By Michael Mulcrone
American journalism is in crisis, and by extension, so are we.
Daily newspapers - our primary sources of news - are withering on the vine, victims of a perfect storm of declining readership, plunging ad revenue and a downward spiral of staff cuts and shrinking news content.
Radio journalism (apart from not-for-profit radio) is an oxymoron. Local TV "news" is a cacophony of crime stories, weather reports and happy talk. National TV broadcast news divisions have been cut to the bone by belt tightening and bureau closures, their news content increasingly diluted by entertainment values.
Cable news is becoming ever more clogged with shouting heads and a repetitive loop of headlines, rumors and sound bytes.
The internet does offer real promise. But technology alone will not solve the problem. Bloggers provide a rich array of opinions, but they do not have the resources to engage in investigative reporting. News aggregate sites like Yahoo and Google do little of their own reporting and depend on traditional media - newspapers and television - for content.
The future structure of the internet is also unsettled, and efforts are afoot by corporate interests to establish a two-tiered system which privileges some content over others. The utopian rhetoric surrounding the internet will not automatically be realized.
The reasons are varied and complex, but deliberate policy decisions have played an important part. The deregulation of mass media began with Ronald Reagan in the 1980s and culminated under Bill Clinton with the Telecomm Act of 1996 - a law written by corporate lobbyists and never publicly discussed in the media - that tossed out most ownership limits of mass media outlets and ended public service requirements for those who profit from using the public airwaves.
Deregulation was driven by the proposition that government is the problem and unregulated markets are the solution. We have only to look at the recent global economic meltdown - which began in the United States - to recognize the folly of that.
The Telecomm Act set off a frenzy of buying and selling as huge conglomerates - hungry for profit and jockeying for position in a rapidly changing media environment - gobbled up more and more newspapers, television stations and radio stations. In the process, they took on immense debt. And so began a downward spiral of staff cuts and dilution of news content to service the debt and keep profits high and stockholders happy.
Let me offer two examples. With the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, we were blindsided not just by the destruction but also by the sudden realization that forces were afoot in the world that desired our destruction.
The attacks shocked us out of our national slumber and forced us to question our presuppositions about what we know about the world beyond our experience. It's instructive to note that the attacks came after years of cutbacks of the foreign news bureaus by our major news outlets. It's instructive to note also that the national broadcast news stories that got the most attention in the months prior to 9/11 were shark attacks off the coast of Florida and reports about the murder of Congressional intern Chandra Levy.
For a time after 9/11, the media devoted more resources to providing more complete and nuanced news about the outside world. Then it was back to business as usual. A more recent example was the abject failure of our media to question the justifications for invading Iraq in the months prior to the war. That failure was so pronounced news organizations later engaged in rare bout of hand-wringing and self examination.
Mass media are critical to our democratic experiment. They are the central nervous system of our system of self-government. Without an independent system of political communication, democratic practice is impossible. A functioning marketplace of ideas in which diverse and antagonistic ideas clash and vital information freely circulates is critical to an informed and engaged citizenry.
The authors of the U.S. Constitution recognized the importance of the press by giving it unique privileges under the First Amendment. Mass media are the only business entities that enjoy overt protections under the Bill of Rights. With those protections comes a responsibility to serve the common good by providing vital information and a forum for public discourse. One of our duties as citizens is to insist that they do so.
Scholar and media-reform activist Robert McChesney, who will be speaking at 7 p.m. tonight in Buckley Center Auditorium, argues that we are at a critical juncture in which the major institutions of American - including mass media - are in crisis. This crisis, according to McChesney, presents a rare opportunity to transform our media system into one that better serves the communication needs of a democratic society.
Here is a partial list of possible solutions to the challenge we face. Think of them as starting points for discussion:
Reinstate the limits on the number of broadcast stations, cable outlets and newspapers that one entity can own. This would provide more competition and a greater diversity of voices in the media marketplace.
Bring back the Fairness Doctrine which requires broadcasters to give space to all points of view on important public issues.
Re-establish minimal public service requirements - such as providing educational programming for children--for those who profit from using the public airwaves.
Require broadcasters to provide free air time to qualified candidates for national public office. This would remove some of the corrupting influence of money from our electoral process.
Provide an independent, dependable source of funding for non-profit broadcast media. The U.S. has the smallest and weakest pubic broadcasting system in the developed world. A small tax on advertising and/or the profits of commercial broadcasters would be a start toward rectifying that.
Prevent the largest cable companies and phone companies from privatizing the internet.
Create policies that ensure that super-fast broadband - uncensored by corporate or government interests - is available to all Americans.
None of these are radical propositions. All are within the realm of the possible. Let the conversation begin.
