For a long time now, especially the last four years, conservatives and Republicans have been bashing the media for fraudulent reporting and spinning the news. They argue, of course, that the media is liberal and biased in its reporting. There may be something to this charge, but not for the reasons given.
An article on the Opinion Page of Monday’s Wall Street Journal got me thinking. “The Most Popular Shows You’ve Never Seen“ was written by Peter Funt, Allen Funt’s son and a writer and host of “Candid Camera.” He points out that in the 1960s there were only three broadcast networks and a few local stations. Viewers at that time had far fewer choices than today. He quotes Newton Minow, former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission ( FTC), as saying that today we have “almost unlimited choice—a totally different medium….Fractionalization of the audience provides more choice, but we pay a big price.” In Mr. Minow’s view, “Our country now is divided much more because we do not share the same news or believe the same facts.” Now 95, Mr. Minow questions whether more choice has been in the public ’s best interest.
Funt writes that “TV is a metaphor for what ails, or at least divides, society. With fewer shared experiences—even trivial ones—we find ourselves in smaller social and political groups.”
The writer makes a good point. The history of social and political movements in the United States has always been that “more is better” in the marketplace whether it’s politics or the economy. Our answer to problems has often been to increase the role of democracy or deregulate the market. We argue that this is just common sense. Most recently, the internet and the miracle of technology have brought us social media—Facebook, Twitter, etc., so that everyone has a say about everything. We all have become journalists, whether we know anything or not!
I don’t have any answers, but I do know that I miss Walter Cronkite.
Robert, Is today’s piece something like a “pulling my finger” prank?
There are places all over the world with fewer news outlets. Some have as few as one if you set aside surreptitious access to the internet, signals from other countries, or pamphlets drop from balloons. My guess is that a correlation exist between the number of news outlets and prosperity. Just a WAG.
Certainly having so very many people paying attention to such a wide range of words and thoughts confounds the efforts of centralized planning. That is particularly true if individuals within the confused public have freedom to express and act on the opinions they develop. Perhaps you saw the clip on the California school board ZOOM hearing, not realizing they were online, discussing how they could control public input using technology. Nothing like too many ideas in a public hearing to frustrate even the smuggest bureaucrat. In a spark of hope, that entire school board has resigned – after a member of the public posted the session on YouTube.
On a recent session of the government news, the head of the 9/11 Commission was interviewed about how could it ever be possible to achieve a reasonable and balanced consensus among the members of one of today’s investigatory bodies. There’s such a backlog of things that need investigating that we’re going to need efficiency if we’re ever to get to the truth about what really happened.
The fellow’s observations were calm and measured even as the apparatchik probed and prodded for controversy. She simply couldn’t imagine something like that commission’s broad concurrence being possible today pointing out even that commission’s findings were meet with criticism.
He closed saying that the very wide ranging interests and biases in the 9/11 group were able to reach a consensus when they removed the adjectives from the report. How sublime. That might be closer to Cronkite than the breathless hysteria or angry rants we hear today from people “reporting” the news. I doubt the prime time performers are going to dial back their drama. It might be up to us as individuals to listen more closely.
Yesterday you cried for Venezuela. I couldn’t help but think of the popular jingle about Eva Peron’s mawkish, but somehow admirable in some circles, swan song. After all, she only just wanted everybody to get a new shirt. Even then Peron’s structured plan for the management of life and resources relied on “managing” the media. And in Venezuela today? Probably, the total collapse of the country with the largest oil reserves on earth did not happen because there was a confused public getting conflicting messages. But a free press was shutdown nonetheless. Wonder why they did that?
Jack, I think you are a better boobird than a constructive critic! I don’t believe I called for an end to the free press or a return to three networks. I was merely reporting what was written in the Wall Street Journal and commented that they made some interesting points. Sounds to me as if you needed to get a lot of stuff off your chest!