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Contents on this page were published in the June, 1993 edition of the Washington Free Press.
WFP, 1463 E. Republican #178, Seattle, WA -USA, 98112. -- WAfreepress@gmail.com
Copyright © 1993 WFP Collective, Inc.
IDEAS THAT
CUT THROUGH
THE BS
Salvadoran military murdering its own people ... U.S. government trading arms for hostages ... Savings-and-loans collapsing ... Meat-processing plants going under-inspected ... The Inslaw software scandal ... Iraq-gate ...
In what sort of publications did these stories first appear?
Washington Post? Wall Street Journal? The New York Times?
Try Mother Jones, The Nation, Z Magazine, The Progressive, The Village Voice.
No surprise. "Big deal," you might say.
One's natural reaction would be to rail against this country's mainstream news media for being timid, and for being controlled by corporations that depend on access to financial and political markets that would be closed if they stirred up trouble in their newspapers or on their TV news shows.
Complaining about the situation is a start. The next step is to reconfigure and broaden the debate over the role the mass media play in a democratic society, as well as their relative importance in the context of societal change. With this shift, we should work to change the current relationship between the mainstream media and the stories they cover, as well as the relationship between the alternative press and the typical media consumer.
With Watergate and I.F. Stone's Weekly in our not-so-distant memories, many of us have grown accustomed to think of the news media as activists with keyboards, uncovering dirt around the city halls, police departments and corporate board rooms of the U.S. Many mainstream reporters - particularly those at The Los Angeles Times and New York Newsday - actually do this sort of work, but not as many as one would hope or might think. Unfortunately, the Watergate experience led much of the country's news media establishment, by association only, to be falsely stamped with the "muckraker" label. Wishful thinking, at best.
As I said, many reporters at newspapers big and small actually do real-life investigative reporting. Most reporters, however, spend much of their time chasing around mid-level government officials in search of minutiae about new public infrastructure projects and asking them if they ever "experimented with" marijuana in college.
As many media analysts have observed, reporters' self-imposed dependence on "official" sources is perhaps the biggest wall standing in the way of a truly aggressive news media. Call the mayor's spokesperson. Get the quote. Plug it into the third paragraph.
To their credit, the mass media do tell you about most of the important decisions made by all levels of government. And sooner or later, The New York Times will get around to writing about the scandals now making headlines in Mother Jones or the Village Voice. It happened with all the stories I mentioned at the top. The confusion - and disillusion - arise when readers expect more than that from the mainstream press.
Through their news judgment and editorial positions, newspapers give the appearance of being advocates for certain progressive causes. Take reproductive rights. A huge majority of the country's reporters and editors - particularly at larger papers - believe strongly in a woman's constitutional right to have an abortion. Editorials reflect this, so does bias in news articles. But this is the work of journalists with opinions, not of activists with causes.
Most conversations I have with my press and political friends about media issues focus on what a crappy job the major dailies do at covering certain stories, particularly those involving inadequate or criminal government policies. We wish they would conduct sustained coverage of issues we care about the most, instead of paying
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The people of this country are overreliant on the mainstream media not only to inform them, but also to foment opposition to bad public policy and to call for social and political change.
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Sure, blast the dailies. But also tell your friends you really don't expect the dailies to give you much more than basic information about a story, and they should count their blessings that most news decisions are being made by liberals. Tell them that it's up to us to take the information that is provided and do something with it. And tell them about great stories you have read in alternative news publications.
The people of this country are overreliant on the mainstream media not only to inform them, but also to foment opposition to bad public policy and to call for social and political change. With the country's larger newsrooms - though packed with liberals - under constant attack by rightists and even moderates to tone down overt ideological favoritism, newspapers are in no position to be the friend of those seeking positive change. An unwitting abettor, maybe, but certainly no friend. Reporters and editors are quick to tell you this to your face.
Such an overreliance is not only delusional for people with societal concerns but also, perhaps more dangerously, disempowering.
This isn't to say that we have to accept the current state of American newspapering, or the relegation of the alternative press to the journalistic fringe. Political and social activism must include media activism. Because the press' power is unmistakable, the news media, like any other player, must be drawn into the fray. Try:
Mainstream newspapers are competing more and more these days with television, particularly cable, as well as specialty magazines, movies and other forms of info-tainment. What this means is that many of our newspapers, regrettably, already are starting to look and read like USA Today. Editorially, they are letting themselves be pulled in the wrong direction.
Yes, newspapers do need to change. Decades-old turns-of-phrase have polluted the writing. Beyond official sources, newspapers depend too much on information pulled from previously written articles (which often is incomplete or incorrect), wire services and unconfirmed scuttlebutt bouncing around the halls of government. And, because reporters and editors talk to each other too much, coverage is framed by their opinions and experiences, not by the people most involved in or affected by a given issue.
Some pressure should be exerted on the mainstream media to reshape themselves. But the mass media's role as an actor in social change needs to be de-emphasized, while the role of alternative news publications needs to be elevated. We've earned our place.
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