Category: Media Page 3 of 8

By Eric Anderson

 

The reason fake news exists is not complicated. The majority of journalists don’t follow a professional ethical code. It’s not that they don’t have an ethical code. It’s that they – or more likely their paymasters — don’t want to be held accountable for breaking it.

Four basic elements comprise the Society of Professional Journalism’s (SPJ) voluntary code of ethics: (1) seek truth and report it; (2) minimize harm; (3) act independently, and; (4) be accountable. But because there aren’t any penalties for not following the code, journalists are perfectly free to: (1) report lies; (2) maximize harm inflicted upon their paymasters enemies, for; (3) a corporate paycheck upon which they are absolutely dependent, and; (4) be left completely unaccountable for the damage done to society. What? You didn’t swoon?

Of course you didn’t. Because, the public already knows this to be the norm practiced by the large majority of “professional” journalists today — as demonstrated by the 2017 Gallup/Knight Foundation Survey on Trust, Media, and Democracy. The survey found that an overwhelming majority of Americans (84 percent) believe it is harder to be well informed and to determine which news is accurate. The same percentage also increasingly perceives journalists to be biased and they struggle to identify objective news sources. And again, hold on to the table: The survey concludes that “[a]mid the changing informational landscape, media trust in the U.S. has been eroding, making it harder for the news media to fulfill their democratic responsibilities of informing the public and holding government leaders accountable.”

Given such a trenchant indictment, and amid the obviously changing informational landscape, one might think the SPJ would be inclined toward some out-of-the-box thinking in an effort to address this catastrophic lack of public trust. Wrong! Just witness the puerile arguments regarding the reasons the SPJ doesn’t enforce their Code of Ethics:

• The SPJ thinks that encouraging fellow journalists and the public to hold news reports and commentary up to ethical scrutiny is the most effective antidote to questionable reporting — not quasi-judicial proceedings;
• And that establishing a quasi-judicial system, such as those found among other professions, would inevitably lead to actions by governments, thereby restricting protected speech;
• And that protected speech is vulnerable and placed in jeopardy whenever it’s allowed to be confused with, or limited by, the professional responsibility to act ethically;
• And that professional enforcement of ethics for news reporting would require more detailed provisions and case law that are far beyond their resources to provide, even if desirable, because no set of rules, however detailed, could possibly apply to all the nuances and ambiguities of legitimate expression;

These are nothing more than excuses as to why the SPJ advocates no action be taken to reform journalism in the modern age. Which begs the question: What action has the SPJ taken?

Well, it seems the SPJ has “entered into a partnership with Bloomberg to teach ethics to professionals.” Fox? Meet henhouse.

And, given that the hens are allowing the fox to rule the roost, it would be remiss to not ask another question: Can we really, in good faith, allow journalists to call themselves professionals?

I’m pretty sure the noted sociologist Eliot Freidson would not. Freidson posited five elements that define a professional:

(1) Adherence to an ideology that asserts a greater commitment to doing good work than to economic gain and to the quality rather than the economic efficiency of work

(2) Performs specialized work grounded in a body of theoretically-based, discretionary knowledge and skill that is accordingly given special status

(3) Possesses exclusive jurisdiction in a particular division of labor created and controlled by occupational negotiation

(4) Occupies a sheltered position that is based on qualifying credentials created by the occupation

(5) Has completed a formal training program that produces qualifying credentials, which are controlled by the occupation and associated with higher education

With good reason, all five factors apply to what are traditionally called the “white collar professions.” Because when doctors lie, people die — witness the opioid epidemic. When lawyers lie, people die. Don’t believe me? Do a quick web search of “dishonest prosecutor death penalty.” When engineers lie, people die –witness Boeing. In short, when professionals that broker in public trust tell lies, people needlessly die — witness Judith Miller. And witness, too, the utter lack of accountability that followed her comeback.

Fortunately, the factors outlined above also contain the cure to the changing informational landscape’s problem with fake news. Journalists can create sheltered positions that are based on qualifying credentials created by the occupation, combined with a formal training program that produces qualifying credentials that are controlled by the occupation and associated with higher education. Which, in turn, would result in truly professional journalists that assert greater commitment to doing good work than to economic gain, and to the quality rather than the economic efficiency of their work.

And hear the SPJ protest: Requiring the establishment of a quasi-judicial system, such as those found among other professions, would inevitably lead to actions by governments, thereby restricting protected speech! It might. But it doesn’t have to.

Coming full circle, we arrive back at the point where the SPJ has utterly failed to think outside the box.

Licensure does not need to be required in order to be effective. It can be voluntary, because the U.S. Constitution also enshrines another fundamental right – the right to enter into and be bound by contract. Just think, for a moment, the profound trust that would be instilled among the public for the journalists who were willing to put their necks on the line – for the truth.

Thus, the answer to the fake news problem can be solved as easily as it was created. A few brave and principled journalists just need to form a new organization that allows them to submit to licensing requirements, wherein their peers can sanction and revoke licensure like every other “professional” organization in the US that brokers in public trust. And for that, one can only hope their efforts will be applauded and secured throughout the remaining history of what once was, and still can be, a noble profession.

Until that time, journalism deserves every ounce of shame thrown upon its practice.

So, I stumbled across this chart recently. Apparently a librarian was using it to teach students about bias.

Where to start?

Well, first, who reading this thinks that the Economist is left wing?

Who here thinks that the New York Times opinion pages are far-left? Or for that matter, CNN opinion?

Those who read or watch the BBC will know of its unrelenting hostility to Corbyn and Labour, and that it isn’t even centrist any more.

MSNBC is as left-wing as Jacobin and the Intercept? Mother Jones is radical left when their house blogger said Bernie was to blame for Clinton losing? (And does anyone think Kevin Drum isn’t a centrist?)

The second thing is this weird equivalency. People who want universal healthcare are the same as people who are racists who want to cut taxes and impoverish people? People who want to do something about climate change are the same as climate change deniers?

The “far”-left in the US or Britain aren’t communists, they are social democrats who would have been considered weak tea in the 60s.

These bias charts and organizations are all folks with money and and an ideological agenda to push: They want to control the Overton window and say what is “reasonable.” And they’re indoctrinating children by pretending to be “scientific.”

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It is not possible to make good decisions without good information.

In a well functioning society, the media would be part of that system by providing accurate, useful information to the public.

That isn’t the media we have. Strictly speaking, we’ve never had that media, though some periods were better than others.

Let’s run through a few of the issues:

Man Bites Dog; If It Bleeds It Leads

The more we see something, the more of it we think exists. But the routine and normal doesn’t make sensational news.

The truth is that violent crime is at multi-generational lows, but most people don’t think that.

The truth is that the person who will hurt or molest your child is almost certainly not a stranger, but a family member, friend, or other trusted adult.

The truth is that terrorism is not a significant threat to Americans. You’re more likely to get hurt when you slip in your tub.

In almost all advanced, industrial societies, the greatest threat to your well-being, with very rare exceptions, comes from your own politicians and business leaders. They are the people who will hurt and kill you, and that’s simply the case. Even in times of war, this is true, because leaders usually caused the war.

The media does not reflect these facts and other similar ones. As such, it gives people an inaccurate picture of the world, which they then act upon and get disastrous results.

Fake News

There’s a lot of hysteria about fake news lately, but it’s about fake news from non-approved people.

It’s not that the media doesn’t lie its ass off, it’s that “OMG, other people are able to get their lies believed.” 72 percent of Americans didn’t think Saddam was behind 9/11 because the media didn’t lie. And who was one of the worst offenders? The New York Times, the apex of the establishment press.

So, yeah, when the media lies, or passes on what they know or suspect are lies, people get hurt, and badly.

Class Interests

Journalists at elite institutions used to be mostly working class. Now they are mostly university graduates, with a high concentration of Ivy League grads. The more senior you are, the more likely you went to an elite college.

You lunch with politicians and business leaders. You went to school with them. They are your friends. They are your people. You understand them.

Speaking from experience, it’s hard to write something mean about someone who’s really nice to you. People who want good press can be amazingly nice. Heck, there’s an entire industry of public relations people whose job it is to make people in the media like them. Some of them are very, very good at their jobs.

This gets even harder when you come from the same group and share the same experiences and beliefs.

This is part (but only part) of why Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn gets lied about over three-quarters of the time in the press, per academic studies. The people reporting on him, and especially the editors and producers, genuinely despise his politics and think they are wrong, even evil. They want him destroyed. To them he’s practically Stalin or Hitler, and anything they do is justified in the name of defeating him.

A shared world view is a powerful thing. You don’t have to censor people who genuinely believe the same thing as their leaders.

Horse Race vs. Policy

Writing about who can win, rather than analyzing who would do what if they won, guts Democratic decision making. The media should support people choosing who would do those things they agree with, not simply act as if voting is a sport.

He Who Has the Gold Makes the Rules/Freedom of the Press Belongs to Those Who Own Won

If someone hires you to do something, they expect to get more from you doing it than they pay you. This is fundamental: You have a job because you are of benefit the person who controls the money. That is ALL.

Media conglomerates (and remember, they are very, very concentrated) are run by people who expect a return for their money. That doesn’t always mean direct cash. Robert Murdoch loves owning newspapers because newspapers control the news cycle: What newspapers write in the morning is what TV news discusses in the evening.

What is controlling the media cycle worth? Who cares if the newspaper doesn’t make much directly, anyone with other interests knows it’s just a loss leader.

Murdoch also used his newspapers as intelligence operations. He would have phone calls with beat reporters which went on for hours, learning everything they knew about their beats.

The ability to control, or at least strongly influence the public and to decide who gets publicity and who doesn’t, is valuable even when it doesn’t make a lot of money. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos didn’t buy the Washington Post out of public spiritedness.

So even when the journalists, editors, and columnists resist what the publisher wants, the publisher gets their way. It’s just that simple. Those pundits and journalists who wrote against the Iraq war in the run-up to war lost their jobs or had their careers stall out. Phil Donahue had his show shut down, and his show had excellent ratings. It wasn’t about how much money Phil was making them directly: They wanted war, and he was in the way.

You don’t get to use the platform to attack the perceived interests of the people who control the platform.

This should be dead obvious.

The people who control the media have interests. They use media to promote those interests. They are all part of one big club, and while there is elite infighting, they are agreed on most fundamentals. To them, a Corbyn or Sanders is a far greater threat than a Trump or Boris Johnson. Heck, Trump gave them a huge tax cut. Johnson will gut worker’s rights.

They’re basically okay with both, they just find them distasteful people.

The Media Is Part of the Enemy

Perhaps that sounds harsh, but what can be said about an industry which helped ensure the Iraq war happened? An industry which covered for banker bailouts?

Yeah, they’re gushing money because the internet destroyed their business model. Yeah, that may lead to an even worse future (sure as hell Facebook and Google are pure evil), but they were never the good guys.

The media was the least malfeasant, and did some good when they were broken up into many pieces, when the American elite was much larger and less concentrated and had more internal differences, and when journalism was a working class job and most editors and reporters hated the people they reported on, rather than thinking they were part of the club.

Something similar could be done today. It would require legislation and some technological fixes, but it could be done. We could also impose rules that require context to deal with the problem of sensationalism, which would be an issue even with the best will in the world.

But none of this will happen unless it is forced, and it will only be forced if current elites are broken of their power.

Nothing lasts forever. Every elite falls. There will be chances.

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The results of the work I do, like this article, are free, but food isn’t, so if you value my work, please DONATE or SUBSCRIBE.