Week of 07/08/2019

Journalism is NOT a Business!
Stop Treating it as Such!
– by David Matthews 2

One of the biggest lies we tell ourselves is that the field of journalism is a business.

Every time we talk about the unscrupulous decisions of broadcasters and newspaper publishers, we justify it by saying that “journalism is a business”.  As if that somehow excuses what they do.

If they get something wrong, if they needlessly ruin lives or end careers, it’s okay, right?  Because “it’s just business”.

YouTube personality Cody, who publishes his speculative “Alternate History Hub” series, did a non-monetized special where he talks about why the media – particularly the cable “news” media – obsesses over mass shootings.  He talks about why the cable media services struggle to keep people watching as they go from one commercial block to another and how certain tragedies, such as mass shootings, keep the masses drawn to them.  And he’s pretty spot-on about it, and how it seems to encourage even more mass shootings.

But the one thing that bothered me was his assertion as to why the cable news media does what it does, and that was his statement that “Journalism is a business.”

Respectfully, Cody, you’re wrong about that particular part.

I know it’s easy to come to that conclusion when you see the so-called “fifth estate” go from one scandal to the next, from one election cycle to the next, and how they suck up to the very abrasive and abusive politicians that go so far as to physically assault them or to encourage physical assaults.  It is very easy for people to look at that and say “well, it’s all in the name of business”.

But we are all wrong about that.

Let’s get brutally honest here... journalism is not a business.  It is a vocation.  Like being a doctor or a lawyer or a paramedic.  Journalism is the practice seeking out and reporting on what is happening in the world.  It is the search for truth, no matter where it leads.

It, in and of itself, is not a business. 

It is the medium that hires and employs and pays for journalists that is the business.

When we talk about “journalism”, we think about cable networks like CNN, MSNBC, Fox News (well, *some* people think it’s one), RT (aka “Russia Today”), and Al Jazeera.  We think Reuters and Associated Press and the Huffington Post.  We think National Public Radio (NPR).  We think about network TV news divisions like CBS News and ABC News and NBC News.  We think of newspapers like the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and the Wall Street Journal.  And, yeah, that trickles down to your local TV station and your local newspaper, and even your school newspaper or in-school network.

But here’s the hard reality: none of those entities that I mentioned are journalism.  Not one of them.  They are all mediums that hire people who can claim to be journalists, even though some of them may not be such.  They are publishers and producers of media.  And, with the exception of NPR and most-likely your local school newspaper or in-school network, they are all private businesses.  They may claim to serve the public trust, but in truth, they adhere to the demands of the business world.  They have to get revenue from subscriptions and advertising.  They operate as a business.

You can blame it on people like William Randolph Hearst and Rupert Murdoch.  Hearst practically wrote the book on “yellow journalism” in his squabbles with rival newspaper magnate Joseph Pulitzer.  And Murdoch redefined the concept, first by promoting topless models in his British newspapers, and later when he and Roger Ailes came up with Fox News and turned it into a propaganda mill to get GOP politicians elected.  And it should be noted that the same man that put topless models on Page 3 also owned (and his company still owns) the Wall Street Journal.

Everything that you see in your local newspaper, no matter if it’s in a big metropolitan city or a small podunk town, is designed to get your attention so you’ll buy it or subscribe to it, and for local businesses to pay for advertising. 

The story that matters the most to you will probably not be on the front page.  That’ll probably be on page 8, after the editorials, next to the church bulletins and across from the full-page full-color ads for your local car dealership or firearms store.  The front page will be reserved for the “exclusive interview” with the new defensive coach for “insert local sports team here” and whether or not the home stadium will now offer churros. 

Sixteen houses being broken into and robbed in your neighborhood may be important to you, but you’d be lucky if that gets more than just a mention in the local police blotter on page 27.  Meanwhile, sixteen people being arrested in a drummed-up prostitution sweep will be front-page news, with their mug shots, names, and home addresses, and the specific charges against them listed.  Why?  Because sex and sex-suppression sells, baby!

It's even worse on TV, especially with the local “news” programming.  There’s a huge traffic jam blocking your morning commute, but they’re not going to say anything about it for another hour or so because they’d rather talk about their “exclusive interview” with the local guy or girl who will be appearing on a reality TV show.  Incompetence in businesses and local government is widespread, but somehow the “little things” get magically fixed when a local TV personality exposes it in a comical way.  What?  You mean I could have gotten the six-foot-wide-three-feet-deep pothole on my street filled two years ago if I found a media clown to make fun of it?

That’s why this commentator has a hard time referring to people you see on TV as “reporters” or “journalists”, because they’re usually not.  They are media personalities at best and propagandists at worst – especially when it comes to so-called “talk radio” programming and Fox News.  Fox News claims to be about news, and yet the programs they tout above all others are commentary programs.  Talk Radio may have “news” at least once every 30-mintues to an hour, but the rest of their programming is dedicated to radio personalities who are advancing a specific political stance.  They are not reporters.  Some of them don’t even try to pretend to be reporters or “broadcast journalists” anymore, unless they’re being criticized. 

If anything, NPR is the closest example of providing actual journalism.  Free from the demands of the business model, they provide actual news instead of fluff.  The only downside is that they are boring as hell. 

And the rise of the Internet hasn’t made things any better.  If anything, services like Facebook and Instagram and Twitter have given the broadcast media even more junk to get excited about.  My news feed is overloaded with stories about some over-thirty model or actress who still manages to look great in a bikini and is sharing it on Instagram, and with whatever dog-whistle brain fart a certain narcissistic clown act in the White House posts on Twitter.  Those are not news stories, and yet, they’re shoved in front of us like they should matter more than the morning commute or the economy.

This is what pretends to be “journalism” today, only it’s not.  It is tabloid entertainment that has perverted and profaned the concept of journalism for the sake of clicks, likes, subscriptions, and ads.  This may have been a long-running perversion, but that doesn’t mean that we should allow it to continue.

So let’s stop calling this stuff “journalism”, because it is not.  Let’s call it for what it truly is in its simplest sense: media. 

Just like American Cheese is not really “cheese” but “pasteurized processed cheese-food”, so too should the commercial media providers call themselves for what they really are.   Ad-driven business-operated commercial media.  Print, radio, television, Internet... all of it is just media.  That way there can be no implication of truth or honesty or accuracy.  Then we can regard it for what it is... cerebral junk food that may or may not be useful, never mind true.  McDonald’s for the brain.

In my time on this planet, I’ve been a columnist for a local newspaper, a reporter for my college paper, an online news broadcaster, and an online commentator.  I’m comfortable with being the latter, because here I can be myself.  I still know the difference between honest reporting, biased reporting, personal opinions, propaganda, and tabloid junk, and that’s without an actual degree in journalism.  What bothers me is that too many people can’t tell the difference, and it is all in the name of business.  And where that has led us is with an orange-stained narcissist in the White House and a rancid yellow stain on the rest of us.