Chapter 2: Corporate Control and Professionalism

In this chapter, McChesney documents the changes U.S. journalism has undergone during the 20th century. Major sections of the chapter are:

Journalism's Great Crisis

Before the Gilded Age (1865-1901), before commericial interests began their encroach into the media, there was a diversity of newspapers, and the opinions reflected in those papers were highly partisan. A diversity of views resulted, no one pretended to be objective or unbiased, and some would say this is what a healthy press should be doing-presenting diverse viewpoints on the politics of the day, creating an informed citizenry, an essential part of democracy in action. (Or is this an overly-romantic view of the past?)

During the Gilded Age and the Progressive Era (1890s-1920s), several factors emerged that would lead to what McChesney calls the first great crisis of commerical journalism. These factors include the rise of sensationalism (or yellow journalism, tabloidism), the increased dependence on advertising revenue, the increased difficulty of launching a new daily, the awareness of contradictions between commercialism and democracy in media, and critique of these factors found their way into public life. These are some of the factors that lead to journalism's first great crisis, when the commercial interests involved in the media took their first steps to ensure protection of their interests from public and government interference. These actions were to set a pattern that would be used over and over again in media policy debates throughout the twentieth century. They are:

1. Make very little information about the nature/content of the media policy changes/debates available to the public. If the public is uninformed, then they will not be able to raise their voices in objection or concern. Their voice will not be a part of the debate at all.
   
2. Use the First Amendment to protect your interests by claiming that government regulation and control interferes with your rights to free speech and free press, thus twisting the original intent of the Constitution to protect and serve your own (profit-driven) business, commercial interests. Also, having a lobby to represent your interests in Washington is indispensable. This functions to minimize the role of the government in your business affairs.
   
3. The complementary argument for #2 is to push the idea that the market, left to its own devices, is the best regulator of business. Appeal to notions, widely upheld by the business elite and economists, that the market provides the most natural place for competition to unfold, and is therefore the best environment for self-regulation to occur; undue government regulation is seen as a hindrance to the natural "unfolding of the market", as it were.
   

Also, business provides an incentive for the government by providing a means to make a profit off of technology that has been developed by the government, at taxpayer expense. Business, in effect provides a market for technologies developed by the government at taxpayer expense, a syngergistic relationship, to say the least.

Question-Is the purge to eliminate the "liberal bias" in the today's media not a form of partisanship disguised under notions of the professional code (objectivity, etc.)? In other words, are the codes that are supposed to make journalism "professional" ultimately being used against one group by another (by the right against the left) to further one groups aims? Can the partisan creation of a bias lead journalism to a truer picture of itself, or to a picture that is all the more partisan in nature? If the "liberal bias" were eliminated, where would that leave us? With a view dominated by the right, but portrayed as unbiased (c.f. Fox News-We Report, You Decide ethos)...

Rise of Professional Journalism

The rise of professional journalism was an important response to the first crisis discussed above. By the end of the Progressive Era, many journalism schools began to emerge. An emphasis was placed on nonpartisanship, on factual accuracy and the discrediting of sensationalism. The emergence of this ethic helped perpetuate the myth that the owners and editors of a paper (professionally trained) function independently. Extending this logic also justifies a decrease in the number of papers, for if the editors and staff are professional, wouldn't one source be as good as another? This argument ignores the filtering effect that ownership has on the content of news (see Chomksy & Herman's propaganda model). This ethic also changed the nature of the media debate by shifting focus from institutional and governmental roles to that of individual journalists themselves (in the sense that those journalists who had not properly internalized necessary values would be weeded out by the system in place, an extremely effective way to ensure conformity to a set of ideals which rewards those who follow the status quo and punishes those who violate it.)

Limitations of Professional Journalism

The role of "experts" in society (i.e., the secular priesthood) emerged during this era, and professional journalists were part of that class. "Experts" internalize values that maintain the status quo, and are called on by elite groups to, among other things, provide legitimacy for the existence of institutions and to justify actions of ruling business class interests. "Experts" also become shielded from public criticism because their status seperates them from the opinions of the uninformed masses.

McChesney identifies three deep-seated biases that accompany the "professional journalist" ethos:

1. Official sources (e.g., government, experts drawn from the establishment) have come to be seen as the only legitimate sources for news. Unofficial sources are seen as biased and unprofessional. Problems-reliance on official sources creates a narrowly defined view of events (consider coverage of the nation's (military) role in the world), makes it difficult for journalists to be overly critical of those sources (at risk of losing them), and creates a too-cozy relationship between the press and its sources.
2. Avoidance of contextualization; focus on the hook. News becomes event-driven, and important social issues are addressed in the context of an event (protest, riot, official report); the issues themselves are horribly under-reported.
   
3. Ownership/advertising filters (this includes internalization of values, e.g. the U.S. is fundamentally a force for good in the world), which 'filter out' (if not enforce a 'code of silence' on) content that is overly critical of the owner and advertisering class who provide the money to keep the operation afloat in a competitive market environment. Government will tend to be criticized before corporations will.As a result, a pro-corporate/business perspective emerges. Editorials become biased in favor of advertisers and business.
   

Also, the press tends to become critical of war after (not before) a split among the elite emerges on how to best conduct it (the debate does not focus on whether the war is fundamentally wrong or not).

The Commercialization of Journalism

In this latest phase, starting in the 1980s, the increased corporate conglomeration of media interests has made journalism itself become more commercial in nature. Effects include:

• A general depoliticization of the population, such that public awareness of government and political affairs has been reduced to a level of de-education. Most news regarding government and politics is in the form of scandal of individual players.
• The number of journalists has decreased, in the wake of the focus on making profit above all else. And profits have been record-breaking in this era, across the board.
  
• International coverage has suffered dramatically. Awareness of U.S. involvement in the foreign affairs of other countries has been reduced to a trickle. This only gives the government and its partners a freer reign, because few in the media will hold their actions accountable.
  
• The PR industry has been able to fill in the gap left by these cuts with messages that suit its clients.
• Investigative reporting is an endangered species, if not already extinct. Instead, in the interests of professionalism and saving money, there has been a general shift to "official-source stenography" style reporting, in which official sources are cited uncritically and the viewer/reader is left to make their own decisions about the matter. The merits or demerits of those official sources are not questioned, when in fact, they need to be to approach something closer to "objective" journalism. This is a total about-face from the original responsibility given to the press at its outset.
• Muckracking is now seen as partisan, and therefore unprofessional.
  
• Editorials have become "advertorials", portraying views that are favorable to the interests of the owners/advertisers of the paper.
• The revolving-door relationship between media companies and business has continued.
• Journalists promote the content of the media conglomerate for which they work.
• "Fluff" (stories about the activities and personal lives of celebrities, about crime, violence, disasters) has filled in the gap created by commercial pressures. "Fluff" is easier to produce than the other types of stories that have been replaced by the commercialism trend, and niche-markets for this fluff have proliferated as well.
• The increase in crime coverage has enforced stereotypes about who is a typical perpretrator (a black man) and who is typical victim (someone white). This also gives power to the police to be more aggresive in their tactics, as it is perceived as justifiable by the general public.
• Minority coverage/representation has suffered at the hands of commercial interests.
• Business journalism has emerged as a highly successful niche unto itself. Business journalism supports capitalism, the pursuit of profit, and portrays business practices in a favorable light. Critique is not a part of its premises. From a journalistic point of view, considering that the funding for news comes from corporations, does not the idea of business journalism itself represent a conflict of interest? Internalization of values favorable to a pro-business outlook is not seen as a form of self-censorship; instead, stories come to be charged with an underlying pro-business current that shapes content in ways that are favorable to a capitalist ethos.
  

Covering the Corporate Scandal

Recent media coverage of corporate scandals (Enron, etc.) that have emerged have been poor, a mere shadow of what journalism was intended to be. This is because the mainstream media was, to a degree, complicit in the process (consider the effects of filtering). There is an interlocking relationship between government, big business and the press which has transformed the way the press operates; some would say this relationship has compromised, even bankrupted it. How can a media system that has increasingly become dependent on corporate backing be critical of that which sustains it? Again, it's the "don't slap the hand that feeds you" principle.