Capitalism and Journalism (Book Notes: Democracy and the News)
In Democracy and the News, Herbert J. Gans writes:
The corporate pressure for higher profits in news firms does not differ much from that of other firms in the economy, and the reasons are not dissimilar either. The demand may be the result of shareholder pressure, the Wall Street dictate to keep up with share prices and dividend levels in other firms, and management fears of a hostile takeover if Wall Street standards are not met.
Undoubtedly, unexpected opportunities to increase profit and simple corporate greed may also be at play — and top executives who take home multimllion-dollar salaries and stock options can be found as well. Moreover, increases in profit are likely to raise Wall Street expectations even further, a spiral that affects news firms as much as all others.
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The crucial question about chains and conglomerates as opposed to traditional news firms is profit: how much profit are the news firms expected to deliver, and what effects do the pursuit and expenditure of profit have on the journalists? The more profit the firm demands, the less money is available to be spent on journalists and news coverage, the more bureaus have to be closed and the more shortcuts taken.
Admittedly, firms could use extra profits to hire more journalists to improve their product and thus to earn yet higher profits, but better journalism, as defined by journalists, is not necessarily profitable.
Capitalism is about earning a profit — there’s nothing wrong with that, but also nothing intrinsically good, either. It’s amoral and therefore can occur in both good and bad contexts. One of the problems with this is that earning a profit isn’t necessarily compatible with all types of activity — and it may not be entirely compatible with the sort of journalism that we should value.
Of course the pursuit of profits will have an effect on how journalism is done. Even if advertisers and marketing departments have no say over editorials, it is inevitable that the most profitable types of stories will be played up the most and repeated the most — regardless of their quality, importance, or relevance. Is that a problem?
Some people may think that the pursuit of profit is inherently good and, therefore, whatever this pursuit ultimately produces must be accepted as being good as well. This is a mistake — in some cases the consequences may be good and in some cases they may not. We need to accept the possibility that there will be competing values sometimes. The free market rests upon one set of values; good journalism rests on another. Sometimes, those values may be compatible; sometimes, they may not.
What to do if they aren’t is a far more difficult issue to address. Journalism can’t be removed form the free market system, obviously, but could (or should) the government do anything to encourage good journalism? That assumes that the government can define “good journalism,” also a dubious proposition (at best).
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Comments
My “Bias Klaxon” starts blaring whenever I read an economics-related article with frequent and disparaging usage of words & terms like corporate, profit, chains, greed, Wall Street, or poo-pooing how much the top earners are making. But, getting to the discussion….
but better journalism, as defined by journalists, is not necessarily profitable.
*snip*
One of the problems with this is that earning a profit isn’t necessarily compatible with all types of activity — and it may not be entirely compatible with the sort of journalism that we should value.
Who decides, though, what sort of journalism it is that “we” should value? Journalists, editors, senior management, and the general public (as well as different segments within the public) may all have different ideas in this regard. The number of readers/viewers a news source has, or how much it can command in revenues, may be one measure of its value to the public. The fact that a population expresses its preferences for one news source over another (e.g. NBC Nightly News over BBC World News) is an indication that it finds more value in the former. In journalism, the marketplace of products and the marketplace of ideas are essentially one in the same.
Journalism can’t be removed form the free market system, obviously, but could (or should) the government do anything to encourage good journalism? That assumes that the government can define “good journalism,” also a dubious proposition (at best).
Agreed on that–can you imagine the standards the Bush administration would come up with? But if “good journalism” is not to be defined by the gov’t, and neither by the free market (i.e. public demand & preferences), then by whom? Perhaps a journalist trade group or guild, though I see potential headaches in that too.
Maybe we need a “Consumer Reports” for journalism?
Why assume that this is something which a person must “decide” upon? I don’t think that anyone or any group sits down to decide “what sort of science that we should value.” The sort of science we should value is determined (largely) by what the purpose of science is — the more a purported science falls short of that, the less we should value it.
The standards for what sort of “science” the Bush administration values are obviously awful — but why? Because they are inconsistent with what science is supposed to be. Right?
Perhaps journalism should similar. This would involve a trade group or guild, something like science’s peer review. Yes, there are headaches here but that doesn’t mean it’s not an idea worth exploring.
Obviously the parallel between the two isn’t and can’t be perfect — journalism, for example, will necessarily be embedded in the free market more than science. In some ways that’s good because there are reasons why journalism should be able to quickly respond to popular demand. I can’t think of many reasons for physics to do that. In some ways that won’t be as good because of how the drive to improve the bottom line can cause problems (I’ll point out how the closure of foreign news bureaus, and thus also elimination of people who really know the areas where they work, can create a serious absence of experience and knowledge at times when they are most needed).
Also, it must be conceded that the situation with science isn’t as simple and “pure” as I describe it. That’s OK, though, because I’m simply trying to raise the point that sometimes what “we should value” is determined by what something is ideally supposed to be, not by a simple choice we make (and sometimes contrary to the decisions some people make — the science “we should value” is contrary to the science which many evangelicals and fundamentalists would choose).