All throughout the various discussions on this blog, we've touched upon a lot of issues that to me highlight how desperately America lacks an independent, truth- and justice- driven, quasi-persecutorial media.
By indepedent, I mean from the state. Corporate ownership of media outlets doesn't bother me so much, so long as they're all forced to compete for the spotlight for their own unique bias.
I invoke truth and justice knowing full well they are abstract and subjective concepts, and do so only to point out that these should be the focus rather than entertainment or sensationalism.
Many of the messes we've gotten ourselves into over the past two decades (the only two I can remember) would probably have been avoided if we had a more politically-aware populous, spurred on by a media whose primary driver was to stick it to the powers that be and "hold their feet to the fire," as John Stewart often says.
Watching mainstream media coverage of a presidential election in France or Germany is overwhelming when you're used to American-style debates and interviews. Frankly, it's more boring then anything else, because I'm not used to politicians actually go on and on and on about the specifics of their programs and their benefits. I'm used to just listening to soundbytes.
In Germany and Britain, for example, journalists don't allow their questions to get deflected or spun. If it happens, the journalist recenters the debate and goes after blood. That they would all go dancing and drinking together in a ballroom after a debate is ludicrous.
The fact that Washington reporters so heavily rely on how their subjects favor them in order to get insider access and thus further their careers is shocking when seen from a Euro-perspective. The problem is exemplified by their obvious acquiescence in White House briefings or in interviews, or by the whole "Rapping MC Rove" White House Press Corps Dinner garbage.
If we are going to make McCain/Nader/Obama/Paul or into modern day Jesuses for their roles in turning the spotlight on where a politician gets his money and what kinds of company he keeps, then we ought to hold our journalists to the same standard.
Concretely:
- ban the White House Press Corps Dinners and other government sponsored socializing whose obvious only function is to create personal and professional bonds designed to prevent journalists from fulfilling a truly persecutorial oversight function with regards to the state
- ban gift-giving to journalists by public officials to journalists
- ban journalists from being allowed to travel in style with candidates/politicians/cabinet members at the former's expense. i.e., no riding the Straight Talk Express with John McCain. You want to cover his campaign? Rent a car and follow the damn thing. No more articles in the New York Times' Technology section about how cool the gadgets in Defense Secretary Robert Gates' command and control jet are, written by the reporter who got to fly around in it with him for a week. If necessary, create a separate media tax to subsidize journalistic expenses incurred, to be allocated by a branch wholly indepedente of the executive.
Think about the debate leading up to the Iraq War or the current coverage of the campaigns. Are we happy with that?
Are the changes proposed on this blog and the society we envision herein possible given the current framework through which we as a populace inform ourselves about our government and how we subsequently interract?
It becomes something of a chicken-or-the-egg debate. Do we have shitty superficial media coverage of important issues because the electorate doesn't really give a shit about depth and has a very short memory and attention span, or does the electorate not have the attention span or passion for in-depth coverage because we've never been given a taste for it?
I hate to get all Constitutional Fundamentalist, but given that invoking the Founders' original words seems to function pretty well if you want the American public to go along with all kinds of craziness, in closing allow me to quote ye olde First Amendment.
Once more into the breech, dear friends:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
It would seem to me that a "free press" is guaranteed. The press we have right now seems to me to be anything but free.
I could do a better job on this but I have to leave work now.
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I like your angle. I support each of your concrete proposals. You would hope that eventually a better educated, less unequal society would eventually give Americans a longer attention span.
ReplyDeleteAnother possible approach to the problem would be to require journalists who benefit from favors from politicians to put a disclosure statement entailing those benefits before each article they write.
Also, I know you don't have a problem with this, but I think the government has a useful role in media through an independent but government funded public media corporation (e.g., the NCPB/PBS/NPR). In fact, despite being underfunded, that's the closest thing we have to a "persecutorial" press. I think they play a very valuable role in the media marketplace.
Re: corporate ownership of media, you should look into the way the BBC works. It's an intersting hybrid between a public media station and a private corporation. I believe it's a private corporation that's funded through TV license taxes.