Do you think news media even exists today as a separate pillar of democracy?
There used to be a time some decades ago when media was often touted as a separate pillar of democracy, as in it was supposed to keep checks on the govt of the day. Mass Journalism was a professional branch of study or course in universities (probably still is?) and it used to be highly principled. In fact, being principled was often thought of as a quality of journalism more than anything else!
But in today's world, I see that changing a lot. Most media houses across the world are state controlled media, you can see it from the kind of stories they come up with, etc. More than that, media has directly become a function of electoral politics, you'll hardly find any content which relates to society or the ordinary working class human, as separate from electoral politics.
You'll hardly find any media house vehemently or openly criticizing its own country's govt (though funnily, each will be criticizing other countries' govts and/or based on ideology!). Even when the criticism is there, it's in a very controlled and nuanced form. It's not so difficult to make 2+2 equals 4 here?
This didn't used to happen in earlier decades. When I grew up watching Doordarshan TV, there was hardly any news at all in India - except for that one 9:00 PM news show which came once every day, that was in fact a quiet and peaceful world to live in! This constant bombardment of political news has become a problem. I think, we need news which is people centric and talks about the issues of working class citizens. Do you think such a kind of media will ever evolve?
I'm based in the United States and I feel as though we have the opposite of what you're talking about: corporate capture of our media. We have what I would call "rage media", things that make viewers mad enough to stay on the channel. We also have an inordinate amount of politics, but again it is rage and doomsday for whatever the flavor of the day is. I believe as long as ratings and engagement drive media and journalism we'll be subjected to the whims of those with capital power and the lowest common denominator of what humans engage with (rage, fear, disgust, envy, and mockery).
Speaking as someone in a lite-authoritarian society, the growth of online alternative media has caused the government to lose its near monopoly on information and slowly led to increasing political maturity.
That is indeed true but still you don't get to see as much criticism of the govt. or establishment as there should be, especially on matters affecting the working class ordinary citizens like inflation, poverty, unemployment, etc. Instead, you see a disproportionate size of content related to matters of identity politics or things which can be directly politicized or distracted from such society issues.
Even when it comes to alternative media or social media that you talk of, there is a massive presence of these state actors in the form of shilling or sock puppetry. It's not entirely organic or people driven, is it?
I don’t know of a time when this hasn’t been the case for the most prominent media: producing news media is expensive, so the most well-funded operations are owned by the very sorts of people who don’t want to be running stories about working class issues and inequities. The book Manufacturing Consent lays this whole reality out, if you’re interested in the subject.
It's still an improvement over the old status quo of no independent media in many countries. Social media is significantly harder to regulate short of banning or restricting it.
To be fair in Pyeri's Indian context it's been a shift from relatively independent print media to a very very partisan online blitz.
That's fair. Social media isn't inherently a social good. Facebook causing a genocide in Myanmar is a good example of the dark side of what social media can promote.
And on the flip side is my society of Singapore where before social media it was relatively easy for the ruling party to control the flow of information.
Yeah I agree in India it's on a different level altogether
From a western-centric viewpoint, I would say that more media is corporate owned in my eyes. Can't turn a corner without finding a journalist writing a puff piece for some corporation's latest crime against humanity.
Also, and admittedly as someone with a lot of bias in this regard, I find that war reporting can be some of the more principled and scathing. Look at how much reporting goes on about America for every war crime they do - the journalists go after that kind of stuff. Never seen journalists show up unannounced to an ongoing gun fight before but war reports will be there to find out what's blowing up today.
Alternatively, also in the US, there's constant fluff pieces about regular people struggling to make it and usually a single line about what the cities or states are actually doing for the problems they're facing, for good or for ill. It's almost maddening sometimes.
I see a free press as a pillar. Not a state press (although at least they're necessary) or a corporate owned press (they're just public relations) but free journalists with the ability to ask questions people don't want to answer and get information people don't want released. That is a balance on power. Of course, that doesn't make any money...
Of course the fourth estate still exists.
What?
If anything, there are accusations here in Australia that one particular media corporation is controlling the state (or trying to), rather than the other way around.
Ironically, despite the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) and the Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) being officially owned by the Commonwealth of Australia, they're both independent broadcasters, as provided for in their charters.
Further to that, there are still plenty of independent journalists and news outlets around: News Corp, Nine Entertainment, The Guardian, Sky News, as well as less mainstream options like The Conversation and Crikey.
You really need to read or watch some Australian journalism. Lots of our news media criticise governments. Of course, some news organisations are more likely to criticise some governments, depending on which political party is in power. But, ultimately, all our news organisations feel totally free to criticise any Australian governments, federal or state.
Just today the third (of around 20) ministers of the Norwegian government was exposed by media for breaking rules regarding buying/selling of stocks and conflicts of interest in other areas. That's three ministers this summer.
One has had to resign, I'd be very surprised if the minister today doesn't have to resign too.
In Sweden these whole Quran-buring cases going worldwide are due to the media. A recent Quran-burning in Norway didn't make national news and so there is no global political outrage against Norway right now.
The media serves a critical function in checking to see what the three branches of government do.
The largest issue I see with media today is that a number of young people seem to think that news should be free and are unwilling to pay for this important function of society.
If we, regular people, aren't the ones bankrolling new media, why should we expect them to have our interests at heart?
It's a democratic problem that a lot of large news outlets around the world are beholden to their advertisers and not to subscribers (slightly supplemented by ads).
I think the very most important place news media does their thing is in local politics. In the media deserts where there is no local news outlet, local politicians do many strange things. Local news holds local politicians accountable to their electorate.
Most normal folk don't have the time of day to follow things themselves, and so it only makes sense to pay a subscription so professionals ensure that your schools, libraries, care for the elderly, roads, garbage collection and all the others services are run well and that someone is doing the legwork to ensure that's the case.
Media isn't only about news. It's about entertainment too. the problem is when entertainment supplants newsworthiness. Society also has a problem when people only browse news to be entertained, or don't bother because they aren't entertained by it.
How's democracy supposed to work if the electorate doesn't care or do their part, but let politicians, the government, business and everyone else do whatever they want?
How do you balance the idea of democracy with the idea of news media? In your proposed scenario where news media is a "pillar of democracy", ¿How is it funded? Is it public or private? For profit?
In order for news media to function in the way you describe, the consumers of it would need to be educated about bias and critical thinking and the production of it would need to be publicly funded but separate/not required to support the gov't that funds it.
In the US, for-profit news media leads to a need/desire to get ratings, which contributes to polarization of consumers, lower quality "news", and a 24 hour culture of "heres what you should think or be afraid of".
In America, yes. In a lot of western nations from what I've seen, they're not far behind. But first a story about Howard Stern.
He started climbing through the ranks of radio because he was "shocking." Eventually he landed at NBC. Not a local. A national. The big time. Where they still had some standards apparently, and Howard (who they wanted for his ratings, but also wanted to fit into their culture) didn't measure up. Then they started getting data back. Ratings.
Stern lovers would listen, but Stern haters would listen two or three times longer. Why? Both groups gave the same answer. "I want to find out what he'll say next."
Then America, with the help of modern "news" networks, elected a certain someone to the Presidency. Many of those news networks openly said they loved it because however much people hated him, however shocking and crazy and dangerous he was, people were tuning in because "we need to find out what he's said and done now."
Part of the problem with modern "news" is basic greed (capitalism) which sees every moment of airtime, or page of a magazine/paper, or link on a website, not as a service but as a chance for profit. Except, the greed really is most of it, because I feel the other factors pretty much come right back to greed.
Take fairness, civility, and the sense of obligation we used to assume everyone in a society would have towards the society. Some had it stronger, some had it less strong, but most nations and most peoples tended to assume their fellow peoples in that nation would kind of have, at least in their top three motivations, a sense of duty and support towards the nation. One for all and all for one. Pulling together.
That's gone. Completely wiped away in the face of greed. Everyone's out for themselves. No one has any money, and those who have it want more whatever it takes. So the fuck you give me attitude makes sense if you look at life as a zero sum game. And that attitude doesn't even stay only with basic necessities; people do it in the ceaseless quest for more, more, more.
Companies do it. Rich people do it. Unordinary people do it. Poor people do it. They just trash whatever and whoever they need to in order to get more. Not more tomorrow, or soon. Not a path toward more. Not next month or next year. More right now.
With news, it's particularly harmful because what used to be considered a public service (to inform and sometimes educate your fellow citizens about what's happening around them) turned into a stabbing, burning need for more. More ratings, more revenue, more, more, more! You see it with websites and apps with the algorithm that singularly drives engagement as the sole goal. You see it with TV ratings that track second by second so the producers and owners of the station can drill in and see just exactly where they lost the audience. And where they got them back.
If it bleeds, it leads. If it's shocking, if it's horrifying, if it's tantalizing, that's what they report on. Not the facts. Not the information. Not the truth. Only what's so juicy it drips and makes you tune in and lean closer. Packaged and presented in exactly the best way to drive people's passions, because angry and shocked people are more profitable.
It's not just Fox that does this, CNN is no better. CNN launched in an era of old news. Real news. Just the facts. They used their 24-hour status to 'round-the-clock' some stories that were more modern (Jessica caught in the well was one) and started to see ratings spikes. Then Gulf War 1 happened and they enjoyed milking that 24 hour status to feed the public's fascination with the war.
But then the war ended. And they needed more. So they went looking for it.
Every 'news' does that now; from local to national to the super sites and megacorps that cover not just their nation but the world as well. And that's before we discuss the active propagandists who specifically want to inject bias for the sole loathsome purpose of swinging the consumers of their 'news' the way the channel wants. News as entertainment and weapon. Not as information, but as a lever to push and shape.
Tabloids always existed, in some form or another. Every city had those off-beat rags that pumped out sleaze and shock. Or had the late night programs that did it. But every city had the respectable paper, the serious newscasts too. Now we've only got the sleaze, because sleaze isn't just more profitable, it's easier to boot. Who needs to pay for reporters to gather anything when you can just wait for Twitter to post video and run with seven of those to fill your nineteen minutes of "news" around the eleven minutes of commercials?
Everyone's seen those reporters in movies and stuff. Where they're hungry for "the story" and where they cry out "the public needs to know." The ones who scramble and fight to get the news out. Not the opinion, not the lie, not the propaganda; the facts.
That's fantasy. It used to exist, but around the 80s it started to drop away. These days, "reporters" are either personalities (actors basically) or they're plug-and-play cogs in the corporate wheel that churns out what Up Top decreed Shall Be Said.
It all comes back to greed. Everyone, from the owners of the websites and apps and channels and everyone else, all the way down to the lowest, newest employee, they don't care about facts or information. They just want to get paid. There's no sense of obligation or service. It's just about climbing and cashing in.
You see movies where there'll be a debate in a newsroom somewhere. "We have an obligation to the truth" might be said in those scenes. Or "we have a duty to inform the public." Sometimes you'll see "people might die and we need to warn them." None of that happens in today's "news" rooms. Fuck no; find something juicy and get Promotional on it to whet the appetites so they'll tune in and click so We Can Get Paid!
Take 'scandal.' They love scandal. Owners love it, as long as it's scandal focused at the people the owner hates and wants to see taken down, because scandal is juicy. "Reporters" love scandal because it can be their big break to vault out of obscurity into full-on personality status.
It's never about what the actual scandal involves. It's never "well, see, they were diverting money from the Department of Family and Children Services, so kids were going hungry and not getting medical treatment or a roof over their heads" except as mentioning that would relate to making the scandal juicier. And it's never about fixing the problem.
What matters was Something Bad (and juicy) Happened, and Someone Is To Blame. That's what pulls the ratings. Outrage, anger. Which isn't turned or focused into fixing problems. The story is that kids went hungry, not that kids got fed. Not that the problem was fixed and won't happen again. Only that Something Bad happened, and we have the footage, and after this commercial break we'll show it to you.
Whatever it is exists just to be harnessed to cash in via ads and contracts and sponsors. And ridden into the next scandal, the next outrage. And the next, and the next. Tarzan swinging on the vines, looking for those highs that bring the sweet, sweet cash.
News is entertainment now. That's what's been lost. It's not a service. Not an obligation. Not a duty. It's just a means to an end, and that end is cash. Instead of running a scripted entertainment network or website, they run a "news" one, but do the same things. Craft narratives, shape them, look for the juice. Same as a soap opera.
It's not hyperbole to say it's killing civilization, the downfall of news. At least society, at the very least. No one has any sense of duty or connection. Everyone's out for themselves, and no one has time to care about anyone else. Is that the fault of the news not being news anymore? At least a little, yes it is. If nothing else it's certainly a contributing symptom.
The news used to be something that could connect people. It was basic, simple, clear, honest, and truthful. Something happened, here are the facts. And those somethings would be things that mattered, that were relevant to the community being served. Not just things that were juicy, but things that were real and had real impacts. But real impact might lead to real change, and in either event it's still not as profitable as filming blood and breathlessly shouting out the latest scandal. Can't have that. Cue the accident footage.
I think there are many issues with the media landscape today, and a lot of media today ends up serving (or at the very least, covering for) corporate interests. That being said, I do think an independent press is absolutely still vital for a functioning democracy. In the US at least, as bad as the media can be, it is still the primary channel through which the population can be informed about governmental misconduct or corruption. Local news is extremely important in this regard, as local reporters tend to understand local politics much better than some national news network, and the stories reported there are usually much more relevant to your daily life than a lot of the bigger national news. Its a shame that these independent papers are dying out.
There's a claim that you won't find media criticizing their home country's government, which I'm not sure is really true. Look at US media during the Trump administration for a counter-example, or Fox News during any Democratic administration. Criticism abounds. It may be the case that a government's actions abroad are not often criticized by media at home, but I personally think on some level this makes sense. The purpose of media (in an ideal world) is to keep the government accountable to its citizens. Sometimes governmental actions which are detrimental to other countries are beneficial to the citizens at home — this is usually a contributing factor in those actions being taken in the first place. I'm personally not surprised this often flies under the radar.
I dont think it ever really was. You don't have to be a political party to make use of propaganda. Who first told you the news media was a pillar of democracy? Was it someone on the news?
Yes, but also no.
It's changed, but sensationalism, yellow journalism, corporate journalism/capture whatever you want to call it has existed long before modern society to some extent. Whoever can control things will always be inundated with all sorts of information, be it accurate/inaccurate or biased/unbiased. In a tyranny it'd be one person, in a democracy it's more.
As for the "media is a pillar of democracy" thing they teach, while I do roll my eyes at it there's a core idea there. If you don't have a free media, you probably don't have as good a democracy as a country that does. Are media outlets in wealthy democracies being consolidated and becoming more and more of a problem? Absolutely. Would it be worse if they were just state run outlets and no competitors were allowed? Also yes.
There's this issue where people living in well off nations say "well it's not as good as it was/should be", and while you might be right, it's still a lot better than it could be. It doesn't mean these things shouldn't improve or be focused (the entropic nature of corruption means most things consolidate and that's extremely bad if left unchecked, as most have), but the simple fact you can still consume media outlets that say things critical of the government without fear of retribution is the main point.
In short, it's not binary. Just because we're seeing lots of regulatory capture/corporate nonsense doesn't mean that it's the same as not having it at all, and there is value in having differing opinions being allowed to be aired. It's just also an issue with 24 hour for profit news, and there probably should be some higher level of regulation rather than branding it as profit making entertainment.