Independence from the Media

It was a pleasure having Jeff Cohen speak to us in class on Thursday. He gave us a really interesting perspective on the current status of the as an independent journalist who has had experience in the mainstream media. His experiences are both uplifting and heart-breaking - at least from the point of view of any journalist who believes in principles and morals. I was disgusted to hear how MSNBC was too afraid to challenge authority during the political campaign for a war in Iraq; how they were too worried about being the only station that would stand out as dissenters amongst lemmings waving the American flag. That is not how the media is supposed ti operate, regardless of the fact the they are owned by corporations. But obviously, that had some sort of impact on the decision making process amongst news outlets for the past few years, perhaps even the past few decades.

The news is becoming less and less about what people need to see and hear, and more about what can be shown with the least amount of blow back. That's censorship. Canceling Phil Donahue's show, one of the most popular programs on MSNBC, is censorship. It's a violation of our rights as journalists, as people, to voice our opinions and challenge authority, especially if those opinions are largely centered around fact. And honestly, even though I hear it all the time, it's still hard to hear the shortcomings of my profession.

But Jeff was still able to give me hope, if not in the mainstream, at least in the potential of independent outlets. Journalism is not dead, it's just being recreated, remolded. It's getting a much needed face lift. And hopefully, there won't be a great deal of scar tissue remaining after this round of surgery...

Objecting to Objectivity

Brent Cunningham brings up some interesting points in the article "Re-thinking Objectivity." In today's world of journalism, it seems that objectivity, or "fairness" has been micromanaged to the point that as long as both sides are equally represented, the reporter has done his or her job. Cunningham says that today's journalists have become "passive recipients" of news, often using official sources as a crutch in place of digging up further information, and personally, I agree with him. This is why the media has come under fire in recent years. We have let the public down by being too agreeable, too ready to listen to the current administration, and too "objective".

The constant pursuit of objectivity, this desire to present fair, balanced, and most of all unbiased news, can, at least in some cases, is by far the biggest disservice the press had ever done to the public, besides flat out lying. How can we question authority if we are supposed to be completely objective? How can we say that that "this is wrong" without being biased? The truth is, we can't. And by not questioning, by not inserting some type of analysis or bias, we become lapdogs for the government, for the military, for what ever authoritative power we are gathering the news from. Of 414 television broadcast stories down by ABC, NBC and CBS, "all but thirty-four originated at the White House, Pentagon, and State Department." And most of the stories were likely reported without question, without resistance, without a thorough explanation or understanding passed on to the public. Very few journalists, stations and newspapers objected, and instead were objective, silents observers - spreaders of propaganda.

That's not our role. We are to seek truth and report it, to tell people what's important for them to know, even if that means we have to take sides. Instead, we helped manipulate the public. And here we are, five years later, dug so deep into two wars that very few people still support, now that we finally know the reasoning behind them. That's the result of our so-called objectivity. And quite frankly, that's just wrong.

To set the agenda...

To some, it may be upsetting to think that the media are completely incapable of presenting a truly objective reality, that they in fact are agenda-setters. In my opinion, this is not necessarily a problem. As McComb states in his agenda-setting theory, the media "focus our attention and influence our perceptions of what are the most important issues of the day." It's impossible for the people, for the viewers/readers/listeners to take in our entire objective reality. So the media truly do act as gatekeepers, fishing out the most important issues and events from our objective reality, and then presenting them subjectively, but as accurately as possible. The media cannot report on everything that happens, nor can they do so without subjectivity. Instead, I believe it is our duty to seek and report as much truth as possible about our objective reality. As long as journalists do their best to report the truth, and report those truths that are indeed most important for the people to know, there isn't an issue with agenda-setting.

Which leads me to your question at the end of class today. In picking those three, back page stories and reprinting them as front page stories of great U.S. importance, technically, you didn't do anything wrong. You did report the truth. However, the way in which you reported truth was a problem. You took those stories out of context, because in the grand scheme of things, there were other happenings in the U.S. that in fact warranted more attention over those stories. There were other stories that would have been deemed more important by a larger number of people that should have been given precedent. And that is our responsibility as gatekeepers, to filter this objective reality and present the most pressing, important and interesting issues. Clearly, in picking those three stories, you did not.

A year in the news...or a year in news-lacking?

By far, the piece I found most interesting in The Project for Excellence in Journalism's report was the section comparing the Public Interests vs. Actual Media Coverage. In media's defense, we do often say that our coverage of stories is based on what the audience what's to hear. Today the link between media and consumer of news is stronger than ever before, with users now being able to further investigate a story, respond to news coverage and even contribute certain types of material. I believe in South Carolina a few years back, one television station even put out an online poll asking viewers to pick the top ten stories of the day. Most of their choices included celebrity info-tainment stories. It was a revolutionary move, but one that severly affected the way the station went about it's broadcast, and added to the common belief that those are the types of stories our views are interested in.

So I found it very surprsing that the media was in fact so out of touch with stories its consumers wanted to hear about considering they were in fact important issues. One would initially believe that gas prices, winter weather and the events happening in Iraq were adequately covered, yet the scanners/viewers/users in the audience strongly disagreed, according to PEJ's report. I was surpised by this finding because I felt that most local mainstream media outlets, as well as the national, do spend a great deal of time talking about the nuts and bolts issues concerning out daily lives. But the people feel these are issues the media simply overlook. So then what does this mean for the future of global journalism? Perhaps a more narrow focus, concerning only the lives of Americans? Only time will tell.

And a blog was born...

On the 31st of August, a new voice joined the millions of bloggers already sharing their visions and perspectives around the world. But could this one be different? Can it convince us that even with the ever-present issues and the uncertanties that lie ahead, we're all still living? You'll just have to wait and see...