Boy am I happy that I did not attend the University of Washington (U-Dub)! My tour of the campus did leave me very impressed, and the beautiful copper roofs stick in my memory fondly. Unfortunately, I cannot speak as highly about the faculty as I can about the scenic grounds.
Margatet T. Gordon, Ph.D., Professor of Public Affairs and Dean Emeritus at the aforementioned institution, recently wrote an editorial explaining why we need an American public sector national broacast behemoth ala British Broadcasting Corporation(BBC). The BBC, as I'm sure you know, is funded not "by the MacArthur foundation and viewers like you", but by a mandatory tax ("license fee") on all British television sets, whether you watch their channel(s) or not.
Dr. Gordon, you are a jackass. Let me tell you why:
According to Dr. Gordon, after unproven governmental claims that the Hussein bros. met their demise, he "sixteen words" state-of-the-union flap, and the undiscovered WMD's:
Citizens are asking journalists and media critics why the media don't "do something" to discover and publish "the truth." Why don't journalists seem to be trying to get to the bottom of this?...
I am convinced that journalists in the U.S. feel increasingly trapped between their professional values and the marketing/profits mentality so evident now everywhere in the news industry. The old professional values urge them to dig, investigate and bring to the light of day the relevant facts and issues, while the market/profit mentality asks, "Is it worth it? Do enough people care?"
It seems clear enough that the market/profit mentality has won out, especially in electronic news, and to a considerable extent in the print media. While it is impossible to ascertain a cause-and-effect relationship, there does seem to be at least correlation between the media coverage — or lack of it — of government and citizen attitudes toward both government and the media. Trust in both seems to be nearly gone. Meanwhile, the push for corporate profit margins much higher than those of average American businesses goes on — with 40 to 100 percent in the electronic media and 12 to 45 percent in the print media common during 2003."
The trend has been discussed by journalists for years, and well-known editors have resigned rather than cut their news budgets more deeply than they already had in order to meet new, higher corporate demands for profits.
It's funny that the greatest abuses of the Left have always been phrased in the the urge to "do something."
I find her central premises untenable. The media industry, in particular the granddaddy of them all, has never been concerned with the "truth" -- this is a clear example of moralistic, hippified Watergate-era revisionism. Back in tha day, there was such a thing as "yellow journalism", Hearst newspapers, and Walter Duranty. When the Spanish-American War broke out it was not the newspapers that were searching for the truth -- no they were at the front and center of the jingoism, coining the phrase "Remember the Maine." The Hearsts, they gathered information not for the purposes of truth, but to gather facts to use against public figures to further the newpaper magnate's interests. As for Duranty, he won a Pulitzer Prize for reporting Josef Stalin's propganda that cast the famine and forced collectivization that led to the deaths of 12 million Ukranians, as bold experiments in modernization that boot-strapped the backward Soviet Union into an A-list country. Lies, I might add, that seduced an entire generation of Third World nationalists, whose policies are now reaping the whirlwind of terrorism.
Furthermore, there certainly is a lack of trust among the American people that has been engendered by the incestous relationship between political apathy and media sensationalism, but to blame that on market forces underlines Dr. Gordon's plain ignorance of economics. On his blog, Stefan Sharkansky skewers the good doctor's know-nothing attitude toward commercial realities thusly:
A 100% profit margin could exist only in the unlikely sort of business that didn't have any operating expenses. According to the Marketguide database, of the 37 publicly held print media companies of any consequence (market cap > $100 million), the weighted average profit margin is 5%, the max is 18%. For the broadcasting industry, the average profit margin is negative, and if you look only at the more stable companies in the S&P1500, the weighted average profit margin is 3% and the max is 16%]
Which goes to show that authorities in the "Public Policy" or "Public Administration", whose operations are done all by fiat, really don't know the first thing about the market or how businesses have to seek profits.
In fact, there is no mutually exclusive relationship between journalism and the "market/profit mentality". If consumers really wanted to know, to be informed, they will. And the providers of that information will meet demand. Right after 9/11, my daily newspaper was stolen for two weeks straight, and then, it magically reappeared. People wanted to know. That much was obvious. So when current events are not compelling, it seems to me that reader interest (demand) subsides. (Historically, this has been the problem facing cable news -- if there isn't a crisis, their ratings go down, and advertisers won't pay high rates, but when there is a crisis, and you've got that go-go "breaking news" thing going on, you can't stop for a word from your sponsors, because all your viewers will go to the next guy.) That's why the media is constantly whipping up prurient interests in things like the Kobebryantcase, or that summer of shark attacks -- because the news sucks otherwise.
Furthermore, the Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom coverage, as well as the Jayson Blair controversy shows that the Newsroom Fallacy -- competition among media outlets distracts from their primary mission to tell the truth -- is bogus. Media outlets lose market share if they are seen as reporting bullsh*t. During that time, NYPost readership soared, while NYTimes ciruclation (within NY) fell. I'm disinclined to the idea that the general public are ignorant or stupid when it comes to their purchasing power -- sure, Americans might need to invest more, save more, and borrow less, but they sure as hell are smart shoppers.
I'm sorry to hear that editors find that they have to cut their budgets to realize new profits -- I think that the pubilc discourse should be robust, and that the more voices there are, the better. But Dr. Gordon is not being fully honest with us. Roger Ailes, present chairman of Fox News and past chairman of CNBC seems to have found a way to increase his news budgets. (Ignorant leftists would attribute this success to corporate largesse -- as if they fed him scraps off the table in reward for his promoting the party line -- which tells you more about their worldview than how things really work.) No, he's able to increase the viewership, ratings, scope, and consequently because he has changed the nature and slant of the reporting. Some might see that as the epitome of evil, but it seems to me that consumers are looking for information that is not currently provided by the "center-left" media outlets. In other words, viewers out there are sick to death of leftist newspersonalities pushing their agendas and are looking for something else.
Returning to Dr. Gordon:
Rather than bemoaning this issue further, I believe we — Americans who worry about these issues — should probably finally accept the reality that nearly all American television is market driven, will only become more so as time goes on, and as such cannot be counted on to provide news that American citizens need to evaluate their governments and communities, or to use as the basis of their civic participation in voting and other democratic activities.In my view, the nation needs for the sake of its highly touted democracy to develop and support a nationally broadcast British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)-type channel (or two) of television news, a fully supported National Public Radio, and methods for supporting and rewarding courageous, high-quality and responsible print media.
As America watches, the BBC is currently engaged in a war of its own with the government of Tony Blair, the British prime minister, to the point of suing the government over some of the same issues about truthfulness regarding the Iraq war, facts regarding uranium from Niger, and Iraqi weapons of mass destruction supposedly capable of being deployed in 45 minutes.
Britons trust the BBC, and what it broadcasts about the government and other issues. In fact, many Americans trust the BBC, too, making efforts to hear broadcasts on public radio, and via the Web.
The BBC is an independent creature of the British government, funded through excise taxes collected at the point of sale of televisions and radios, and through some annual assessments. It is run by an independent board theoretically unrelated to the current politicians holding office, and beholden only to the British people.
In my view, our Republic's "highly touted democracy" is successful because of the creative tension between capitalism and representative government. Believe it or not, our civic life is not endangered. Take the current CA recall election. Some might see it as an emabarrasment to the Golden State and a "circus", but I see the outsized number of candidates ("qualified" and "unqualified") that have come forward and seek to change the prevailing culture of waste in Sacramento as an affirmation of interest in civic life and a rejection of politcal apathy.
Claims to the responsiblity and high-quality of reporting at the BBC are documneted in depth at Biased BBC.
The flap over the "45 minute" claim and the BBC's tussle with Tony Blair is not what she makes it out to be, either. While some anti-war advocates are celebrating the stand, the backbiting, recininations, and "sexing-up" of comments made by David Kelly (who has since committed suicide) about the "sexing" up of intelligence dossiers has stained the reputation of the Beeb. The Guardian reports that: "Just nine months ago the corporation's main news channel, BBC1, commanded the trust of 92% of the public. A new survey by Mori, however, has put trust in the BBC at only 59% - a massive 33% drop." The flap has also renewed demands that the media leviathan be pritvatized once and for all.
Furthermore, the BBC is not responsible to the British people. The Board of Governors is appointed by Parliament, who fiercely resist any oversight into their turf -- because it might compromise their objectvity. But they still get their tax revenue. Also, private entrants into the market require mean that the BBC always seeks to limit their competition, and failing that, create alternatives to the free market solutions. (I love the History Channel, but do you really need a state-sponsored version of it?) So here you have appointed bureacrats who are self-appointed guardians of the truth, funded by arbitrary taxes, who discrourage attempts at competition, and then use private monies to compete against private companies? And this is accountability?
More from Dr. Gordon:
Why hasn't such a system evolved in the U.S.? Our feeble attempts — PBS and NPR — are so underfunded, with continuous funding threats from Congress, that it is virtually impossible for them to be thorough and courageous, and beholden only to the public. Local station leaders seem to be full-time development officers whose programming decisions reflect fund-raising strategies more than their communities' information needs.We need a stronger, more viable system, and should give the BBC model a try. We can't lose; the result can't be worse than what we have now.
(Full Disclosure: I'm not a big fan of PBS or NPR, and it's probably because I don't stand in solidarity with opressed people around the world.) Public sector companies are not responsive to anything but funding threats. If we just shelled out money to public broa dcasters, what guarantee would we have that they would continue to produce anything of value at all? If local programmers have to bust their ass to find something that people want to watch, it's a good thing, because otherwise, they're wasting someone's money. Look at it this way: the fund-raising strategies employed by the local station leaders mean that they are beholden to the public, duh.
Better yet, if public broadcasting is beholden to noone other than an abstrat "public" they will become like teachers unions. Since you can't fire sh*tty, underperforming educators, no matter how much money you sink into a school, there's no real measure of good instruction other than gaining a reputation for it. After all, they can always bitch about not having enough resources instead of actually changing their operations, or blame parents for not being involved.
As for a strong, viable media outlet that provides the basis for civic involvement and informed decisionmaking in public affairs, why, there's CSPAN and CSPAN2. There's no courageous, intrepid journalists or news analysts with axes to grind, but instead, you have the actual machinery of government on display.
"But wait," Some of you might say, "What's wrong with the BBC? It's not like they program documentaries on cheese-making all day long anymore? Haven't you watched BBC America lately? That's good stuff, you know. And I have it on good authority that you, Andrew, very much enjoy the music on BBC radio 1 --"Breezeblock" and "The Essential Mix" -- how can you be against it?"
There's no accounting for taste is my rejoinder. I might like the electronic music that they showcase, yes, but what about those that don't? Why should they pay for it? Wouldn't they do just as good a job if they were a private company instead of a public sector bloc that limits choice?
Dr. Gordon: It is my suspicion that you just look down on those that don't share your views (because you've judged them to be ignorant), and would like to impose yours "courageous high-quality" dogmas on them. My guess is that you'd like nothing more than to establish a state-funded bureau of hoi polloi with a mission to re-educate your inferiors. Here's my question to you: why should I subsidize an intelligensia that looks down on me and wants to tell me what to think?
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