Newspapers: too necessary to fail

            Blogs are very democratic.  They are a way of giving and getting opinions faster than ever before—in real time and raw delivery.  Do you think Nancy Pelosi sucks?  You can get on the Web and say so.  Do you think I suck?  You can reply to this post and get in my biznazz.  Sure, the Internet is a virtual playground for rabid partisanship, anonymous ad hominem attacks, and enticing but unsubstantiated pieces of news, but isn’t that how we like our information—reactionary and with a built-in bias?

            That is certainly what we receive from most modern forms of communication.  Talking heads on CNN are actually quoting from websites and from Twitter—as if what Joe Sixpack.blogspot.com says about energy policy has equal weight as Secretary Stephen Chu’s remarks on the matter.  Not to mention that shouting matches, visible disgust, and partisan hackery are the staples of cable news commentary.  That’s why I loathe cable news—it’s not news at all.  Everyone has an agenda, and those who don’t simply seek to aggrandize themselves at the expense of truly investigative journalism.  There is a disheartening cycle taking place in the mainstream media: anchors tell us what they think, then report on what we think they think.

            Call me old fashioned, but if I want accurate news reporting that’s not sneered at or otherwise agenda-driven, I still turn to the dying breed that is the American newspaper.  Bloggers could not function without newspapers—they provide the research and the analysis to which we react.  They station reporters in state capitals and in city council meeting rooms to ask questions and pore through documents that my staff of one has neither the time nor the credibility to access.

            Some journalists are bloggers, but most bloggers are by no means journalists.  What we do is essentially creative writing that seeks to persuade, mock, or champion.  I write about government policy, but I doubt that I could get the mayor of my town to provide his analysis for this website, much less a member of the United States Congress.  Newspapers provide the institutional memory and the ability to work through the backchannels of power to investigate the claims of those in charge and seek rebuttals from those who aren’t.

            Unfortunately, the newspaper business model is suffering.  Ad revenue is drying up because news and opinions can be found for free on the Internet.  Which is a shame, because print reporters have a long legacy of uncovering wrongdoing from the Bush administration all the way back to the Revolution, when pamphleteers spread the news of British retribution on the troublesome colonies and mobilized a confederation of Americans into action.

            Television and blogs are great for the up-to-the-date scorecard reporting that dominates political discussion: Who’s ahead?  What are the Republicans saying?  How are Obama’s poll numbers?  Don’t get me wrong: on television, many an influential guest can reveal their true self under direct pressure.  And there certainly exist witty, intelligent bloggers who want to share their professional knowledge among a wide audience.

            However, there are types of information that a laptop-toting citizen journalist or a camera-lugging television crew cannot access.  Until I can hire a cadre of editors, fact checkers, and muckrakers, I will continue to rely on the newspaper and know that the people behind these stories aren’t yearning for face time on TV or anonymously assailing an ideological opponent online.  Rather, they are letting us know what is wrong with our society and leaving us to debate on how to fix it.

Says who?

            Humans beings are exceptional creatures in that they can speak.  And they can write.  And think.  Well, maybe some people skip the thinking part and go straight to the speaking, but the point is that we do say things and we have developed a sophisticated apparatus of being able to know what other people are saying.

            I don’t necessarily mean this blog, for instance, or your Twitter or your Facebook page, where you can see who is saying what.  Those are your friends—they can see what you are saying and vice versa.  I’m not talking about what any one person says, I’m talking about what people are saying.  People, as in Joe and Jane Q. Public.  The kind of people who you don’t know—and who you probably don’t want to know…but still, you are kind of curious as to what they are saying.

            What are people saying about the stimulus package?  What are people saying about health care?  What are people saying about Rhianna and Chris Brown?  Fortunately, we have a free and functioning (although slowly declining) press to report and contextualize what people think.

            But the problem, see, is that people think different things.  And even when they think the same thing, it may be for different reasons.  So, at any given time, on any given issue, we can only know what some people say.  That’s why news articles are littered with the phrase, “some say.”  That’s awfully vague, isn’t it?  What if only five people are saying what the reporter is saying they are saying?  And the other 302 million people (minus five) in this country are saying the exact opposite?  It would seem to me that there is no way of telling the difference between what “some people” are saying compared to “most people.”

            But on the other hand, there is the chance that you might be one of the people in “some people.”  That’s a nice means of airing what you think.  Now everyone will know what you are thinking, and you will know that some other people are also thinking what you’re thinking.  Of course, they won’t know you are thinking it because you aren’t someone in particular; you’re just…well, some people.

            Of course, some people are more important than “some people”; they are Dr. Some People, Senator Some People…these people are not people, they are “some experts.”  These people are useful for putting up arguments that may or may not pass the muster if just some ordinary people were saying it.  If I were to report that “some people are saying that the Republicans will take back the Senate in 2010,” that’s a lot less credible than if “some political experts say that Republicans will make extraordinary gains in the 2010 election”.

            So where does that leave us?  Well, we know that some people are saying some things.  Dumb things certainly, intelligent things possibly, but we have no way of knowing who is saying what and how many are saying it.  Sure, we can have a little bit of context, if we know for example that 32 percent of people are saying that the stimulus plan will work.  But it’s entirely possible that every person you know is saying that it will fail.  Whom do you believe?  “Some people”?  Your instincts?  The facts?  Personally, I try not to believe too much of anything.  After all, I could be wrong. 

       Though some may disagree.

State of the Blog Address

      August 25 marked the three-month anniversary of The 28th Amendment’s operation.  In that time, this site has received over one thousand visits resulting from Internet searches, WordPress tag surfing, and a few dedicated viewers who check in from time to time.  Countless hours have been spent over the past hundred days reading, reacting to, and revolutionizing the way that news is presented to the blogosphere—hopefully with some historical context and subtle wit (although your mileage may vary).  When that fails, a Barack Obama upskirt photo is not out of the question.

            Now, a question for you: do you like what you see?  Do you have a talent for writing/photography/videography that can be used to crusade for social justice?  You see, far from being another highly opinionated corner of cyberspace, the Amendment’s goal is to be a source of sociopolitical analysis and literary experimentation—both of which are not necessarily able to be met while posting tri-weekly.  Therefore, we are seeking to be an online newsmagazine of sorts, and are looking for talented citizen journalists to help fill our ranks.  Hopefully, in the coming months the Amendment could become a powerhouse in the style of Huffington Post, Slate.com, and the other big players in the news blog industry.

            If you have the motivation to write but have never had the wherewithal, consider joining The 28th Amendment.  The key to building a recurring readership is blog well and blog often—with the addition of more staff writers, we can hopefully bolster our output to daily postings.  With a viewership exceeding many hundreds of visits per week (and increasing geometrically for the foreseeable future), your thoughts would be guaranteed a modest but growing audience.  To join our potentially-award-eligible ranks, drop a note to

msk5n AT virginia.edu

and include a sample of your work.  If you can provide one piece of multimedia journalism each week, that contribution would be welcome.

            Aside from that request, thanks to everyone who has made it a habit of reading the Amendment.  And remember, keep writing to your congressmen: we’re awfully close to getting ¾ of state legislatures to ratify this website; and when that happens, we’ll be living large!

Lights, Camera, Reaction

What makes the news?  Is it what gives you the blues?  Does someone choose what is news?  Whose views does news use?  Some say that it skews or that it’s all just a ruse.  News can amuse by talking about taboos; it can excuse or accuse and even confuse.  You can peruse the news for facts you can use.  But muse this if you choose: who gives the cues?  

 

            In the media there is a loose formula for determining which news is reported by considering factors such as the timeliness, the consequence, and the proximity of the story.  For example, in the wake of unprecedented gas prices, a report on a local government’s plan to implement a light rail system to alleviate road congestion and provide alternate means of transportation would be timely, consequential, and proximate.  The other important element to weigh is the entertainment value of news.  Now more than ever, with corporations vying to catch our eyes and ears in an increasingly congested and busy world, media need to make every story seem sensational or imperative so that we will watch.  They know that a House Subcommittee Hearing on Infrastructure is more important than a recap of American Idol, but darned if more people didn’t tune into FOX than C-SPAN.

            But do the media solely present what is inherently ”news”?  For such a function to occur, the media would need to gauge what the people want to know and what they ought to know.  Treatment of Guantánamo prisoners, the Chinese earthquake, effects of Mexican immigration, climate change, etc. are newsworthy because they appeal to the country’s traditional values: civil rights, empathy, accommodation, and activism.  Obviously not all news coverage is treated equally, so the process might seem pretty arbitrary and opaque, but also understandable, given Americans’ preferences for “infotainment.”  However, what happens if you get an instance of two talking heads screaming at each other over whether Hillary Clinton should drop out of the presidential race?  Which value does that appeal to?  Is it even news?  Outside of the media, would anyone else be talking about it if it didn’t matter so much to journalists?  Of the last question in particular viewers must be mindful—we need to wonder about whether, when we read or watch the media, we are learning about current events more so than learning about the views of journalists on current events.

            Take the recent incident of columnist and commentator Michelle Malkin creating controversy over a Dunkin Donuts commercial featuring their spokesperson, Rachael Ray, wearing a Middle Eastern-looking scarf.  To make matters worse, the company actually pulled the commercial because of all the Internet attention.  The media created their own news!  If they had just written off Malkin as using the kind of conspiracy-mongering, racist, and inconsequential rhetoric indicative of the style of the crazy homeless guy in the park, we would not be left over with such useless messages as “Dunkin Donuts supports terrorism” or “Michelle Malkin is an ultra-conservative hack” (not that we didn’t already know at least one of those to be truths).  In 1898 yellow journalists blamed the sinking of the Maine on the Spanish; in 2008 they blame terrorism on a doughnut company.

            Another example of a manufactured controversy comes from the ample coverage of the 2008 election.  Anchors and correspondents have salivated over trying to predict which states Hillary will win, which states Obama will when, when Hillary will bow out, if Obama will ask her to be his vice president, etc., etc.  I heard an NPR correspondent today give a synopsis of what Barack Obama will announce after the last two primaries end, and punctuated his remarks by saying, “But I don’t want to give too much away.”  What are you giving away?  The man hasn’t said anything yet!  It seems that the media’s penchant for being in a perpetual state of preview (“coming up at eleven o’clock…stay tuned for a special consumer report…the full story is straight ahead”) is being applied not only to what they do, but now what others say and do.  If we want predictions of the future, there is an adequate number of fortune tellers, tarot card readers, soothsayers, etc. throughout the country.  If the media spend their time telling the public that blue collar workers are voting for Clinton, those people will perceive her to be representative of them and will indeed vote for her; voila, the media have created a self-fulfilling prophecy.

            So, let’s say the media were to stop predicting the news and simply be reactionary in their coverage and analysis.  How could they mess that simple job up?  Well, in 1996 President Clinton gave a State of the Union Address that lasted nearly an hour-and-a-half in which he laid out his policy goals.  The media attacked Clinton for not sticking to his message and as being lengthy and boring.  Yet, the media soon found out that 80 percent of Americans approved of the speech, 74 percent had a “clear idea” of the president’s agenda, and that more people tuned in to watch as the speech progressed.  In other words, the media’s news was news to us.  The public supported the substance while the media were critical of the style.  Apparently since the media have gotten us addicted to sound bites, it makes their job too difficult when legitimate discourse comes into play.

            The effect of the media can be powerful—they brought us pictures of the carnage in Vietnam, showed the unfair treatment of 1960s protestors in Birmingham, and lost communist-hunter Joseph McCarthy much of his support—but it also needs to be responsible.  There are still problems that need fixing which could easily fill up twenty-four hours if the television networks preferred to cover it.  But when they stop telling the stories of others and become the newsmakers themselves, those in the media augment their influence and are able to make their own stories—however unneeded—part of our discourse.

 

6/3