It is always easy to scapegoat — to cover up underlying issues that are difficult to solve. Yet scapegoating is exactly what Hasan Khan does in his recent piece, “Don’t trust the media” by placing the blame on the media for what he sees as a deliberate campaign of misinformation in the form of extreme sensationalism. He does this while completely ignoring underlying societal issues and the demand side of the media business.
Media is, at its core, a business. Both of the groups Khan specifically points to, CNN and Fox News, are for-profit organizations, which means that they are designed to maximize profits. How do media organizations maximize profits? It is not by telling the people the truth, but by giving people what they want. There are so many news sources that if one decides to go against the desires of its consumers, that news outlet will quickly lose traffic and become irrelevant. Basically, for a news station to maximize profit, it must — like all business — give people what they want. This crucial aspect is what Khan ignores: that this is just a byproduct of capitalism.
We are growing more addicted to speed and multitasking in our everyday actions. This trend is causing these changes in media. Khan makes a tenuous link between broadcasters and decisions to focus on this style of journalism. In actuality, these ideas just come from ratings and numbers collected from viewers and subscribers that show what works well with the audience. People just don’t want to spend as much time learning in depth about an issue or an event; people want to learn as much news as possible in a short an amount of time. The intersection of these two trends means that people are just reading through excerpts and headlines, so these need to be as catchy as possible to keep people coming back. This has caused the growth of new apps like Flipboard which delivers news quickly and efficiently — in a simple manner, with many details left out. The problem, however, appears when we look closely at the results of overly-dramatized excerpts and headlines.
Excerpts and headlines are by definition short, so there is not enough time or space to outline a complete angle. Therefore, the only way to sway the reader is by using catchy phrases and sensational ideas; the only headlines the reader remembers are the ones that are the most eye-catching. What Khan blames on bad journalism is actually just good business; media corporations are corporations first, which means business will always come before journalism.
A lot of the cure for this will have to come from within. We need to renew our focus on print journalism with its longer turnover and therefore better-developed ideas, angles and arguments. This will only happen if the consumer redoubles his focus on getting quality news, not just shoveling as much garbage in as possible. This is just a choice people will have to make.
Corporations simply give consumers what they want, not necessarily what is good for them. This is because giving consumers that which is good for them is only possible if the organization can run at a loss, and the only organization that can run at a perpetual loss is the government. It is the only body that can be trusted with the hugely important task of providing the people with information, especially because our first choice, pure capitalism, has failed us. The market cannot satisfy our need for reliable news, and the only alternative is news that is publicly funded but operates as a non-profit, to eliminate the need for ratings or popularity. This type of news organization, when combined with private media that is pressured to change by public media, will cause a chain reaction that changes the way we consume news and changes the kind of news we consume. National Public Radio is an example of such a publicly and privately funded non-profit news organization that embraces giving the consumer the truth, not rumors or sensational stories. NPR’s headlines are detailed and its articles are thorough, which is what the consumer needs.
All of this will hardly change much if the key issue is not addressed. People simply need to care more about where they devote their attention, because every time a serious news story gets disregarded for some story about Ebola or a fireball lighting up the Texas sky, firms respond to that and sacrifice meaning to make more flash. So, do we want to hear stories that will reaffirm our inner biases and teach us very little about a lot of irrelevant matters, or do we want to hear stories that will make us better informed members of society?
Sawan Patel is an Opinion Columnist for The Cavalier Daily. His columns run Tuesdays.
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