The Debate Over Media Bias, Continued
November 11, 2006 at 9:38 pm
In Sunday’s paper, Washington Post ombudsman Deborah Howell reignites the debate over media bias about politics. It’s a valiant, laudatory effort — “here I go into the lion’s den,” she writes– but in the end Howell rounds up the familiar folks to weigh in: Tom Rosentiel, S. Robert Lichter, and other usual suspects.
And therein lies the rub for furthering the debate over media bias. I’ve tried to argue this point with my conservative brethren for ages: Ultimately, the problem with the media is not liberal bias, for which there is abundant evidence, nor conservative bias, for which the evidence is far rarer, if it all. Rather, the unfortunate truth of today’s media is universality of thought. It’s fear of considering something new. It’s adhering to tried formulas and talking heads, whether or not they’re true or wise. It’s seeking comfort and stability in what all others are reading and seeing.
For liberals, that means a comfort zone called the New York Times. I’ve spent sufficient time in newsrooms to see the profound impact that the grey old lady has on story selection and editorial judgment. Not only because the paper is friendly territory for liberals — it surely is — but because it’s New York, where all the media execs live. If the New York Times has covered a story, then it’s safe to pursue for others. If it hasn’t, then don’t touch it.
Conservatives don’t get a free pass for this type of criticism. Try going on a conservative talk show without first scanning the Drudge Report to forecast which topics the host will raise. It can’t be done. Drudge provides the same cover for conservatives that the NYT does for liberals.
The media beast is a creature of habit. There’s little enterprise of thought. It keeps true to narratives and story lines: Gore is a earthtone-wearing weirdo. Bush is dumb. Try arguing against either of those points and you’ll be laughed out of the talk show studio. Even worse, the host or anchor will never ask you back.
No, the big-picture problem with the media isn’t bias — although it indeed is biased in favor of liberals. It’s laziness. Balance the newsroom politics, yes. But bring in new ideas. And try not reading the New York Times for a day.
richard said,
November 12, 2006 @ 9:13 am
i’m not so sure it’s laziness so much as lack of courage. the “cover” of which you speak is something like the cover of the court in the emperor’s new clothes… always looking to trusted courtiers for clues as to which way the wind is blowing. safety is, granted, a lazy person’s choice, but to break out of the court’s thrall takes more than energy, it takes courage.
SMGalbraith said,
November 12, 2006 @ 12:35 pm
Shorter lesson: The problem with the new media is not that they tell you what to think; the problem is that they tell you what to think about.
And what they decide to tell you about comes from a small, insulated environment.
Ron Hardin said,
November 12, 2006 @ 12:36 pm
It’s not exactly media laziness. The media is a business. Their product is not news but you. They sell you to advertisers.
The problem is that nobody really wants hard news (think city council meetings). The only large and reliable audience is the soap opera news audience. They watch every day news or no news, so long as their is soap.
Therein is the “laziness,'’ the restricted story lines, and the templates.
Nothing that surprises the soap opera news audience will be reported. They edit every national debate.
It’s not a majority, nor even a majority of women (40%), but it’s enough to support the news business. So that’s what you get.
If that audience doesn’t hold, probably there’s no viable business model for news at all.
David Schlosser said,
November 12, 2006 @ 12:57 pm
It’s laziness. I’ve been arguing this point for some time: the narrative is what the narrative is, and anything that falls outside the narrative is discarded as an outlyer - either of no interest, or of interest only as an oddity or anomaly. See my camapign blog for a couple of prime examples:
First narrative (http://www.schlosserforcongress.com/blog/blog.php?blog_id=162 and http://www.schlosserforcongress.com/blog/blog.php?blog_id=164): third-party and independent candidates are irrelevant because they can’t win. Of course, the appropriate question for th media regarding this narrative is, “If you only cover candidates who can win, why do you cover more than a few Congressional races? 98% of incumbents win re-election, which means that only 2% of the races are worth covering.” It’s because the narrative is R vs. D - battle for control/majority - rather than candidate vs. candidate vs. candidate.
Second narrative, if a third-party or independent candidate can break through the first narrative (http://www.schlosserforcongress.com/blog/blog.php?blog_id=171): because the non-D/non-R candidate has no chance of winning, s/he doesn’t have any credible ideas about how government really ought to work. Speaking as a third-party candidate who had more experience and education in politics and policy than the R and D combined, I think I had some pretty good ideas - but the media dismissed them as “divorced from the need to govern,” even though neither the R nor the D presented any issues or positions other than “spend more money” and “we’re the richest nation in the history of the world - we can afford to [insert any topic here].”
joewxman said,
November 12, 2006 @ 1:09 pm
As someone who works in a newsroom it is oh so true. No new ideas…no innovative thought…just formula story writing. And if you try something new, often times its rejected because “no one else is doing it”.
Its just a do your work and go home attitude. No creativity.
Ron Hardin said,
November 12, 2006 @ 1:57 pm
Sometimes they do a pathetic fallacy
DELTA JUNCTION, Alaska — The Humvee’s headlights shone incredibly bright, casting daylight clarity on a line of spruce trees, every needle standing out in stark contrast to the dark night of Alaska’s interior.
It’s popular in disaster month-later stories.
There’s no end of it.
Paul said,
November 12, 2006 @ 2:48 pm
I think the problem is even deeper than you describe. Number one, the news is a no-knowledge business. Unlike a lawyer, a doctor, or a scientist, all of whom have to learn and absorb a significant body of knowledge before they can practice their professions, a reporter merely has to be able to write well. Which leads to point two. Remember the movie “Rain Man?” Dustin Hoffmann could multiply two ten-digit numbers in his head or memorize all the cards played from a ten shuffled decks. But in the end he was just an idiot savant, ignorant of what he was doing. After a decade comparing the web and newspapers, I’ve come to the conclusion that reporters are essentially Rainmen. They speak and write beautifully but with no understanding of the facts, context, and implications of their stories.
Ric Locke said,
November 12, 2006 @ 3:23 pm
There are a lot of factors converging. Most reporters come from the educated elitist demographic, and you have to pay those people a lot of money to go where it’s dangerous, dirty, or inconvenient — and even there they tend to decide that discretion is the better part of valor, and that they’d rather have a nice dinner and a soft bed than get the nittygritty of the story. So reportage is expensive, and the Corporate overlords are Hell on expense; it has to be cheap. Newspeople already had the notion that they needed to “help” their readers by telling them, not just what happened, but what it meant, and “what it means” is opinion. Opinion is cheap — I’m not charging you guys, after all
— and that fits both the “news ideal” and the Corporate agenda, so you de-emphasize expensive, dirty, dangerous, and frankly difficult reportage and emphasize cheap opinion.
Ultimately, though, people know that opinion is cheap (even free), and paying for it is a mug’s game. The only thing actually worth paying for is reportage, so the audience and circulation decline as there’s less and less meat — reportage content — and more filler — opinion. The Wal*Mart model is fine, but it can only go so far before it self-destructs, and the Press is pretty close to that point if it hasn’t passed it.
Grit your teeth for somebody to start up Whole News franchises.
Regards,
Ric
richarda said,
November 12, 2006 @ 6:31 pm
Don’t forget the pro-urban bias. The big-name scribes for the networks & big dailies all live in a handful of metroplexes - including the token conservatives, a’la Will & Brooks, even as more and more people move further and further AWAY from such hellholes of taxes, crime and REALLY bad schools.
AST said,
November 13, 2006 @ 3:17 am
I’ve thought of this before, and concluded that the source of the problem is the establishment of journalism schools. The liberal bias, the groupthink, the fear of bucking prevailing opinions, they’re all part of what makes for success in the upper echelon of universities. The only room for creativity is in saying the same old things in ways that sound “professional” and interpreting events to fit the said groupthink. Today’s media is an offshoot of, or subset of, academia.
I’t not simple laziness. It’s the kind where you work hard to master a certain way of doing things, then coast. It’s also the cocooning that occurs when you hang out with the same group, like fish in schools. The same thing happens with any specialty field, law, medicine, military, etc. But in a field that’s supposed to keep the people informed and feed a continuing debate, it’s pernicious.
The laziness of the consumers of news is even deeper and more pernicious. Think of how many people get their sense of current events from Jon Stewart or Letterman, because straight news is, you know, not entertaining.
Stephen M. St. Onge said,
November 13, 2006 @ 7:44 pm
I partly agree with you.
Intelectual “laziness” (I’d call it groupthnk) is a big part of the problem. But liberal bias is there too. They’re almost all liberals, and they discriminate against non-liberals, so they end up sorrounded by other liberals, and that mightily reinforces the groupthink. They’re also intellectually arrogant, and so don’t realize that most of them aren’t qualified to discuss anything, because they’re ignorant of the subject matter.