Opinion piece

University of Hertfordshire – Assignment Edwin Lai

Journalism is a tumour and its seeping puss is slowly killing liberal democracies

The exact role Journalism and the media plays in the function of government has often been precarious and at times, schizophrenic in nature and also marked for its dual personality disorder. For in one instance, particularly in liberal democratic governments, it takes on the faithful role of an indispensable independent institution—at least explicitly mentioned in the United States’ constitution under the First Amendment—one that is similarly characterised in other democratic governments like Great Britain, Australia, Germany etc., as free from government regulations and manipulative censorship with its role as that of a watchdog and functioning as the fourth estate of power; helping to keep corruption in check and to ensure information is freely available so that citizens can have the power to be free and self-governing.

Yet in other authoritarian, socialistic and or developmental governments like China, Russia and Singapore etc., its other personality emerges, as being a partner of the government and one that is at times if need be, subversive and plays a crucial role in the proper and orderly function of society. Despite its interchangeable dual role as either serving the govern or the governors, unarguably, Journalism is needed for the proper function of government for they are the only means representatives of the electorate and their citizens can communicate through, this according to a groundbreaking study and comparative examination of the close relationship between the media and different forms of government regimes around the world, Democracy and the Media, by Anthony Mughan and Richard Gunther 2000.

But Journalism is far from perfect and is today behaving more like a cancerous tumour that doesn’t function according to its originally created purpose – one that allows the free flow of policy relevant information from government leaders to voters, that according to authors Mughan and Gunther. Sadly, the noble intent of Journalism functioning as an independent institution is now more of a utopian ideal, even in democratic societies where the media is usually given free reign over information and speech. The seeping puss from today’s

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University of Hertfordshire – Assignment Edwin Lai Journalism shortcomings can be categorised into three areas namely impartiality, objectivity and responsibility to the nation as a whole.

Media impartiality simply means achieving a balanced reporting of news through the adoption of media pluralism and nonpartisan coverage of politics. However, with the increased corporatising of media ownership, the concept of media pluralism is fast sliding down a slippery slope. Taking the United States as an example, back in 1984, there were about fifty companies with businesses in major forms of mass media like television, cable, movies, radio and newspapers. But in 1996, the number of media corporations has shrunk to about less than ten.

As for the number of companies providing wired international news coverage—the sort of coverage most papers, especially local papers, simply do not have the resources to cover—the reality is even more disparaging. To date, there are now only about four truly credible international news providers, Reuters, Agence France-Presse, Associated Press and United Press International. Even for Steve Case, CEO of America Online acquired Time Warner, despite having several of the country’s journalism companies under its management; he listed the benefits of such a merger as entertainment. As for nonpartisan coverage of news, on the European continent for example, many newspapers first started out as a part of political parties or closely affiliated to the Catholic Church. Therefore, papers adopting a nonpartisan role has already diminished since there will always be slight favourtism towards a particular party, such as in the case in the United States where criticisms have been labeled at Fox News of being overly Republican in coverage and stance.

The shortcomings of media objectivity and responsibility are even bleaker. Prime time news segments, once devoting its coverage to ‘hard news’ developments, have been overrun with malicious and venomous journalistic opinions, often unsubstantiated and lacking in evidence. On June 04, 1996, ABC’s Peter Jennings on World News Tonight, gave an opening lead of 22 sentences with only four of them even vaguely providing a description of then President Clinton’s policy proposal. The remaining sentences were devoted to cynicism, dismissing the policy as an election year carrot. It is also frequent of major news channels in the United States, namely NBC’s ‘The Fleecing of America’ and ABC’s ‘It’s your money’, to

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University of Hertfordshire – Assignment Edwin Lai provide as regular features on exposés of how government officials through their policies, are foolishly spending the nation’s money away. These programs are almost never counterbalance by reports on successful government programmes. We might argue that these organisations are commercial models and not public service models, the former devoted to a larger coverage of ‘soft news’ like entertainment, sports and human interest while the latter has its foci in covering news, government public policies, features and documentaries. But even traditionally responsible public service broadcast models like the BBC is not free from the dilution of objectivity as in the 1997 general election campaign where the leader of the British labour party accused them of equating elections to coverage of ‘horse races’ and concentration of coverage on ephemeral issues like personality of the leader as opposed to covering the policies meted out. In supposedly ‘hard news’ driven media formats like Time magazine, in its August 26, 1996 issue, the magazine had only four pages of world news in two articles. One was on Chechnya and the other on Helms-burton act, with 13 pages devoted towards actor Christopher Reeve’s paralysing horse-riding accident. Separately in a paper delivered at the annual meeting of the International Communication Association in Albuquerque, New Mexico, it pointed out that increasingly, Journalists were appearing to adopt less of an informing role and towards providing more opinionated Journalism, the kind of dialogue that can poison and kill quality Journalism. As pointed out by at least six authors on the relationship of the media and democracy, the latter’s role is often found in talk shows, as one that can degenerate from democratic constructive dialogue to often non substantive personal assaults on public policies or on the character of politicians.

In a Cambridge University study by Markus Prior, Post-Broadcast Democracy, the author noted that it is an increasing trend for the media to depart from the serious coverage of news with focus on policies and public service agendas to the sensationalistic formats of ‘soft news’, entertainment driven coverage, the kind that can often degenerate into overly irresponsible cynical malicious programmes, thus abusing the trust of the electorate. As if quality Journalism hasn’t already taken a back seat to sensationalism, Journalist Walter Lippmann in his book, Public Opinion, compared citizens to ‘theatre goers who arrive in the

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University of Hertfordshire – Assignment Edwin Lai middle of the third act and leave before the last curtain’. For Journalism to stop being the cancer of liberal democracies means it has to note its shortcomings in the areas of impartiality, objectivity and responsibility. But more often than not, the efforts to improve beyond its faults ultimately lies in the way the system functions. As pointed out by authors Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel in their book, The Elements of Journalism, maybe the institution of Journalism should adopt a similar role as universities and function via endowment funds. Perhaps with less of the profit-oriented pursuit, there will be less instances of corporate media ownership and partisan favourtism. As for objectivity and responsibility, surprisingly, it is not through government regulation of the media that Journalism’s original purpose has been lost, but through the citizen’s own hunger and cannibalistic taste for more of the sensationalistic ‘juicy news’ and the erroneous idea that only the representatives of the electorate need to be concern about the process of governorship. For its future, student Journalists in almost every school of Journalism, are already being trained to provide ‘quality content’ through the pursuit of ‘human interest’, newsworthy entertainment driven, sensationalistic type of coverage; the type of news that in the first place brought about the onset of the cancer.

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