles and provide information that has a semblance of truth.
Celebrity gossip will always attract more attention than the money
misspent by a city council, but the reason we value a broadsheet more
than a tabloid is because it upholds the civic duties of its profession
better.
Democracy only thrives with a vigilant media that informs, educates
and holds the powerful to account. It has to be the forum for concerned
citizens to raise issues that matter. One of the great challenges of
our times is to come up with models that enable the media to fulfill its
public duty. The way forward might be the non-profit model. Of the many
organizations that favor this model, NPR is perhaps the best known and is an outstanding example of radio journalism. The recently founded ProPublica is already a flag bearer for investigative journalism. Project Syndicate publishes editorials from Nobel laureates, professors, former prime ministers, business leaders and other thought leaders. Global Voices
is attempting citizen journalism through creating an international
community of bloggers. Choosing the non-profit model does not mean that
organizations stop straining sinews to attain financial viability. It
ends the existential dilemma regarding their primary purpose. A
non-profit dedicated to informing the public has absolute certainty that
it is playing the historic role of what Edmund Burke called the fourth
estate.
*[This article was originally published by the Huffington Post.]
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