The great journalist and thinker Walter Lippman put forth a new and innovative concept in news reporting 80 years ago, and our world may never be the same. In the view of this American genius, the common folk were too ‘dern stupid’ to understand or to be involved in the complex issues of their world. Because he believed participatory democracy was no longer possible, Lippman proposed a completely objective press staffed by professionals whose job was not to engage the public, but simply to inform them. To do this, reporters from then on were expected to ignore all personal beliefs and professional pressures in order to record and relate the truth exactly as it occurred in the real world.
Today, 70 percent of the population believes that Saddam Hussein was directly linked to the Sept. 11 attacks.
Whether you believe the polls or not, journalism is in a more serious crisis now than it ever was in Lippman’s time.
The halcyon days of gritty, hard-nosed journalists diligently protecting the public from political wrongdoing are dead and gone. Instead of serving as a “Fourth Estate” in our system of government, journalism has become the fourth echo of the insipid tripe repeatedly blathered by the same questionable sources. Journalists feed from their official sources’ hands, flutter back to their little nests and parrot the same rubbish right back to the people. Then they ask why everyone believes the same silly untruths.
Today’s journalism is a lot of hugging, kissing, schmoozing, coattail-riding and repeating of official reports as if they are handed down from the heavens by God himself. The Project for Excellence in Journalism recently found that the use of stories from wire services has doubled in the past five years.
On top of that, a study by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting of seven popular national news programs found that “viewers were more than six times as likely to see a pro-war source as (they were) one who was anti-war; with U.S. guests alone, the ratio increases to 25-to-1.” A stunning 68 percent of American informational sources were military officials, and only 3 percent of the U.S. sources opposed the war while 25 percent of the general public dissented.
In a 2002 study, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting found the average American interview source for ABC, CBS and NBC evening news programs to be 92 percent white, 85 percent male and 75 percent Republican, while independents represented a meager 1 percent of the total sources used.
But the situation gets uglier. In the words of investigative journalist Greg Palast, investigative reports “are risky, they upset the wisdom of the established order and they are very expensive to produce.”
As journalism becomes increasingly a product not of public service but of profit motivation, investigative reports become less practical. The fear of lawsuits, losing sources and upsetting sponsors subconsciously, or even consciously, affect the way a story is covered. As the Project for Excellence in Journalism reports, 54 percent of news directors have been pressured to do stories about their sponsors.
The PEJ also recently claimed that investigative reporting decreased 60 percent in local television markets during the last six years. The study showed that hard news stories fell 33 percent in the last twenty years, while lifestyle and entertainment stories increased nearly twofold.
The devolving definition of “news” isn’t the only thing threatening the very notions of democracy, however. The profession itself is being redefined. The more journalists become television stars, the less likely they are to bite the hands that feed them. With every appearance, the star shines a little brighter and can make a little more money. In a survey of Washington-based journalists, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting found that 31 percent of them earn $150,000 or more.
Journalists don’t become stars by challenging those they work with or by upsetting the status quo, but if you truly believe in democracy, this is exactly what you should want journalists to do.