Web Only// Views » April 16, 2010
Journalism’s Parasites
If every crisis is an opportunity, then who is making an opportunity out of journalism’s current crisis?
No matter how much this week’s Pulitzer Prize triumphalism hides it, the fact remains that journalism these days is “a disaster,” as Ted Koppel said recently. And unfortunately, retrospection dominates the news industry’s self-analysis. Like dazed tornado victims, most media experts focus on what happened and why, oh lord, why?
The queries are important, though just as critical are two prospective questions: 1) If, to butcher a Chinese aphorism, every crisis is an opportunity, then who is making an opportunity out of journalism’s current crisis and 2) are those opportunity-maximizers actually parasites destroying journalism for the long haul?
The answer to the initial question is three groups, starting with the Access Traders. These are reporters like The New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza, Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter and NBC’s Chuck Todd, who, while covering politics for major media, are also signing separate contracts to write books chronicling White House gossip. Facing a crisis in audience share, these correspondents’ employers encourage the double-dip opportunities, hoping book exposure will result in residual attention. But the simultaneity is problematic: As the Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz notes, hard-hitting stories in these reporters’ day jobs “might alienate potential (book) sources and flattering ones might loosen tongues.”
The dynamic’s deleterious effect on journalism is obvious.
“The oozing conflicts lead to things like a glowing New Yorker profile of (Obama aide) Rahm Emanuel followed by an even more one-sided love letter to (Obama aide) Larry Summers, both from Lizza,” says Salon.com’s Glenn Greenwald. “It’s what causes Alter to proclaim one day – when Obama favored it – that real health reform ‘depends on whether Obama gets approval for a public option’ only to turn around – once Obama said (the public option) was unnecessary – and proclaim that the Left is foolishly obsessing on the unimportant public option. And it’s what leads Todd, in the form of ‘covering the White House’ for NBC, to serve as an amplifying vessel and justifier for whatever the White House happens to be saying.”
Add to this the Double Agents – those making opportunities out of journalism’s revenue crisis. Knowing cash-strapped media outlets are providing platforms to corporate advocates rather than spending extra money to employ their own independent voices, various chameleons at once posture as journalists and get paid as business spokespeople.
Richard Wolffe, for instance, has appeared on MSNBC as a supposedly objective pundit while also being employed by a business advocacy firm. Likewise, Jeff Birnbaum heads a lobbying and PR company while writing a Washington Times column – and a recent one attacked Democrats for defying industries that pay his company.
Birnbaum, of course, was previously the Washington Post correspondent covering the lobbying industry, and so his career shift also puts him in the last group: the Former Watchdogs.
To understand why these turncoats so threaten journalism, consider not only Birnbaum, but also Stephen Labaton. This New York Times financial reporter just announced he is taking a job with Goldman Sachs – a move that makes you wonder if Labaton watered down his Times coverage in order to get his new gig.
As with similar revolving-door situations, it’s a legitimate worry – after all, Labaton knew Goldman probably wouldn’t hire a muckraker who had been aggressively exposing bank transgressions. Then again, maybe Labaton did nothing wrong. Either way, though, the damage is done because the concern now can – and must – be aired, which itself helps destroy the idea that traditional news is impartial and trustworthy.
In aggregate, this all ends up answering the original query: Are many of today’s opportunity-maximizers destroying journalism? Clearly, yes – and unless media sachems institute some basic ethics rules, the parasites within their ranks could end up making sure there’s no journalism industry left to save.
ABOUT THIS AUTHOR
David Sirota, an In These Times senior editor and syndicated columnist, is a bestselling author whose book Back to Our Future: How the 1980s Explain the World We Live In Now—Our Culture, Our Politics, Our Everything was released in 2011. Sirota, whose previous books include The Uprising and Hostile Takeover, hosts the morning show on AM760 in Denver. E-mail him at ds@davidsirota.com or follow him on Twitter @davidsirota.
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Reader Comments
I’ve always said that responsible journalism was non-existent during the Bush years, and I think that form of apathy is still present. News reporters and political commentators seemed to be victims of ‘misdirection’, a clever technique made famous by our former vice-president.
But these journalists weren’t unintelligent. They had to know what was going on.
I saw a piece on public television back in 2006 or 2007 where a group of well-known reporters were discussing the antics of Dick Chaney. They told of how he’d purposely leak a phony story to the Washington Post on a Friday. It would be published on that Saturday. And on Sunday, he would appear on ‘Meet the Press’ or some other political news show and refer to this article when accentuating his point. Viewers would believe the story because, of course, it appeared in the Washington Post!
I do not remember the names of the journalists involved. Nor do I remember the date the program aired. But it was featured on WTTW Channel 11 in Chicago.
But I remember thinking, as I saw these guys smiling at the audacity of this vice-president, “WHY DIDN’T YOU REPORT THIS TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE WHEN YOU FIRST KNEW ABOUT IT? WHY DID YOU STILL GIVE THIS MAN RESPECT AND CREDIBILITY WHEN HE DESERVED NONE?”
Another example of this media manipulation occurred during the coverage of the 2008 Presidential Election.
A group of ‘political experts’ was commenting on how close the election would be. “...if Florida is carried by Obama…yes, but we must remember that Maryland is taken by McCain…yes, I agree, but its just too close…273 are needed…”
But just before the program ended, the host asked the panel who they thought would win and how close it would be, Now, with their reputations on the line, it was a totally different story.
Obama 360…Obama 366…Obama 364… Obama 365. How vain we are.
Posted by Eugene Connolly on Apr 16, 2010 at 8:39 PM
The press in the United States is fairly conservative. A study by Fairness and Accuracy in Media supports this conclusion. Here is the executive summary of the study.
The conservative critique of the news media rests on two general propositions: (1) journalists’ views are to the left of the public, and (2) journalists frame news content in a way that accentuates these left perspectives. Previous research has revealed persuasive evidence against the latter claim, but the validity of the former claim has often been taken for granted. This research project examined the supposed left orientation of media personnel by surveying Washington-based journalists who cover national politics and/or economic policy at US outlets.
The findings include:
On select issues from corporate power and trade to Social Security and Medicare to health care and taxes, journalists are actually more conservative than the general public.
Journalists are mostly centrist in their political orientation.
The minority of journalists who do not identify with the “center” are more likely to identify with the “right” when it comes to economic issues and to identify with the “left” when it comes to social issues.
Journalists report that “business-oriented news outlets” and “major daily newspapers” provide the highest quality coverage of economic policy issues, while “broadcast network TV news” and “cable news services” provide the worst.
And here is the link for more detailed information on this topic.
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2447
Posted by cabdriverinchicago on Apr 17, 2010 at 4:47 PM
“The press in the United States is fairly conservative. A study by Fairness and Accuracy in Media supports this conclusion. Here is the executive summary of the study. “
I totally agree that the media has taken a far left slant and and aggressivesly promoted it. However, I have a problem with calling that “conservative”. I don’t think the Republicans or the left can claim the conservative title legitimately. That’s a brainwashing thing that’s been going on since Gingrich.
I take my definition of conservative from the root word “conserve” and I don’t see how you can call the people who bankrupted and crippled the country for the sake of their big money/big business supporters conservative.
I also have a huge problem with these people calling themselves journalists. What happened to journalistic ethics? A journalist or reporter is never supposed to express an opinion and there are many legitimate journalists that have had stories handed back for a rewrite because it showed a hint of a slant. Big corporations have bought up the mainstream media and they use it as a soapbox for their interests.
That’s exactly why I wouldn’t watch Fox News with a gun to my head. I watch C-SPAN because as far as I can see it’s the only media news source left that has any journalistic integrity.
Posted by CherisPlace on Apr 17, 2010 at 8:52 PM
The expression is, “Don’t hate the playa, hate the game.” I’m not sure I would go that far; there’s plenty of room to hate some of the players here too. That doesn’t change the fact that it’s the game—the system—that has gone horribly awry.
Despite the fulsome praise of computer technology that reverberates from across the political spectrum, including from many of my fellow progressives, the sad truth is that computers and the internet bear most of the blame for the evisceration of whatever used to pass for journalism. When you make news and information available for free, and do not aggressively sue those who purloin it, you undermine the profitability of the industry.
The only way out of the quagmire is simply to charge for content and to sue egregious pirates. The pornographers have figured it out. The music industry has figured it out. And the capitalist jackals at the Wall St. Journal figured it out before anyone else. When will serious news outlets follow?
And sorry for the shameless plug, but hey, it’s relevant:
http://smugpansy-cynicscorner.blogspot.com/
Posted by Immanent_Universal on Apr 17, 2010 at 10:02 PM
“Big corporations have bought up the mainstream media and they use it as a soapbox for their interests…That’s exactly why I wouldn’t watch Fox News…”
I agree with these sentiments. Beyond this we part company. There is certainly not a far left slant in the media whatever “far left” is supposed to mean. The only broadcast journalists that can legitimately be considered “left” in my opinion are Rachel Maddow and Keith Obermann; but they are hardly representitive of mainstream broadcast journalism. I’ve watched ‘em all from Fox to CNN to ABC, CBS, NBC and PBS. Only PBS might be said to have a liberal slant but they appeal to the highly erudite. CNN is almost as conservative as FOX but they make a pretension to being balanced and are far more professional. The rest are simply middle of the road.
The debate about what constitutes objectivity can go on forever. Yes, I agree that a reporter shouldn’t editorialize but that all depends on your definition of editorializing. Perhaps it fits with one Supreme Court Justice’s opinion on what legitimately constitutes “obscenity” which followed, “I can’t really define it but I know it when I see it.”
I also disagree with your definition of conservative. Yes, the term contains the word conserve, but this is a root part of the word which expressed the original intent of what it was supposed to mean. Definitions legitimately change with time. Etymology gives a sense of the origins of a word’s meaning and how it began but almost all words change their connotation over time. This is no less true of the term “conservative” which may not bear much resemblance to its original meaning since it exists today in an entirely different context.
I find that the term conservative doesn’t only mean preserving the status quo since many conservatives want to change the status quo depending upon what that may be at any given time. Conservatives do defend long standing conventional wisdom and the existing socio-economic power structure as “natural” and “adaptive” which is said to give us the “best of all possible worlds.” I think this could describe the positions of most broadcast journalists.
In keeping with my definition, I really can’t see how defending the interests of large corporations, which are definitely at the top of the socio-economic ladder, is anything but conservative. Making such a defense is in the true and original spirit of conservatism. Of course, the consequences have been an unmitigated disaster for society. But who said the ultimate consequences of conservatism necessarily have to be positive?
Posted by cabdriverinchicago on Apr 18, 2010 at 9:39 AM
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