Feature
Will the Next Press Be Capitalist?
It will if freedom remains on the American agenda. From our July-August issue.
Will the next press be capitalist?
Whether drained by arrogant habits or strained by admirable commitment, “old” media organizations as currently configured and staffed devour cash—and increasingly fail to replace it.
Leviathans like the New York Times Company and Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. confront an immediate financial crunch, and the economic prospects of their small-market brethren are bleak. Every week struggling daily papers (national, regional, and local) pink-slip employees. Television broadcasters’ budgets also shrink as their viewers migrate to YouTube. Even TV cable companies face a new CNN Syndrome—Cash Needed Now.
The New York Times Company and News Corp. have faith in paper—newspapers—and access to very deep pockets. Both behemoths appear to be pursuing a “last man standing” survival strategy, News Corp.’s ploy is financed by its owner’s corporate billions, while The Gray Lady—echoing Blanche DuBois in her denialridden decline—relies on the kindness of Mexi can billionaire Carlos Slim. Since early spring 2009 Slim’s massive transfusion of millions in risk capital has kept the New York Times printing and pontificating— and palpitating, though just barely. Red ink continues to stain the Times’s quarterly corporate report.
The “last billionaire standing” gambit bets the recession kills billionaire-less competitors, and it certainly has a capitalist angle. “Early market instability, later market lock-in” is a business management nostrum. Murdoch and Slim bet they can survive transitional market instability and lock up markets in the “next economic expansion.” In that brave new after-world advertisers will have few premium market options.
Call their reality program SURVIVOR: Old Media, Next Monopolist, a Darwinian wager backed by extraordinary wealth and capitalist calculation, but very likely strapped with a severe case of newsprint nostalgia, an ink-stained faith in the revival of Gutenberg. Both Murdoch and Slim love newspapers, and perhaps they can afford an expensive December affaire de coeur with dead trees. Novelist William “Naked Lunch” Burroughs proved talented, con nected trust fund millionaires can afford heroin habits and live for decades using quality dope. Lessprivileged addicts beg, borrow, steal, and then—naked truth—die without dignity.
National, regional, and local media organizations without billionaire loot are begging, borrowing, and fading fast. For better and worse, in the United States we are witnessing the public death of a business model that uses paid political and commercial advertising to support high-volume printing presses and expensive broadcast technologies operating on government-allocated airwaves. We are also watching the less-publicized demise of a social order thoroughly attached to that business model’s economically productive era.
These deaths—sped by the poisons of corporate stagnation and ideological bias—have a subtle but not insignificant political dimension. The connection between free political speech and a free society is fundamental. No, the First Amendment wasn’t about investigative reporting, but keeping the political system honest—the political system that protects the First Amendment—all but requires it. Factual, fair, and original investigative reporting that carefully examines the ethics, finances, claims, actions, and assumptions of vested, powerful interest groups, individuals, corporations, and government institutions is—to use the buzzword of software developers—the “killer application” of worthy journalism. Free societies need well-armed soldiers to thwart external enemies and honest, relentless, investigative reporters free of partisan collusion to vex internal tyrants. Corruption and cronyism damage democracy, but so does cynicism, and hard evidence publicly empowering voters (and occasionally prosecutors) is the best systemic cure.
Newspapers at the local, regional, and national levels, and (after the invention of the telegraph) their “paid and ubiquitous” stringers, wire services, have carried the burden of investigative reporting. The reasons are in part tradition, but the power of the written word plays a role. Investigative reporting isn’t a glamorous face job—it requires persistence and courage, not personality and coiffure. The best investigative reporting requires an enterprising spirit—in the capitalist and reporter slang meaning of “enterprising.”
But the newspapers are dying. The American Society of Newspaper Editors canceled its 2009 convention, scheduled for Chicago in April. The ASNE press release (available on the Internet) cited “the challenging times faced by its members.” It has now changed its name to the American Society of News Editors, its newspaper subscription not quite canceled….
II.
Perhaps the next press will be socialist.
Medicare is now an entitlement. The next stimulus may feature “Media-Care”—government subsidy if not ownership. As it is, a certain type of “media character” (I cannot write “journalist”) is always searching for a monarch to serve. In the United States this “media character” usually suffers from “BBC envy.” The afflicted “media character” instantly damns anyone who suggests the Beeb news brand isn’t perfect. She won’t consider the argument that a free, “classically liberal” economy puts a premium on the truth (competitive business demands facts, good and bad) and the BBC in its early years—when it established its stiffupper rep—was a government-owned broadcast monopoly supported by a liberal economy with globe-girdling interests.
But let’s say the BBC is something of a historical exception and speculate that despite parliamentary finagling, ideological causes célèbres, and Eurosocialism “BBC exceptionalism” will remain an eternal constant. The common “government” news media model is China’s Xinhua or a “semi-official” actor like Egypt’s Al-Ahram. The monarch’s purse, whether in the form of direct government control, governmental bullying, or even hobbyist billionaire with a George Soros-like ideological incline, always has strings.
Sun Tzu aficionados and “Unrestricted Warfare” fans take note: China’s current leaders still see a state-owned “news agency” as a tool for waging information war—which is why I specified the content objective of honest operations. StrategyPage.com recently pointed out (January 27, 2009):
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Mattled| 7.27.09 @ 9:37AM
I'd be happy if the next media would stop deciding who is the best candidate (in their opinion) and providing around 5 billion dollars in free PR.
This last election proved if nothing else that they were emboldened by the 2006 'win", i.e. Foley/Craig scandal/non-scandal and went all out Obama in 2008.
They are paying the price and I wish their decline would accelerate.
I don't watch any network news or morning shows and therefore my local news is also limited.
Once the local affiliates figure out that they are losing millions of viewers because of their respective networks bias, they might use their clout to level the playing field. I won't hold my breath.
Haven't received my local paper in over 4 years and even if they delivered it for free I would demand they cease.
Good riddance Wolf, Charlie, Campbell, Diane, Katie and all the rest.
The only public you now serve is the Obama administration. Good luck with that.
JAH666| 7.27.09 @ 10:12AM
Excellent analysis Mr. Bay! Changing technologies and social conventions always precede changes in the delivery of information. Guttenberg (maybe spelled wrong) and his invention of moveable type couple to the printing press, was resisted by the church, then embraced as It saw that the technology was going to stick. Today's instant communications and virtual social community combined with the enquiring minds and entrpreneurial spirit of humanity WILL lead to the convergence Mr. Bay writes about. It can't fail to happen. The only question remaining is, who will control this new, powerful information medium? That is the crux of his piece in my view. The restrictive governments of China, Iran, and others will attempt to control this medium as a control on their peoples and may succeed. Will America go the path towards more and more gevernment control of The People? If that trend that is now taking shape for the last decades continues, the adherents of that controlling government will use the convergent information gathering/diseminating technology that is emerging to sway/lead/control the American people. Winston Smith wrote in his diary (in Orwell's 1984, for those who don't know) that all freedom extends from the freedom to believe that two plus two equals four.
Mattled| 7.27.09 @ 12:32PM
I used to tune in to 60 Minutes or World News with Gibson pretty often.
My local ABC affiliate would provide me the 6:00 news and I would leave it on to get Charlie.
Then it all of a sudden became obvious that they were systematically targeting anything conservative and propping up Obama the Messiah.
Couldn't handle it any more. The Networks, and I noticed CNN too, started to just report "half" the news. Leaving stories at mid-story.
Then it was a bout 1/3 of the news.
Now, they just make it up, or they allow their guests to make things up and go unchallenged.
The local paper? Anything that had to do with minorities it was always societies fault and no fault of the minority.
That and the writing was horrific. When the Sunday ads got more interesting than the content of the paper, we cancelled.
Hardius| 7.27.09 @ 3:46PM
The downfall of the media, both printed and electronic, is that the many are owned by the few. If we wish for the media to report balanced news then there needs to independence from the corporate board room where the only goal is profit.
I spend an immense amount of time surfing the web trying to find news on the issues that interest me. The traditional media has fallen so far that they wouldn't recognize the truth if it ran over them in broad daylight. I don't want opinions, I want verifiable facts and numbers, if they have to bring on an "expert" then it ceases to be news and becomes opinion.
Their use of sound bytes is another issue that makes me grit my teeth in frustration and almost always exposes thier bias.
Their failure to deal with complex issues in a balanced manner leaves me wondering how much I really care if they fail. I may just be Joe six pack to them but my desire to know the facts far out strips their ability to reveal them.
I probably do not appreciate how their failure will impact our Nation but I have seen the negative impact of their participation far more times than I have seen a positive impact.
A free press has been missing from this Nation for a long time and all we see is sleaze over substance.
Thom| 7.27.09 @ 5:29PM
“independence from the corporate board room where the only goal is profit.” Hardius, your points are valid but if their only goal were profits they wouldn’t be failing…… What’s lacking from their “goals” sheet is the same thing that is ultimately killing them, competition and a drive for customers. They loath competition and run away customers because their top goal is something not related to a business goal. We have three network “news” organizations and typically one major newspaper per SMA delivering the same product under slightly different packaging. That’s like buying one of Government motors division products and then trying to make the case the Chevy, Buick, Olds and Pontiac all built on the same chassis are in fact different products. They aren’t and for the same reasons half the population turned away from Government Motors Group and Ford they’ve turned away from the one party news business. No more difficult than that.
Liberal Reader| 7.27.09 @ 5:37PM
Good journalism depends upon ownership that is comfortable with fairly small profits.
The investment required by good journalism simply does not lend itself to huge profits the way Fox News / Tabloid News outfits do.
Fox News changed the entire model of broadcast news. Instead of being led by a team of veteran journalists who met each day to decide what was in the public's interest to know, Fox meets to decide what its most valuable demographics would like to hear. That's not journalism, it's prostitution.
Which is all well and good. This is a free country, and if you want to waste your time on that sort of thing, more power to you. But it's not good journalism you're enjoying, it's just entertainment.
Fox is, of course, no longer alone. MSNBC is a disgraceful copier of the Fox formula. CNN is perhaps a little less awful, but not by much.
My advice? For broadcast news, stick with the News Hour (even Limbaugh concedes that Leher is the "smartest guy" in major news broadcasts) or NPR and supplement that with whatever "conservative" programs or publications make you happy.
Thom| 7.27.09 @ 6:37PM
Liberal Reader, good journalism is driven by good journalists not profits. The profits come when you deliver a good product or not. The Boob Tube however is driven by ratings and has been a primary source of entertainment from day one. If you have to pander to the emotional side of the brain to hold viewers perhaps real news shouldn’t be presented in that format. NPR would blow away if not government subsidized.
Liberal Reader| 7.27.09 @ 7:10PM
Thom --
1. You seem to make a distinction between profit and ratings that I don't quite understand.
2. There is no evidence -- none -- that the best journalistic outfits are the most profitable. From an a priori standpoint, it certainly wouldn't follow. Conservatives today tend to generalize from models of capitalist efficiencies to an extent that Adam Smith never would have dreamed of: just because people want it, doesn't mean it's good for them.
3. NPR, in fact, has grown to be one of the most successful news organizations in the country. It is almost entirely reliant upon donations and corporate sponsorship. I think tax dollars pay for about 5% of its total workings.
Liberal Reader| 7.27.09 @ 7:12PM
Correction: 2% of NPR's overall budget (according to NPR) is from government grants.
JohnC.| 7.27.09 @ 7:14PM
I do hope the next pres. is not a capitalist! I hope he is a free marketer, a person who believes in American exceptionalism and also the Constitution. Capitalists get in bed with every power structure from Marxists to emperors to chieve their goals. Hell, they just slept with the most leftist, slimey pinkos to ever inhabit the halls of our government to achieve thier goals on bailouts. Remember, it was Marx who coined the term capitalist, not Adam Smith. There is a reason for that.
Thom| 7.27.09 @ 7:48PM
Liberal Reader, you see no connection between good journalism and profits? I think the evidence abounds anywhere you look today. By that reasoning the “best” of any profession would have no relevance to the outcome of the enterprise they are employed in and I think you don’t have to look too far to see that at work across the board. Using the purest definition of “profit” the best Lemonade stand is going to get the business if it produces the product most people want at a price they can pay and stay in business which requires a “profit” even for non profit businesses. If customers aren’t buying your Lemonade I think the idea that “profits” aren’t involved are fairy tales gone bad time and time again.
What % of the market that NPR serves does it have? Take away that 2-5% subsidy and you have the economy we have now. I’ve seen how donation driven public service media work, they are niche at best else they wouldn’t need either corporate donations or tax payer subsidy.
Dean Vander Linde| 7.27.09 @ 8:29PM
Liberal Reader:
If only 2 percent of NPR's funding consists of government grants, then they really wouldn't miss the revocation of government support, since it is such an insignificant amount.
One thing that makes me wince is when people use the phrase, "the media is." It should be "the media are." "Media" is the plural form of "medium."
Thom| 7.27.09 @ 8:35PM
This is why John Adams said our form of government is only fit for a moral people. An amoral government is only concerned with its power and regardless of the underpinning economic system it will become corrupt eventually without safe guards. A corrupt government equals a corrupt society at large.
Liberal Reader| 7.27.09 @ 9:27PM
Thom --
You illustrate my point.
Journalism is not lemonade. Necessary information is not a commodity.
Liberal Reader| 7.27.09 @ 9:42PM
The main stream media ARE mostly driven by profit, and they are responsible for Americans being completely confused about some basic truths.
PROFITS are why Lou Dobbs, that beastly and incomparable liar, has a job. From his perch, he confuses thousands into actually believing "birther" conspiracies, which are then reinforced by blathering all over cable news.
(The American Spectator's R. Emmett Tyrrell did a terrific job on Hard Ball this weak helping to expose all this nonsense, and he wrote a great piece earlier this week about it.)
When President Bush left office, 60% of Americans still believed the 9.11 attacks were executed by Iraqis, which is completely false, but profit driven media were not able to dislodge propaganda skillfully promulgated -- in a deniable way, of course -- by the White House.
I read somewhere that 15% of people in Texas think Obama is a Muslim, and probably that many think he's a socialist because profit driven media blathering has replaced actual journalism.
In short, the "market of ideas" needs to be distinguished from the "free market." The two might be companions, but they're not a married couple of "one flesh," and that's for damn sure.
End of the world by design| 7.28.09 @ 5:07PM
By Dr. Elias Akleh, Information Clearing House,
In mid 1970s the American Power Elite drew a “Grand Plan” to control and to monopolize global oil and nuclear energy resources, for he who controls energy resources determines the fate of nations. The base of this “Grand Plan” is the invasion of energy rich countries to directly control their resources, and to create subservient governments that would exploit their own people as cheap labor to harvest energy for the United States.
The collapse of the Soviet Union had created a window of opportunity for the United States to ensure and to affirm its global superiority through expansion and controlling energy resources without any real opposition. The attacks of 911 were necessary requirements for the Bush administration to wage a “global war against terror” that would serve as a cover up for American hegemony. President Bush borrowed Mussolini's fascist motto of “If you are not with me, you are against me” and turned it into “You are either with us or with the terrorist” to terrorize weaker nations into accepting American expansions.
Part of the “Grand Plan”, which deals with the Arab World (Middle East) and South East Asia, was handed down to the Bush/Cheney administration for execution. The invasions and destructions of Afghanistan and Iraq are just the beginning. Iran, Syria, and Lebanon are next. Controlling Iran is very important to the American administration. Iran sits on a lake of oil and has large deposits of uranium that, when mined and refined, could make Iran a super global power. Controlling Iran leads to the containment of China (America's greatest competitor), who depends heavily on Iranian oil to satisfy its growing hunger for energy. Geographically Iran makes the shortest and the most economical route for Kazakhstan's oil pipeline from the Caspian Sea ,north, to the Persian Gulf south with all the oil-tankers traffic. Iran also fits perfectly within the line of American hegemony in South East Asia. Listening to Bush's speeches – especially his speech to the United Nation last September 2006- one can detect his “enthusiasm” for “spreading democracy and freedom” into the “despotic Middle East” with Iraq as an example.
The Bush/Cheney administration started its overt aggression against Iran immediately after 911 attacks. Bush described Iran as one of the “axis of evil” sponsoring “terrorist” groups such as the Lebanese Hezbollah and the Palestinian Hamas, who are in reality defending themselves against Israeli aggression. After the American invasion of Iraq the American administration accused Iran of instigating a civil war in Iraq by supporting Shiites against Sunnis, and of opening its borders wide for terrorists to enter Iraq. The administration is accusing Iran of building a nuclear bomb, and is continuously threatening its government to abandon its nuclear “ambitions” or else face dire consequences including nuclear strikes (a paradox of using nuclear weapon to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons). Condoleezza Rice, the Secretary of State described Iran as a “central bank for world terrorism” that is threatening the stability of the Middle East.
guo | 7.1.10 @ 5:15AM
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