Save the News - Blog
The Entire Future of Media
It’s not often that policymakers are willing to slow down and take a broad look at the decisions that they have made, the changes they’ve incurred and the direction we need to head toward. But the Federal Communications Commission’s “Future of Media” inquiry is doing just that. The agency is taking a holistic look at our media system -- public media, journalism, media ownership and Internet, and the policies that have shaped the system.
The “Future of Media” inquiry calls on citizens to report on the quality of their local media and imagine what a better media system might look like. This afternoon marks the first public workshop on the matter, and explores the idea of “public interest obligations in the digital age.”
In short, this is an opportunity to envision the media we want to see, not merely accept the media we currently have.
The conversation could not be more important or timely. As more media continues to shift from broadcast to broadband, we must ensure that people have access to the news and information necessary to make informed decisions and lead healthy lives. That tension between commercial and civic goals is front and center in today’s discussion. As Free Press Policy Director, Ben Scott, said this afternoon:
I would argue that as we think about evolving technologies, we need to think about evolving our public service principles right alongside. Set aside the dogma of the regulation vs. market fundamentalism debates that so often dominate the FCC’s dockets. Those arguments are simply inapt. The social contracts of mass media policy are not about whether public service principles should be applied upon the market. They are about how they will be applied.
The FCC wants to know what you think. You can participate in their online forums (all of which will become part of the public record on this inquiry and help inform their efforts going forward) by visiting the Future of Media’s web site. They want to know how the media are doing in your community.
You can participate in the online discussion via Twitter using the hashtag #FOMwkshop.
Editor's note: This post has been updated to correct a quotation mistakenly attributed to FCC senior advisor Steve Waldman.
People Are Passionate About Good Journalism
Recently, I had the pleasure of traveling with John Nichols and Bob McChesney on their book tour to promote the Death and Life of American Journalism.
I’ve been working to change the U.S. media system for three years now, and I spend a good deal of that time behind my desk. Having the opportunity to step out into communities that have been affected by our crumbling media system was fascinating – and reinforced what I hear through e-mails and phone calls: People across this country want quality journalism that is compelling, relevant, informative, combative and diverse.
Whether we were at book stores, in classrooms on college campuses, or at large town halls, the events were always filled to capacity, packed with fellow citizens wanting to know how to “save journalism.”
Despite the frequently spouted myth that Americans do not care about quality journalism -- that we’re more interested in Tiger Woods’ infidelities than in the intricacies of Iran’s theocracy -- what I found was a country thirsty for quality journalism.
People were desperate to transform their communities’ newspapers and local television stations into vibrant centers of cultural and civic life.
At Portland State University, attendance for the presentation was so high, we had to bag the small classroom for a large presentation hall, where people were crowded outside trying to find a few inches to get in and listen. One woman with a small child on her hip stuck with me. She told me she had re-enrolled in college to learn how to create sustainable alternative media. Having already earned a degree in history, she wanted to combine her skills to produce a local newspaper that would cover local government.
“For my kids, there are so many issues here with water and schools that aren’t being covered [in the media],” she told me. “I want people to know these things are happening.”
Far from accepting the direction in which corporate consolidation has taken journalism, the people I met wanted to know how they could rescue the media from their decline into celebrity worship and sensationalism.
Similarly, the universities we visited filled their large lecture halls and several classrooms with students who wanted to know why the news media they see are so terrible. Young Americans, like everyone else I met, wanted to find out how to create newspapers and magazines that are financially sustainable, creative and informative.
In conversations with many young people, I found that their rejection of our current media model isn’t a dislike for newspapers per se, as too many publishers and politicians believe; it’s a rejection of the content. People are overwhelmingly fed up with having a few editorial gatekeepers who decide what news is relevant and what stories get reported.
Like so many other Americans, they’ve turned to the Internet in an attempt to find alternative news sources and viewpoints and the many stories left out of the corporate news media. And where newspapers are still vibrant and competitive, people are still voraciously reading them.
But people know that the Internet and a few still competitive news markets are not the answer to our media crisis. In the stark absence of real local news, people are asking, “How will we inform ourselves?”
It’s easy to philosophize from a distance that the public isn’t interested in quality news and investigative journalism anymore – but take to the streets and you’ll find the real story behind the story: People showed up to listen to Nichols and McChesney because they want to begin a national conversation about revitalizing our media system.
Discussing the Future of News in D.C.
On February 16, SaveTheNews.org and Free Press co-hosted a forum on the future of news at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.
The event featured Robert McChesney and John Nichols, co-founders of Free Press, who have been traveling the nation speaking with communities about the role of government currently and historically in shaping our media system.
Other panelists included Jane Hamsher, prominent blogger and founder of Firedoglake.com, and Ivan Roman, executive director of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. The event was moderated by Chris Hayes, Washington D.C. editor for the Nation. Onica Makwakwa, director of UNITY: Journalists of Color, gave opening remarks.
The full event will be on CSPAN's “Book TV” later this month, but below are a few clips from the event that I recorded:
The forum was co-sponsored by Free Press, The Nation, UNITY: Journalists of Color, the National Association of Black Journalists, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists and Firedoglake.com.
PBS: Number one in public trust (again and again and again…)
Stand aside, cable news networks. For seven years and running, PBS has clocked in at number one in public trust – and this year is no exception. Considering that the purpose of public media is to meet the needs of the public and not the shareholders, this poll is a good sign that PBS is on the right track.
The Roper Poll results show that PBS is not only ahead of Fox News Channel and CNN for “most trusted,” but viewers also found that their news and public affairs programming was “mostly fair” (when compared to “liberal” or “conservative”). But beyond the tired “is public broadcasting too partisan” debate (can we put that one to bed already?), the real useful numbers were in the public’s perception of PBS coverage of public affairs issues and news:
More than 75 percent of the public believes PBS addresses key news, public affairs and social issues “very/moderately” well, including providing access to arts and culture (88 percent); promoting understanding of science and technology (82 percent); providing access to a variety of viewpoints (78 percent); informing people about health issues (77 percent); and informing people about important political and social issues (76 percent).
Not only do taxpayers seem to believe that PBS programming is trustworthy, mostly balanced, and covering social issues well, but they also feel it is still a national public resource worth investing in. About 80 percent feel that it is money well spent and a near majority feel that the federal funding PBS currently receives is insufficient.
For all the fear mongering that goes on these days over government investment in journalism, it seems that the majority of people don’t share this panic-driven mindset. Though there are some significant changes that need to be made to our public media system (including a complete overhaul of the current funding system), we already have an infrastructure in place that could be built off of in order to support journalists and journalism in the United States.
One thing is absolutely clear: people want and revere quality, hard-hitting journalism, and they distinguish public media above all other. Shouldn’t be hard to make a case for why we should further support it.
This post originally appeared on NewPublicMedia.org.
Building Better Media
Across the country, community media projects have been sprouting out of a dying traditional media system that has often failed to deliver what the public really wants: local news and information. Now, more than ever before, citizens are taking the media back, using this time of media chaos to forge ahead with news projects that serve their interests—regardless of whether they graduated from J-school or not.
As a “trained” journalist, I understand those who feel threatened by these upstart media projects: Where’s the professionalism? The hard-hitting reporters and fact-checking? But that’s really just my ego talking; there will always be “professional” news outlets in some form. In other words, rather than take the place of mainstream media, new websites are doing something much more essential: reigniting democracy at the grassroots.
Addicted to community news
Last year, Mary Serreze started NorthamptonMedia.com, an advertising-supported website serving my community in western Massachusetts. Serreze was working in the IT department of the local newspaper, the Daily Hampshire Gazette, when she became discouraged by their political coverage. So she began steeping herself in local politics, and was soon bursting to share what she was learning.
She started a radio program at the local Low Power FM radio station, and then developed her multimedia reporting skills. When the Gazette declined to publish her work, Serreze decided to step out on her own—or rather, step up and ask the community for help. The all volunteer-run site, a self-proclaimed “one-stop-shopping” portal for Northamptonites, believes in the “nimble, street-level approach to collecting the news.” Serreze said she started the site “to create a little buzz about things like planning board meetings. Once you start getting involved, it becomes sort of addictive.”
In the last few weeks, I’ve noticed NorthamptonMedia.com step up its level of reporting to begin to challenge newspapers in the area. “The newspapers don’t always provide in-depth reporting,” Serreze says. “We’re prodding them to do a better job.” It used to be that letters-to-the-editor were the only way citizens could communicate with newspapers, question editorial judgment and push for specific reporting. But the traditional gatekeeper walls on news and information have been dismantled by technology. Now readers can challenge local media by simply doing the reporting themselves and turning to alternative local news sources.
The local arena, Serreze says, is where people can effect change, where “you can really dig in, and perhaps make a difference.” It turns out that many other newcomers to journalism in communities across the country are thinking the same thing.
Painting a real local picture
On the same day The Rapidian was awarded a three-year grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the daily local paper in Grand Rapids, Mich., announced it was downsizing from four sections to two. It was perfect timing for the birth of a citizen journalism project that “empowers neighborhood residents to report the news from the inside out.”
The Rapidian’s vision is to create four news bureaus in different sections of the city and use a mentoring system to train citizen journalists. In its first three months of operation last fall, the site has received 120,000 page views and more than 300 submitted news items.
Publisher Laurie Cirivello said the site is helping give a voice to neighborhoods whose residents have felt divided and disenfranchised by mainstream media. “We’ve got a lot of neighborhoods who think they don’t get coverage, or the only coverage they get is when somebody gets shot or a house is broken in to,” she said. “There’s no productive coverage that paints a real picture of what’s going on in those neighborhoods.”
Cirivello said one of the most fascinating parts of The Rapidian was how city residents came together to create the site and cherry-picked positive elements of traditional media while simultaneously creating a new vision to better serve their needs. Cirivello noted that the community decided not to allow anonymity in the comment section of the site.
“The shield of anonymity provided a forum for a lot of hate and spewing,” she said. “The community wanted to try it as a town square, where you come with your face and your whole self.”
Re-enfranchisement
The community blog Duke City Fix in Albuquerque, N.M., was also born out of disappointment with the (only) local newspaper’s coverage of events and the realization that community members needed their own forum. “In Albuquerque, there’s only one newspaper left—the Albuquerque Journal,” says Chantal Foster, who created the site in 2005. “They’re a large land owner, so it should come as no surprise that their slant is pro-growth, pro-sprawl. I wanted … to offer a different perspective on the community.”
Duke City Fix, which has been publishing longer than most new arrivals, has seriously impacted its community by deepening relationships between residents and hosting their organizing efforts. (For example, a group of cycling activists used the website to successfully organize a campaign to get the city to build a boulevard connecting several disparate bike paths.)
Foster emphasizes a common element of community media I’ve always cheered: the inclusion of traditionally disenfranchised voices.
“As a woman seeing so many [male-dominated] generations of authority figures, I like to see more voices trickle up,” she said. “These online communities have allowed other voices to gain prominence.”
Familiar struggles
But Foster also points out some of the challenges posed by community media, something often overlooked when new projects are trumpeted.
“In some ways, people’s analytic capacity is decreasing and they’re forming like-minded communities to hear themselves rant and vent,” she said. “If you’re not paid to do in-depth research on an issue, the only folks who will do that research are one-sided and politically motivated – passionate to the exclusion of another viewpoint. I don’t think that’s great for the evolution of our community discourse.”
Of course, community media projects face a more tangible problem, the same problem decimating traditional media: how to create a viable business model. Many new projects still lack sustainable models. But challenges aside, Foster is grateful for the contribution the project has made to the community.
“If the point of life is to make the world slightly better when you leave it than it was, I feel like in some teeny, tiny way, maybe I’ve done that,” Foster said. “Or provided the forum for others to do that.”
What’s encouraging about this DIY-approach to media is how many people are stepping up to work long hours and volunteer to report and write stories. This means that people understand what their communities are worth, and they’re no longer willing to accept a media system that discounts them.
As more citizens report on their local city council meetings, I’m hopeful they’ll feel emboldened to fight for a better media system by supporting universal broadband access, net neutrality and well-funded public media, and opposing media mergers that further consolidate the industry. In Northampton, Grand Rapids, Albuquerque, and most places in between, journalism’s status quo is clearly not good enough.
This was first published by InTheseTimes.com
Public Policy and Funding the News
This is a guest post by David Westphal, senior fellow at the Center on Communication Leadership and Policy at the University of Southern California. He is the author, along with Geoffrey Cowan, of Public Policy and Funding the News, published this week by the University of Southern California’s Center on Communication Leadership and Policy.
For most of American history, the government has helped sustain commercial news businesses in two significant ways. It has offered steeply discounted mailing rates to newspaper and magazine publishers, and it has required government agencies and commercial businesses alike to publish paid notices in newspapers.
This government support, which has been fundamental to publishers’ economic success, is not well understood by many Americans because it clashes with the notion of an impenetrable wall separating government and the press, something like the church/state divide. In fact, this idea of a wall between press and government is a myth.
As recently as 1970, postal subsidies were reducing publishers’ costs by nearly $2 billion per year (in today’s dollars). Paid public notices have also been a huge boon for newspapers, pulling in hundreds of millions of dollars annually. These sources of support pre-date the American Revolution, and have been important pieces of the news industry’s creation and sustenance.
Now, though, magazine and newspaper publishers face the prospect of losing nearly all of that government assistance, even as they face growing threats to their survival. Most of the postal discounts have been eliminated because of the Postal Service’s financial problems; the 75 percent mailing discounts publishers once received are now down to 11 percent. Today, the public-notice revenue is endangered as well. Legislation has been introduced in at least 40 states to move these notices to the Web, a shift that’s all but inevitable and will drastically reduce this profitable business.
These developments are worth the attention of policymakers as they ponder a role for government in the decline of legacy news businesses. Is it the right course now for government to reduce its investment in news and information, at a time when publishers are struggling to keep their businesses alive?
This is among the questions raised in a new research report, “Public Policy and Funding the News,” published this week by the University of Southern California’s Center on Communication Leadership and Policy. The report is online at www.fundingthenews.org.
“The government has always supported the commercial news business,” the report concludes. “It does so today. Unless the government takes affirmative action, though, the level of support is almost certain to decline at this important time in the history of journalism.”
The report examines not only postal subsidies and public notices, but also the variety of state and federal tax breaks available to newspapers and magazines. Those tax breaks, most of which are offered by the states, reduce government revenues by nearly $1 billion per year.
It is not entirely surprising that the idea of absolute separation between government and the press has taken hold. It’s a notion many in the news business have nurtured. “Take money from the government? I don’t like to let anyone else pick up the check,” wrote Mizell Stewart III, editor of the Evansville (Ind.) Courier & Press. The same dynamic exists in the public broadcasting industry, which often seeks to minimize the amount of money it gets from the government. In fact, state, local and federal governments pay about 40 percent of public broadcasting costs, according to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
This disconnect between perception and reality complicates the question of what should happen now, when the digital revolution is upending the business model of some traditional news businesses. A robust political mindset – keep government out of the news business -- is firmly in place. But the reality is: Government has always supported the news business.
In our report, my colleague Geoffrey Cowan and I take no position on what new government subsidies for the news business should look like, or even whether they should be created at all. We note, for example, that we’re still early in a huge innovation cycle kick-started by the Internet’s growth. It might well be that the rapid development of new digital products will provide a news ecology that needs no contribution from the government.
But we don’t yet know whether that will happen or, if it does, how quickly it will take shape. At a minimum, democracy needs a good back-up plan, and that could involve government action. Our report notes, for example, that public broadcasting is one area where further investment might make sense, in part because public broadcasters have by far the highest trust levels of the American people. That, interestingly, runs counter to one of the often stated reasons for keeping government out of the news business: that Americans won’t trust a news organization that receives government assistance.
We suggest a simple and cautious framework for policymakers to consider as they move forward: First, do no harm at this time of revolutionary change; second, focus on innovation, noting the examples of government-assisted advances in satellite and Internet technology; third, if there are to be subsidies, they should be based on formulas as opposed to programs that create winners and losers.
Above all, we suggest that a reframing of the public debate is in order. For all of American history, government has been a supportive partner of the commercial news business. Should there be a new role for government now, it would be a direct descendant of that legacy.
Institutions or Infrastructure? The Real Opportunity for Online Journalism and Democracy
This is a guest post by Josh Wilson of Newsdesk.org, a commercial-free, non-politicized news source covering important but overlooked issues from around the world.
Want to save the news? Stop worrying about journalism institutions, and start worrying about journalists.
Much of the discussion about media and journalism is about institutions and their relationships with citizens. The issues — that journalism institutions must be transparent, accountable, and provide real value and relevance to the community — are clear enough.
The problem is, the Internet is not about institutions — by which I mean social organizations with a gestalt that is singular and self-prioritizing. Rather, it's about peer relationships — the egalitarian multiplicity with common goals and mutual needs.
This idea of peer-to-peer relationships is built into the physical architecture of the Internet itself. When you talk about institutions as singular, therefore, you talk about intermediaries that more often than not get in the way of peer relationships.
You don't need an institution to practice transparent, accountable, valuable and relevant journalism. You do generally need the facilitation that an institution can, but doesn't always, provide.
And there's the rub: Institution and practice are quite separate — indeed, in today's media ecology, they are also unequal, which is downright poisonous to the peer relationships that animate the Internet as a radically inclusive democratic medium.
Centers of Gravity
The strength of the singular institution is beyond question: It has a superabundance of gravitas and resources. Its administrative infrastructure makes it attractive to capital. Its stellar public profile makes it a beacon for the best and the brightest. Institutions do indeed achieve great things, and are leaders of our society.
Yet, despite this admirable stature, the practice of journalism is all too often subordinate to the needs of the institution. Whether it's a dowager newspaper, a new media interloper, or a buttoned-down journalism school, a fundamental driver of the crisis of journalism is “the institution” itself, which can underserve democracy and communities by hamstringing their social and financial capital:
- People: Institutions are often exclusive/meritocratic agencies rather than inclusive/democratic systems. Whether it's hiring practices, financial disbursements, intern placements, or simply deciding who gets to write the front-page stories, institutions use self-reinforcing systems of referral and affirmation to maintain their position, and support the people and practices they know. This results in risk aversion, hierarchies, groupthink, "old boy networks," and a revolving door between commercial entities and civic agencies that stifles diversity, vision and innovation.
- Money: Institutions have overriding budgetary issues and needs — usually in the form of expensive facilities, top-heavy executive salaries and sprawling administrative support systems, not to mention, in the commercial sector, shareholder demands for profitability — that trump the needs of the newsroom and the journalism practitioners. The hollowed-out newsrooms of American newspapers offer increasingly mute testimony to this profound institutional failure.
Infrastructure as Grassroots
The answer to these problems is in the very architecture of the Internet as, again, not institutional, but peer- and community-driven.
While it’s useful to talk about journalism institutions, and important to make the most of the strengths of these institutions, one mustn’t neglect the actual practice of journalism, as undertaken by an empowered citizenry. This includes working journalists who are indeed citizens before they are part of any institution.
As David Cohn of Spot.Us says, journalism is a process, not a product. It’s that process — that PRACTICE — of journalism by individuals and communities, more than by any institution, that defines the opportunity for open, transparent, inclusive democracy in the era of the World Wide Web.
Consider three factors that profoundly affect the practice of journalism by citizens and communities, whether they happen to be part of institutions or not:
- Standards of practice (best practices/quality control)
- Access to resources enabling practice (material, financial and informational)
- Access to networks (to disseminate coverage and related content)
How do institutions influence these factors, both positively and negatively? What other means of social organization — co-ops, associations, affiliate networks, etc. — can leverage these factors on behalf of transparent, accountable, radically inclusive democracy?
While it's fine to talk about reforming institutions, or creating new ones, and to take reasonable and earnest measures toward that end, I can't help but wonder if that's enough. Perhaps we don't need any more institution-building.
Perhaps what our democracy really needs is new journalism infrastructure — decentralized, mutually interdependent, peer-driven infrastructure that can facilitate the work of journalists, citizens and communities wherever and whoever they are.
Practice Makes Perfect
In practice, the medical and scientific fields are peer communities that set standards, vet the work of community members, share resources and help circulate good information and vital civic dialogue.
In practice, open media infrastructure can serve the lone wolf or ronin reporter with a hot lead, as easily as it can support groups of journalists working in parallel on a massive investigative project. The wild proliferation of blogs and blog networks is a clear demonstration of this.
But "the blogosphere" and Web 2.0 alone are not infrastructure enough. An additional layer of open/co-op social organization and capital provision is necessary.
Slowly, we are beginning to see more intent emerge around journalism practice and grassroots infrastructure.
- The Investigative News Network has succeeded in raising money to build a support network and association for independent, investigative news projects around the country. The project emerged following an unprecedented meeting of dozens of independent news producers at the Pocantico Center in New York state.
- Tom Stites, a Boston-based journalist and publisher, has founded the ambitious Banyan Project, which aims to create a consumer co-op linking working journalists directly with the communities they serve. Banyan's profile is on the rise, and it's backed by five-star advisers, including such luminaries as citizen-media pioneer Dan Gillmor and Center for Public Integrity founder Charles Lewis. (Full disclosure: Though perhaps sporting a few merit badges rather than bedecked with stars, I'm a Banyan adviser, too.)
- My own work with Your Local Newsdesk aims to create a producer's co-op for independent journalists and newsrooms, enabling them to share resources, cross-promote and aggregate coverage in a revenue-earning syndication or newswire service. We received a grant from the Ethics & Excellence in Journalism Foundation to move this vision forward.
There are surely more notions like these taking root around the nation and the world. All need money, social capital, attention and resources. They have emerged directly out of the needs of communities and producers, not from the imperative of institutions as social leaders.
They represent new, emerging infrastructure not just for journalism, but for our entire democracy. More power to 'em.
Don’t Let Murdoch Rewrite Our Media History
Back in December at the Federal Trade Commission’s workshop on the future of journalism, much was made about the verbal sparring between Arianna Huffington and Rupert Murdoch. It made for good theatre, but an important thread was lost in the blogger-versus-publisher storyline: Murdoch’s attack on the notion of a role for government in the future of media and journalism.
But last week, Patrick Maines of the Media Institute took to the Huffington Post to rehash and support many of Murdoch’s arguments, which are riddled with inconsistencies, contradictions and misrepresentations. Apparent believers in the theory that if you say something enough times it’ll come true, these Big Media boosters are attempting to rewrite history to fit their free market narrative, turning a blind eye to the profound impact government policy has had on the corporate media they defend.
For all their points of agreement, Murdoch and Maines actually start from very different places. Whereas Murdoch held up journalists as heroic and defended their labor and their product as vital and worthwhile (ironic, given his cuts to newsroom staff), Maines offers his view on journalists’ stupidity and selfishness . “Despite their general lack of experience or expertise in law, commerce, finance, or technology, people with journalistic backgrounds are these days testifying before Congress and regulatory agencies, sponsoring seminars, and writing papers in a broadly coordinated effort to influence laws and regulations that govern the media,” Maines writes.
Maines suggests that while the news industry goes through radical shifts and upheavals, working journalists and concerned citizens should stay out of the debates about the future of the industry. We’ve heard this before. While it’s acceptable for corporate media execs to unleash waves of lobbyists on Capitol Hill, journalists -- the people with firsthand knowledge of what it takes to meet the information needs of communities -- are told to stay on the sidelines. America has a long history of media policy made in the public’s name but without their consent, and Maines suggests we keep it that way.
The idea that the public should stay out of media policymaking and that policy should stay out of journalism is rooted in a revisionist history of American media. Both Murdoch and Maines are proponents of this revisionist view. In his remarks, Murdoch invokes the country’s founders, but only gets it half right. He writes, “The Founding Fathers knew that the key to independence was to allow enterprises to prosper and serve as a counterweight to government power.” While this is true, the founding fathers also understood that the government must ensure that the press remained both vibrant and free. In their recent article in the Nation, Robert McChesney and John Nichols write:
“From the days of Washington, Jefferson and Madison through those of Andrew Jackson to the mid-nineteenth century, enormous printing and postal subsidies were the order of the day. The need for them was rarely questioned, which is perhaps one reason they have been so easily overlooked. They were developed with the intention of expanding the quantity, quality and range of journalism--and they were astronomical by today's standards... Our research suggests that press subsidies may well have been the second greatest expense of the federal budget of the early Republic, following the military.”
Over the past year, numerous journalists, historians, economists, policy makers and even some publishers have argued that we must revive America’s proud history of public support for the public good that is journalism. However, the only role Murdoch and Maines can see for government is to continue down the same deregulatory path that helped wipe out local media and put the majority of sources of news and information under the control of a few giant corporations.
Maines suggests, “Where the media do not receive government funding - directly or indirectly - they are free to speak critically of the government without fear of a loss of revenue, a condition that is undone if they do receive funding.” And yet, new research by NYU professor Rodney Benson comparing the American and French press shows government funding does not inhibit free speech or weaken the press’ watchdog role. In fact, his study found the state-subsidized French press to include more hard-hitting stories on government accountability and a wider diversity of viewpoints than the commercial American press.
Any journalism policy must strengthen and protect the First Amendment. As the advertising-supported model crumbles and commercial media increasingly traffic in sensationalism and junk news, there is a growing desire for a new kind of media in America. The commercial media that Murdoch and Maines so fiercely defend have pushed diverse viewpoints off the air, decreased the amount of news and information reaching communities, and injected advertising into every corner of our lives. A press that is controlled by a few powerful interests – that is the real assault on our First Amendment.
What we need are media that grapple with the difficult issues of our times and help communities and citizens make informed decisions and take action. The last year has seen the emergence of a remarkable consensus among journalists, citizens, academics, publishers and lawmakers regarding the need for smart government policies to support the future of journalism and foster more kinds of speech – not less. Murdoch and Maines would like us to forget the longstanding role the government has played in fostering our free press in America, and would like us to ignore the current government handouts that have allowed Big Media to define (and dismantle) journalism in our modern era.
If working journalists and concerned citizens don’t speak up about the kind of media we need in America, then Murdoch and Maines will.
FCC Takes on the Future of Journalism
Today the Federal Communications Commission announced a new national initiative to examine the “future of media and the information needs of communities in a digital age.”
Word of this new project leaked last fall when the FCC hired Steve Waldman, the co-founder, president and editor-in-chief of Beliefnet.com, the largest multi-faith Web site for religion and inspiration. However, it was unclear at the time what shape the FCC-backed project would take.
Today, the FCC launched a new website and welcome video from Waldman himself (see below), as well as an eleven-page memo outlining questions this new initiative seeks to explore. The FCC is looking for feedback on a range of issues, including:
- Information Needs of Communities & Citizens;
- Business Models and Financial Trends;
- Commercial Broadcast TV and Radio, Cable and Satellite;
- Noncommercial and Public Media;
- Internet and Mobile; and,
- Newspapers and Magazines
FCC Commissioner Michael Copps hailed the new initiative, arguing that the FCC is precisely the right agency to undertake such an inquiry: “It’s our job to do this--the public interest requires no less.” He describes the initiative’s focus as, but not limited to, broadcast journalism. It will be “a comprehensive examination of the state of broadcast media today and, more generally, the availability to Americans of hard-hitting news and information of civic importance from broadcasters as well as other media sources, both traditional and new.”
Like the Federal Trade Commission, which launched a similar initiative last fall, the FCC is putting public input at the center of it’s process: Copps insisted that, “As the FCC convenes hearings, workshops and virtual debates, we need to ensure that the voices we hear are not just the media stakeholders, but more importantly the citizen stakeholders, who are the greatest beneficiaries of a functioning media and a functioning democracy.”
On their Web site, the FCC is currently asking the public to join in two overarching discussions on the state of media in their community and how to improve it.
Jon Leibowitz, chairman of the FTC, has promised more workshops on the future of journalism this spring, and pledged to work hand-in-hand with the FCC on their inquiry. With these two federal agencies investing so much time and energy into studying the future of journalism, there is growing momentum behind the idea that smart government policies are one part of a larger effort to improving our nation’s media system.
Video Introduction from Steve Waldman
What Makes for a Critical Press? Research Shows a Role for Government Support
Bob McChesney and John Nichols have called for the government to help promote more quality, “accountability” journalism. So have former Washington Post editor Leonard Downie, Jr., and journalism historian Michael Schudson, in their recent Columbia Journalism School-sponsored report.
Many journalists, understandably, are skeptical of government support. As one writer responded to the Downie/Schudson report, “How many independent government-subsidized [or] funded news sources are there in the world? Somewhere between zero and none. Letting the government control the media is the first step toward a dictatorship… .”
But is that true? What happens when government gets involved with the press? Does journalism inevitably lose its critical edge?
Well, actually, no, according to my research just published in the International Journal of Press/Politics.
Newspapers in France have received press subsidies (among the highest in Europe) for many years. These subsidies amount to about 13 percent of newspapers’ total revenues, and yet my research shows that French newspapers are at least as or more critical than their U.S. counterparts.
I selected seven of the leading general interest, popular and financial newspapers in France and eight of their counterparts in the United States, and analyzed their news coverage of the immigration issue between 2002 and 2006. I defined criticism as substantive critical statements, either from the journalist-author or the sources they quote, about government, political parties, businesses and other powerful organizations. These kinds of critical statements perform an important “signaling” function by calling attention to incoherent policy planning, ideological mystification, ineffective administration or misleading information.
In raw terms, French press coverage of immigration offers on average more than twice as many critical statements as U.S. coverage. And even when I controlled for length of news articles, the French press was more critical, offering more criticisms per 1,000 words.
Some French newspapers, such as the Catholic La Croix and the communist L’Humanité (not officially affiliated with the party) receive extra subsidies for “ideological pluralism.” (In the past, the left-leaning Libération and the far-right Présent, the paper sympathetic to Le Pen’s National Front party, have also received these extra subsidies. The justification is that the market alone should not decide which ideas are able to circulate in the public sphere, but that citizens need to have access to a wide range of voices and viewpoints.) Are these extra-subsidized newspapers less critical than other newspapers? In fact, no. L’Humanité is the single most critical newspaper in the study, and there is no statistical difference between La Croix and most other newspapers in France.
This research confirms the findings of a previous study I conducted with political scientist Dan Hallin, comparing a random sample of political news during the 1960s and 1990s in Le Monde and Le Figaro with the New York Times. Using different measures, we found that the French newspapers were as critical as or more critical than the Times.
In another study published last fall, I show that the French press is also more “multiperspectival” than the U.S. press, making room for a wider range of issue frames and institutional perspectives.
Another notable “subsidized” press system is Sweden’s. One recent study compared Swedish and U.S. news coverage of elections and found that whereas the U.S. coverage tended to focus on the “horse race” and political strategies, the Swedish coverage was more “issue-oriented, providing more interpretive reporting.”
Even given these findings, I wouldn’t propose that we run out and start subsidizing all the newspapers. My point is simply that government involvement does not inevitably lead to “dictatorship” -- in fact, far from it!
To my mind, the late Ed Baker, a respected legal scholar at the University of Pennsylvania, had it right with his idea that any media system should be funded from a variety of sources: audiences, advertisers, foundations and other civic organizations, and government. The more, the better. If public media have their blindspots, so do commercial media. That’s why it’s important to have both. My research shows that government can be a positive part of the mix.
Rodney Benson is associate professor and director of graduate studies in NYU’s Department of Media, Culture, and Communication.
