Media and Communications Policy : Media Policy & First Amendment Foundation : The Media Institute : Free Speech, Media Regulation, Content Controls

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Perhaps because of their declining prospects, much of the mainstream media are acting very hinky these days.  On the one hand we have the spectacle of such as the Associated Press and Newsweek openly adopting opinion as their journalistic motif.  While on the other we see newspapers, like The New York Times and The Washington Post, awash in the kind of political reporting that reduces even the most important policy issues to the banalities of “horse race” journalism.

This latter development has become all the more insufferable in the current nightmarish environment, where every current and proposed law or regulation should be more carefully analyzed for its effect on the economy than for its impact on politicians and political parties.

Coverage of the health care debate has been singularly inadequate for precisely this reason.  For every news and feature story that has delved into the effects, say, of the “public option” or the “employer mandate,” a hundred have dwelt on the chances of legislative passage, or on the political winners and losers.

Comes now the leaked e-mail  messages from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia, just days before an important environmental summit in Copenhagen, and the question is whether the MSM, in the wake of it, will finally treat the subject of global warning with the care and objectivity that such a complex subject demands.

Even without so-called cap-and-trade legislation looming on the congressional horizon, the many national and international environmental laws that are now being implemented or considered require that global warming be closely scrutinized for its scientific findings, and for the impact and efficacy of any public policies as may be pursued in consequence.  The unseemly aspects of the CRU correspondence simply adds fuel to what should be a brightly burning subject even without it.

Consider, for instance, the critical linkages that have to be established and explained if “global warming” is to be understood by people generally (as distinguished from “warmists” or “skeptics”), as a subject they should care about.

First, it has to be clear that warming is happening, and that it is man-made, a subject about which there was, in fact, debate even before the CRU debacle.  Then it has to be determined that said warming is of such peril something needs to be done about it.  (Again, the subject of debate.)  Then, of course, it has to be shown that there is something that can be done about it.  And finally, we have to know that what we do won’t have negative consequences (like, for instance, on the economy) that are worse than the effects of the warming itself.

Seen in this way the opinions of climatologists are just one element, and not even the most important one, that needs to be considered and fully examined.  But is that happening in the coverage of this issue by the MSM?  Doesn’t look like it.  Instead, as with their coverage of health care reform, news stories about global warming tend to be either (1) preposterously opinionated, and wrapped in the familiar blather of political correctness, or (2) woefully superficial, a consequence of their horse-race aspects and focus not on substance but on the political sideshow.

Hardly a day goes by without someone, somewhere, lamenting the prospective demise of journalism, by which they mean, even if they don’t say so, what we have come to call the mainstream media – the broadcast networks, big-city papers, the newsweeklies, the wire services.  But as shown in their coverage of global warming and health care reform, today’s MSM appear to be adrift, and operating apart not only from their traditions, but also from what is in their own, and our, best interest.

Cross-posted in Huffington Post, here.

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It’s not often that a parenthetical aside is the most notable part of a speech or written document, but that’s exactly the case with an opinion piece published in today’s Washington Post by that paper’s columnist Robert Samuelson.

Writing, and brilliantly as always, about health care legislation, Samuelson takes The New York Times and The Washington Post to task not just for what he sees as their mistaken characterizations of this legislation, but for their inclusion of these mischaracterizations in the papers’ news pages.

Thus does his piece, titled “Obamacare: Buy Now, Pay Later,” contain these words: “[Obama’s] health care plan is not ‘comprehensive,’ as Obama and The New York Times (in its news columns) assert, because it slights cost control….  If new spending commitments worsen some future budget or financial crisis, Obama’s proposal certainly won’t qualify as 'reform,' as the president and The Washington Post (also in its news columns) call it.”

To fully appreciate the gravamen of this parenthetical charge, you have to appreciate the lengths to which newspaper editors will go to insulate themselves from charges of editorial bias, part and parcel of which being their frequent assertions that opinions are confined to the editorial and op-ed pages.

That this criticism issues from someone with such sterling journalistic credentials is also noteworthy.  Far from being an outside critic, Samuelson is very much a part of the journalistic establishment, and for him to fault the papers’ journalistic judgment — particularly when it was extraneous to the subject of his piece — is sure to be noted by his editors and colleagues.

Which is just to say that it was a brave thing he did, and something that he probably would not have done had he not been seriously exercised by the subject, and the papers’ treatment of it.

That frustration resonates in these parts because, like Samuelson, The Media Institute too is closely allied with media companies — most notably by the fact that they provide virtually all of our operating support — and yet we have felt the frequent need these days to be critical of their journalistic performance.

Many years ago I co-authored a content analysis of The New York Times and published the results in National Review.  The article was titled “Is It True What They Say About The New York Times?” and much to the dismay of many of NR’s readers, we found that the paper’s public affairs reporting, on its news pages, was balanced, and contrasted sharply with the opinions on the editorial and op-ed pages.

Hard to imagine anyone writing such a piece today, about the Times or the Post. 

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It's reported that Rupert Murdoch, chairman of News Corp., pledged last week that his company has plans to charge for the online news content of all its newspapers and television channels.  Though the announcement came with few details as to when the charges will commence or how they will be structured, the fact that it is Murdoch who is leading this campaign is hugely important.

This, because nobody is better equipped-- by background, influence, knowledge, or constitution--to attempt such a move.

One of the most telling examples of Murdoch’s shrewdness and tenacity was put on display in 1986 when, as chronicled by his biographer, William Shawcross, he broke the Fleet Street print unions that went on strike against his plans to modernize his newspapers’ printing processes.  Against all odds the striking union members, 6,000 strong, were obliged to surrender a year later after it transpired that the company had built and secretly equipped a new printing plant for all of its British newspapers in the London district of Wapping.

If News Corp.'s plans fail it will send shock waves throughout the industry, but if it succeeds — that is, if its titles can generate sufficient revenue from access fees and advertising — Murdoch will be owed an enormous debt by newspaper publishers here and abroad.  They won’t pay that debt, and some, like The New York Times, are unlikely even to acknowledge it, but it is certain that many will follow his lead, as Murdoch himself claims.

That he is very much on their minds even now is shown in a remarkable story published yesterday (Sunday) in The Observer, sister paper of The Guardian in the UK, one of Murdoch's biggest political and business adversaries.

The lead paragraph sums things up nicely: "Rupert  Murdoch is often cast as the villain of the newspaper trade, but having revitalized the Wall Street Journal and with his radical plans to charge for access to online papers, he could be the unlikely saviour of the beleaguered industry."

And what a relief that would be!  Because if professional journalism is to survive it will have to be paid for, and paid for handsomely.  And the only way to do that is by putting together a business plan that features at least two revenue streams.

Whatever the outcome, Murdoch’s plan provides a stark contrast with the naive and corrosive idea, entertained by some, that journalism can survive on a diet of investigative news stories issuing from nonprofits, "citizen journalism," and greater funding for public media.

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If journalism of a satisfactory depth, independence, and scale is going to survive, it will have to be produced by professional journalists employed by profit-making organizations.  As such it will require revenue streams that are sufficient for the purpose.  As a practical matter this means that newspapers will have to find ways of getting paid for access to their online content.  Advertising by itself will not do the trick.

But given the growing number of bloggers, citizen journalists, and news aggregating sites who specialize in opinion pieces (RealClearPolitics, Huffington Post, Drudge) there is a real question of how professional journalists can distinguish themselves from the rest of their online competition.

The view from here is that the question answers itself.  Professional news organizations, newspapers especially, should rid their online news pages of opinion and concentrate instead on the production of news and feature stories that run deep and straight down the middle.

Unfortunately this is the precise opposite of what is in vogue today, with media organizations like Newsweek and even the Associated Press moving in the direction of more rather than less opinion in their news stories.  It’s a mistake.

Opinion is the cheapest commodity in the world, precisely because everybody has one.  No need for inside or expert sources, for special expertise in the subject matter, or even for any real writing ability.  Opinion gains recognition in direct proportion to the extravagance of its expression.  As such, opinion is the “killer app” not of newspapers but of the blogosphere, which is why a site as undistinguished as Daily Kos attracts such a large number of visitors.

The problem for newspapers is compounded when the opinions they express in their news and editorial pages are too one-sided politically.  To give one example, the New York Times, which is losing paid circulation at a ferocious pace, reads these days very much like a house organ in its support of the Democratic party and policies.

To believe that this is not spotted, and resented, by people who are, say, Republicans or conservatives, is an exercise in self-delusion.  Even if one wants to argue that Republicans and conservatives are not in the majority today, they represent a very large minority for any business needing to sell itself to the public at large.

In any case, the main point is that newspapers and other professional news organizations should concentrate on doing those things, like in-depth and objective coverage of domestic and foreign affairs, which neither the news aggregators nor the bloggers have the talent or resources to do themselves.

Whatever their future revenue streams — from advertising and micropayments or walled content — it’s going to be necessary for the “mainstream media” to finds ways of distinguishing themselves from their online competitors.  One way of doing that would be to practice first-rate journalism and rigorous objectivity in the reporting and analysis of the news.

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From the New York Times comes word this week of big changes looming at one of the country’s oldest newsweeklies.  “Newsweek,” they say, “is planning a redesign and some shifts in content to fashion an opinionated take on events, aimed at a much smaller, and wealthier, readership.”

In truth it doesn’t come as a surprise.  In many ways it isn’t even news.  But it’s disappointing all the same to see one of the country’s mainstream media outlets consciously, and proudly, abandon the time-honored journalistic standard of objectivity.

Nobody’s going to run off and join the circus in consequence of this development because, as seen during last year’s election campaign, virtually all of the mainstream media have demonstrated an ability to abandon objectivity whenever it pleases them.

As mentioned here before, nowhere was this more lamentable than in the coverage of the presidential candidates’ take on economic issues.  When this point was made in an earlier blog, some people took it to be a partisan observation.  But it wasn’t, and isn’t.

Even if the media had done a credible, and objective, job of pressing both candidates on their plans for the economy, Obama would still have won.  Maybe even by a larger margin.  This, because no matter how little Obama may know about economics, John McCain knows even less.

But look how much better off we’d be if the press had challenged Obama to give more than lip service to these kinds of issues.  In addition to a better informed public, we might also have an economic stimulus plan that reflected more of the thinking of the president than of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.

The political and societal ramifications aside, there is another downside to the media’s embrace of opinion over objectivity: It’s unlikely to work, online or off.

As evidence consider what one supposes is a model of future Newsweek reportage, a story by Jon Meacham and Evan Thomas.  Provocatively titled “We Are All Socialists Now,” the piece purports to document a profound shift in our collective view of the correct form of government.

What's striking about the article, however, is that it is about 90 percent opinion, with little or nothing of substance to it.  There’s no there there; nothing that informs, analyzes, or even segues.  Just a kind of fluffy amalgam of the pedestrian and superficial, in which most of the intellectual energy seems to have gone into the title.

A good exercise in times such as these is to ask oneself how much you would  be willing to pay for a thing if you had to pay to receive it.  The question can be asked of all kinds of things.  Were it asked of this Newsweek article, the guess here is that few people would offer to pay anything.

A few months ago a Microsoft executive gave a speech to some online publishers in London in which he said that publishers’ decisions to give their online content away for free had been a disastrous mistake.  And now we have the first, but undoubtedly not the last, of the mainstream media to openly embrace opinion journalism as a model for the future.

The question not yet answered is what – after they have surrendered first their content and then their journalistic patrimony – the media will do if all this fails to halt the slide?