Media Change We Can Believe In

Van Jones, one of our nation’s most dynamic and insightful orators, perhaps put it best before a fired-up Netroots Nation. “It’s naïve to expect the next president to fix everything that’s broken,” Jones told digital activists assembled in Austin not too long ago. “In fact, I don’t think we even need a president to fix all our problems. All we really need is a president who will stop breaking everything — then maybe we can fix all our problems ourselves!”

Jones’ remark, while meant as a general observation, can also be specifically applied to the many media problems facing our democracy – and the next president, a self-styled ‘change agent” (but then, aren’t they all?). Given that the outgoing gang in the White House has been among the most horrific on record when it comes to both its assessment and treatment of the press, it would be hard to imagine any succeeding administration could be worse. The Bush Administration’s default approach toward journalists has been to use them when necessary and bypass them when not – while meanwhile employing a panoply of measures aimed at co-opting, intimidating, misleading, minimizing and even impersonating them. From the Pentagon’s penchant for “information dominance” and regard for the Fourth Estate as a “fourth front” in the interminable war on terror, from paid punditry to propaganda-as-news, and from phony video news releases to “controlling the message,” the last eight years have seen a downward spiral in the presidential/press relationship that has left public opinion of, and confidence in, both institutions at all-time lows.

The annual Gallup assessment shows that fewer than one of four Americans now have “a lot or a great deal of confidence” in traditional news media such as television or newspapers – down from about on of three just four years ago. What’s worse, public confidence in the media eight years into a disastrous administration is even lower than that in the presidency itself — although the media did at least manage to attain a higher trust rating than Congress…

So, in addition to his other accumulated troubles, the next president will have a full press plate awaiting him. Items needing urgent action include, but are not limited to:

• combating the pernicious effects of decades of relentless media deregulation and consolidation;
• correcting the vast preponderance of conservative opinions on the radio airwaves by somehow leveling the unbalanced distribution playing field;
• ending the hate speech spewed regularly on the public airwaves by talk radio’s leading shock jocks;
• finding a way to encourage more localism and diversity – resulting in more choices and voices – on the public airwaves;
• returning fairness, balanced discussion and coverage of important issues to those airwaves, while dealing with what the industry trade journal Broadcasting & Cable rightly termed “the manufactured crisis” of the rumored return of the Fairness Doctrine;
• passing a federal shield law to protect journalists, their sources and the public’s right to know;
• rationalizing the current content crackdown and FCC obsession with supposedly “indecent” material;
• freeing public broadcasting by ending Rovian political partisanship and content coercion within the Broadcasting Board of Governors and CPB, and hence PBS, NPR and other outlets;
• finding a mechanism to deal with the declining economic health of newspapers – and along with them, investigative and public service-focused reporting — by recognizing and countering the ongoing crisis in journalism, and hence in democracy, occasioned by the “lost revenue model;”
• embracing the fact that producing, identifying and sharing credible, trustworthy news and information is a public good — and treating it as such;
• helping to support independent media and journalism – economically and otherwise — as a necessary counterpart to more establishment forms.

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Obviously the list is long and growing ever longer. Add in the ongoing online battleground, where large media companies are trying to expand their brand reach; net neutrality; web privacy issues and ads delivered to your virtual doorstep; the impending transition from analog to digital broadcasting, which will take place shortly after Inauguration Day… Clearly the new president will have to have his media game face on. Some observers will argue that, facing a meltdown of the entire economic system, two unsuccessful wars, the eternal struggle to somehow fix our broken health system, and other “more important” problems, media issues will just have to be placed on a back burner.

But such an approach would be shortsighted in the extreme. Whatever the story is, the “other story” is always the media story. Should we be surprised, for example, that our recently deregulated media system totally missed the story of what impact deregulation would have on our financial system? Of course not – and that’s why, in order finally to see true media “change we can believe in,” we’ll need an even more robust and active media reform movement that will dedicate itself to keeping the president’s feet to the fire. More importantly, as per Van Jones, we really need to begin focusing energy on fixing some of our media problems ourselves – provided, that is, that the new president at least stops breaking things!

3 Responses to “Media Change We Can Believe In”

1. 1
   Ricardo Says:
   

   I agree. We should bury Reganomics, trickle down, Contract with America, Compassionate conservatism, deregulation, etc. as experiments that failed and should be forgotten. We are about to restart the 21st century with different (not always new) ideas that will actually improve this great nation.

   Republican influence in the executive, House, and Senate is disappearing and next will be a swing away from influence in the courts. Americans recognize that this influence has hurt America greatly along with a natural and inevitable swing of the pendulum. You need to know something about history to know why it is inevitable.

   We should not be satisfied with our push back of failed policies over the last 28 years. We should continue to push back against the voices in the media that have either been just wrong or have lied to us. What is worse, being stupid or being a liar? Now is the time to continue the push and get some fairness in our publicly owned airways. I can think of many better ways to use public airways than lying and stupid.

   November 4th, 2008 at 11:56 am
2. 2
   Robert M. Cerello Says:
   

   Mr. Jones has perhaps written a classic overview of the specifics of communication, non-fiction, fiction, organizations, governmental and media concerns. he has also probably stressed correctly all the negations visited upon information attestors, purveyors, broadcasters, evaluators and scientists during the last 30 years, and eight years years. What he’s left out if the fundamental need to differentiate attested facts from bilge, standards-based evaluations from sicko attitudes and science from pathological lies and anti-concepts. He’s left out science–categorizing definitions, applied to the regulations of non-fictional utterance and film, the labeling of headlines and information, etc., etc. Where are the regulations? “Fairness” is a totalitarian’s buzz words; as is ‘objective’ coverage when applied to corporate monopolists’ dictation over news content–a non sequitur on its face. Where is the call for more diversity, regulation and oversight, and the punishment of those who abuse the rights of hearers, citizens seeking information, and governmental officers–including licensed broadcast monopolists responsible to the FCC’s commissioners? Where is anything other than a postmodernistic right-wing sick joke pretending the problem is “liberals”–defenders of individuals against tsars, when the neocon elitist tsars in fact control 85% of the national news content, money and power? The ultimate despised minority having crimes committed against them/him is the individual citizen–the talented mind being denied preminence by god-playing incompetent anti-American bigots and control freaks. I hope the next president will be able to do something to infuse individual rights into a monolithic totalitarian bureaucracy of drivel- spouting criminals. If je can’t, then whatever else happens, we won’t be any closer in four years to having realistic elections, money, institutions, rights or fiction or non-fiction in the country. (Yes, it’s actually a rather stodgy pseudo-theocratic empire). Individuals’ rights are the touchstone–because regulations define the extent and rules for the self claiming these. And without individual rights being restored to participants within so-called matketplaces, we will live out our blighted lives in a so-called republic under so-called leaders. But we’ll never have one good day during the whole long sad decline and fall of the USer Empire. Not even if it lasts 500 years.

   November 4th, 2008 at 2:26 pm
3. 3
   Louise Says:
   

   I long for the media of the JFK and Edward R. Murrow days when they concerned themselves with issues and solutions, “Keeping the President’s feet on fire.” What has happened so that know the biggest news is about Brangelina or A-Rod and Madonna, I mean - who cares.

   Financially our nation is falling apart because of the deregulation of the banks and lending companies. The results are clear: failing banks, closings of major brokerage firms, foreclosures on individual citizens who have been victimized.

   Don’t blame Alan Greenspan either - rather blame the greedy lending companies and those who advertise, “Buy up foreclosed homes.” They are vultures and prey upon people who can ill afford the taxes and/or maintenance on these properties. Seniors are victimized the most - they stand to lose their savings if they have any!

   We need government regulation - if you want to call that socialism - so be it - maybe we could use that in our education and healthcare systems too. Citizens vote in Senators and Representatives to advocate for them. Citizens vote in Presidents and their cabinets hoping they will advocate for them. If that’s big government (socialism) - so be it.

   These are the times that try mens’ souls! We need our government to use our tax dollars for We The People - not for high level executives and giant corporations such as Oil, Pharmaceuticals and Insurance.

   There’s nothin’ surer, The rich get rich and the poor get poorer. Those words boded for the 21st century which is incredible and unspeakable.

   November 4th, 2008 at 2:44 pm

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