Newspapers, Television, and Policy Evaluations - We Need Help.

This week’s readings revisit several significant issues concerning the importance of mass-media in shaping citizen’s interest in, and information regarding, American politics. Among these issues are: reduced numbers and quality of journalists; bankrupted (or at least increasingly insolvent) print media; a shift toward web-based “journalism” (Starr) which has little margin for digital profits (Nichols and McChesney); partisan television news resulting in selective exposure; and an increase in the impact of presidential campaign ads relative to “declining news quality and consumption”. All of these issues have potentially deleterious effects on citizen competence.

Paul Starr points out that journalism serves as a watch-dog which helps reduce and prevent government corruption, fraud and abuse. Journalists, quite simply, keep government honest. Web-based news outlets have significantly lower numbers – and access to – investigative journalists than print media do, which necessarily lowers the possibility that corrupt government will be exposed to the citizenry. In the modern electronic age we might expect that exposing corrupt practices within our government has been simplified. Certainly we cannot avoid the fact that many politicians make easily-discovered mistakes when they inadvertently record their corrupt practices on video, audio, and cell-phone devices, all of which are easily uploaded into computers which then spread the information like wildfire. What are often missing from web-based media, however, are the fedora clad, chain-smoking, flask wielding beat reporters whose sheer force of will and determination uncover and present hard-hitting, in-your-face newspaper stories. Paper readers are presented instead – in my own opinion – with unexciting, unimposing, soft journalism. The citizenry needs to know the facts. The average citizen needs to be told what information is important, and that information needs to be presented even when it’s uncomfortable for the reader. More troops killed in action? Front page news! Chinese Panda stubs his toe at the zoo? Not front page news! When we are no longer able to determine what information is necessary or if that information is a “public good”, we need someone to tell us that. We need someone to give us information that excites our passion for being Americans. Enter Fox News.

Even in television news (I have switched gears, of course) viewers are looking for “edgy” news – certainly Iyengar and Kinder agree with this – and Fox News has eagerly stepped up to serve viewers. As absurd as I find many of the pundits and commentators on Fox, one thing is certain: they excite their audience. How else can I explain the fact that my conservative, 30-something friends quote Beck, Hannity, Coulter and O’Reilly on a regular basis, lifting them up on their shoulders like some triumphant heroes and protectors of good ol’ American values? Certainly these political commentators are providing news, but do they serve the public good? Do their programs promote political discourse, provide a necessary service, offer healthy criticism of the government, or serve the general interests of America as a whole? No, I argue, they do not. But what else is there for them? As Iyengar and Kinder point out, Fox is merely serving a niche market, a mutually beneficial arrangement where both parties get what they want. This blog is certainly not about bashing the Fox Network, but their news goes far beyond agenda-setting. It is dangerous to political discussion, it promotes political disunity, and it mocks all dissenting opinions. What’s the point of all of this? I actually support having partisan-leaning news outlets (First Amendment and all), but when media migrate too far from the center, when they are allowed to color the facts and promote inter-party hatred and animosity (something our parties are capable of doing on their own), they spread this venom through the American citizenry. In our political age of often confusing policies and candidates, we should be able to rely on the media not only to identify those policies and candidates, but also to provide a fair evaluation of them. Is this possible? Certainly not, if you consider the nature of some television media organizations.

But all is not lost – at least, if we can believe Gilens’, et al argument. Focusing on the media as an evaluative tool for presidential races, Gilens and team argue that media attention given to coverage of scandals, character evaluations and the horse race is offset by paid advertisements which inform the public of each candidate’s policy preferences. If this shift from media to paid advertisement as the source of evaluation of candidate’s and their policies has occurred, it only suggests that the citizenry may be able to IDENTIFY specific policy. But identifying a policy, or even being able to name which candidate or party supports the policy, does not indicate an acceptable or usable knowledge of the policy itself. Were voters more informed about certain policies, perhaps they would be more apprehensive in supporting certain candidates and policies. The 2008 presidential election and the 2010 midterm election results seem to suggest that the American citizenry focuses more on what makes them feel good instead of what they need. Paid advertisements made the electorate feel good enough about Senator Obama and his proposed policies to elect him to Chief Executive. They believed that his broad policy claims of ending the Iraq War, stabilizing the economy, and reforming the healthcare system made him the correct candidate. Two years later, Obama has ended the war (only to a degree), has shoved an unworkable, contentious, and divisive healthcare reform measure down the throats of the American people, and has made (at least to the economically-challenged observer) only modest adjustments to the economy. That said, did anyone actually believe that President Obama – or ANY president for that matter – could achieve all of his objectives within his first term? Apparently the electorate did, and if you believe the news over the last week, they made their voice heard in the recent congressional elections. It seems we still want and need change, and it is obvious that a Republican house and a Democrat Executive will – according to the American people – be able to work together in order to make more changes. Wait, what?!

It seems that paid advertisements did a wonderful job of raising the unrealistic hopes of the American people, although their great expectations were certainly not new to the 2008 cycle. Perhaps we paid too little attention to the media (including Fox) who offered a plethora of pundits and commentators suggesting the difficulties in implementing such lofty policy initiatives. I simply don’t share the same optimism as Gilens, et al. Having the ability to draw a line between a presidential candidate and the policies he supports does not equate to an acceptable knowledge of the policies or their effects on the nation. If this dot connecting is all that’s needed in the American polity, we should expand suffrage to anyone who can do color-by-numbers.