Crisis Popcorn

Two questions are prominent in the latest batch of readings. Has a desire for profitability taken hostage the content of the news media? If so, is this a negative development?

Hamilton says yes, and proceeds to chart the historical developments that have indebted the news media to profit, including: the corporate buyout of the networks in the 1980, the demise of the FCC communal responsibility mission, and the introduction of 24/7 news cycles. Proof of the increased emphasis on money making news comes in the form of a comparison of soft (big money, little value) as opposed to hard (little money, big value) news before and after the historical events that led to the content shift:

Both the regulatory environment and cable competition affected the mix of stories on the nightly news. When the Reagan FCC dropped the public service requirement for license renewal, there were indeed changes in coverage, but cable competition led to bigger changes.

In the 1990s, network news covered less legislation than in the 1970s. Whereas two-thirds of the critical Congressional Quarterly votes were covered in the seventies, only about half were covered in the nineties. Whereas the nightly news once covered half of the votes on interest-group scorecards, in the nineties they covered only one-third. Coverage of the Supreme Court, however, held steady, at about 40 percent of the important cases.

Celebrity coverage has also increased. Network news has doubled the time devoted to People's most intriguing people of the year. This is not entirely a move away from politics, though. People's list includes political personalities, and political celebrities like John McCain or Colin Powell get some of the attention no longer given to legislative insiders.

The big shifts in coverage, however, have been away from legislation and foreign reporting and into what is derisively known as “soft news.” While there has been some increase in the coverage of celebrities, both political and non-political, most of the shift has been to the “soft” categories of “news you can use”—consumer-oriented information on health, business, and technology. 8

Leighly argues that the professionalism [69% of Reporters list getting information to the public as extremely important and 67% claim investigating governments claim is also extremely important] and liberalism [44.1% are Democrats and 16.4 are Republicans] check the profit drives of news organizations, meaning that even though profit has been introduce to the equation there is negligible effect. However this argument is severely flawed, as only 14% of Reporters characterized their reporting as entertainment. This is a ridiculously tiny and wishful number. Indeed, the fact the number is low is evidence that Reporters are in denial about the current state of their industry. Leighly provides no further proof to her claim, leading to its defeat on the basis of insufficient evidence.

Kaplan, working on anecdotal evidence alone, agrees with the conclusions reached by Hamilton. In turn, Kaplan addresses the second question, arguing that this devomplent is negative. Kaplan complains that the sensationalism prevalent in the news media makes it impossible to support the "Democray of educated citizenry" dreamed of by Jefferson.

Network brings to film many of the arguments found in Kaplan. In Diane and Frank, the audience is presented with the embodiment of the profit dynamic. They are set up against Max Shaumacher, cast as the protector of classic, factually driven news. The battle emerges on two fronts, the storyline involving Howard Biel, and that of Diane and Max’s imbroglio. Biel represents the transition of news from informative to provocative, and is summarily pushed by Diane and Frank. The film leaves no doubt that their actions are negative, portraying the pair as cold and greedy with no concern for truth or sense of purpose. The audience is left with a distrust of media driven by monetary concerns. On a more subtle level, a similar message is conveyed in the episode of Diane and Max. Max’s last speech to Diane- that she and the tube she programs suck the life out of living- is not simply a condemnation of her, but of everything she represents. Max's message is clear: monetary motives pervert reality from being about human emotions and common decency, transforming it into a coldly efficient calculated experience. In the case of the news media, money strips the communal responsibly of informing the public and replaces it with news designed exactly to titillate.

With such a virulent arraignment, is it possible that profit driven news can be acquitted?

Baum makes a convincing argument that there is a positive aspect to this new type of media. Baum does not attempt to deny that news content is no longer “hard,” in that it no longer is driven by the need to inform. Instead, Baum argues that profit-driven medias content has a beneficial side effect. The news may be less informative and driven by shock-value, but now is designed to exactly engage the public interest. Although this is for the sake of advertising, the effect means that people now care more about the news they watch:

Soft news emphasizes human impact and moral values, so the new audience for foreign affairs is an audience with different concerns and different ways of thinking about foreign affairs. When soft news covers a war, it focuses more on the human drama than on the geopolitical stakes, foreign relations, and diplomacy. A rescued hostage, a downed pilot, bereaved families, or a national guardsman resentful of the better-armed regular forces will get extensive coverage; congressional hearings, budget fights, and meetings with allies may go unmentioned. Baum argues that the focus on the personal over the geopolitical, in turn, feeds isolationist sentiments. 13 I suspect that this is a premature inference; it seems just as plausible that these media could feed interventionist sentiments in future situations like the Iran hostage crisis of 1979, when American hostages were shown being humiliated by their captors.

As an aside, Popkin makes the following statement that runs contrary to Kaplans claim f Jefferson:
The Founding Fathers believed that it was their prerogative to decide

what and when to report to the citizenry. James Madison believed that an uninformed public was a key to the survival of democracy: without ongoing access to information about government, there could be no factional alliances to contravene the common good. 31 Madison did not believe there should be a congressional record; better that legislators should tell the public what they needed to know when they returned home from Congress. He also assumed that there would be only face-to-face accountability between representatives and voters in America. That is, when a representative returned home from the distant capital, he would give an account of his actions to the voters and this would be their basis for judging him. He did not expect that before long the postal system and newspapers would make it possible for citizens to monitor his activities while Congress was meeting. After his travels through America in the 1830s, Alexis de Tocqueville wrote that he had expected small town and rural Americans to be as politically ignorant as French peasants. Instead, he found that the postal system was a “great link between minds,” penetrating into the wilderness and “bringing enlightenment to palace and hovel alike.” 32]

As roundly a condemnation of the profit-driven model Network is, the film cannot help but stumble onto Baum’s point. Howard Beil’s ability to not simply speak to the masses, but to control their actions is a function of the power of Soft News. In this case, Biel provides shock value as the “Angry prophet of the people.” Having opened this form of intimate communication, Biel is able to involve his audience on numerous occasions in political actions, ranging from mass displays of anger to a telegraph campaign on the White House. Although the film casts this power in a negative sense, with Biel himself condemning its ability to be abused, its positive potential is exactly the point Baum is driving at. Witness the power of "soft media":



Imagine if Biel had told them to help an old lady cross the street. The point is the power of engaging television- good or bad- is a force that has to be dealt with.

The batch of readings provides consensus on one issue and controversy on the other. On the one hand, the historical changes noted by Hamilton have led to a media where profit-seeking is an undeniable undercurrent in the world of reporting. On the other, the effect of this phenomenon depends on the lesser of two evils: an uncaring, informed public, or an involved, ignorant one.