HOW JOURNALISTS CAN GET IT RIGHT: FIXING THE NEWS, PART 2

So far I have been speaking in broad terms about how we, the readership, can work to counteract some of the worst abuses of journalism. But these are only temporary, stop-gap measures; a jury-rigged filter to keep the worst nonsense from seeping into our brains. The real fix lies deep in the heart of the profession itself. In the previous article I made six specific accusations against the press, and having done so (and found the press guilty, I might add, in my self-appointed role as judge) it falls upon me to offer suggestions as to how to rehabilitate this most vital aspect of our democracy: not only a free but an objective and professional press.

In regards to the first two, and last two, accusations, that American journalists don't understand their own profession of journalism, are astonishingly ignorant of the country in which they live, and tend to “report” only what they want to happen and not what is manifestly happening, etc., etc., the fixes are actually quite simple, if not necessarily fast-acting or easy to execute. Beginning immediately, every student studying journalism should be required by his professors to study, at some length, the principles and ideas of every popular political ideology in the United States, and be able to state those principles, with objectivity and accuracy, back to the professor, as well as write about them in great detail. This is hardly an unreasonable demand: Dr. Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's Minister of Propaganda and in some ways a more fanatical Nazi than Hitler himself, once astonished and amused guests at a formal reception before WW2 by three times mounting a table and delivering, extemporaneously, seemingly heartfelt speeches in favor of monarchism, communism and democracy. Goebbels' point, seemingly, was that he could make eloquent arguments in favor of all rival systems of government without having the slightest belief in them. My point, in referencing this, is that Americans no longer seem to possess the courage to explore or try to understand the viewpoints and motivations of those they disagree with -- a key element not only to arguing intelligently with them, but to overcoming them in the political arena. The victory of Trump and "Brexit," the departure of the United Kingdom from the European Union, are both, in my mind, direct extensions of this willful ignorance born of over-sensitivity. The decayed, degraded, degenerate modern journalist (himself only an extension of a decayed, degraded and degenerate modern society), who, having shielded himself from the true motivations of those he disagrees with, is shocked when huge masses of people disagree with him. To many of our young people, and indeed, many of the professors who teach those young people, the very act of grasping, without exaggerations or distortions, the principles of one's political foes is deemed "offensive" and "micro-aggressive" (cue violin), when it fact it is simply educational. The old saying "Knowledge is power" has been replaced by the Oceanic credo of 1984: "Ignorance is Strength."

I do not wish to be redundant here, but the problem is so cyclical in nature that my point bears repeating, or rather rephrasing. American universities, which used to be oases of free thought and passionate but principled disagreement, are now veritable petri-dishes for breeding oversensitive, under-educated weaklings who can't bear to be exposed to ideas that make them uncomfortable. These weaklings -- it is the right word, I'm sad to say -- go into journalism without understanding or respecting any political belief they themselves don't hold, and not only produce “journalism” which is as weak and narrow-minded as they are, they are praised for their “sensitivity” by their colleagues and readers alike. But journalism, like education, is not and never has been for the sensitive: respect for the prejudices and preconceived notions of the readership -- for their political "sacred cows" and feelings generally -- is absolutely no concern of the journalist's art. On the contrary, the outstanding feature of any reporter is his is insensitivity, or more specifically, his toughness, and a tough reporter, be he conservative, liberal, libertarian, or what have you in his political sympathies, knows that the best way to deliver informed, even-handed journalism is to understand both sides of the story, not merely the one he is covertly in sympathy with.

In tandem with this, every major press organization, regardless of whether it is print or electronic in nature, must re-open the bureaus they once maintained in what Homer Simpson so eloquently called “the great useless mass of land between New York and Los Angeles we call America.” As I have previously stated, the mixture of shock and disbelief with which the big-name press regarded Donald Trump's election came largely from their own deliberate, wilful ignorance of the mood of “the rest” of the United States, which they more or less openly hold in contempt. The deep, searing vein of anger which exists in places like Youngstown, Ohio – a desolation of shuttered shops and dead factories left behind by Obama's economic policies – was either not paid serious heed or simply not grasped at all, because few reporters troubled to go to places like Youngstown, and when they did, few could refrain from depicting the inhabitants as ill-educated, racist bumpkins whose opinions didn't matter a damn anyway. Had the organizations in question stationed reporters in such places year-round, had they bothered to take the American pulse in the non-election years that make up most of our lives, they might have taken Trump, or at least what he represented, more seriously. In my previous article I noted that George Orwell once accused the British ruling class of being unable to grasp the dangers of Fascism, because to do so would have meant studying the theory of socialism, which would have in turn laid bare the gross social and economic inequalities that they, the British ruling class, existed to preserve. "To fight Fascism," Orwell noted. "One must begin by admitting that it contains some good as well as much that is evil." But this beginning never took place. To keep their sense of moral superiority, the British rulers had to remain permanently ignorant, and by this ignorance they led their country to war and their Empire to destruction. So it is with the American press. To understand the Trump phenomenon, or Brexit, or the rise of nationalist movements generally, they would have had to understand the anger which motivated them, which would have not only meant actually wading into the "great, useless mass of land we call America" but realizing that some of the Heartland grievances were actually legitimate. And this was precisely what they did not do. Indeed, they could not, because the deficiency in their political outlook, their innate "sensitivity" and refusal to grant even the possibility that the "other" party might have a point here and there, made it impossible. Their political ideology -- that only big-city-dwellers, Millennials, hipsters, progressives, liberals, gays, university professors, people of color and mixed race actually matter -- had forced them into a line of reasoning as fixed and an unalterable as a railroad track, with the exception that the track led right off a cliff. The number of bloggers and self-appointed pundits who were Googling "white working class" on election night must damn near have broken the Google servers, but even after belatedly discovering the existence of this seething mass of voters, tens of millions strong, their only reaction was to double down on their disdain. The amount of whining, weeping and tantrum-throwing that followed the election was at once amusing and infuriating. Only now, with the inauguration-day smoke beginning to clear, do I see any signs at all that the coastal press (Los Angeles, Washington, New York, Boston) is starting to grasp the necessity of "colonizing" the vast heartland of America. If this nascent policy is followed through -- and "if" is the longest word in the English language -- then within a year we ought be seeing reportage which will make the outcome of the next election far less shocking in its outcome.

As to my third point, that journalism-for-profit has debased the profession and led to an increase in sensationalism which has, in turn, led to further blurring the line between hard news and entertainment, it's necessary for me to explain that for much of their history, electronic news programs, from the earliest days of radio onward, were operated at a loss, simply as a public service. It was not until 60 Minutes debuted in 1968 that networks realized they could make a profit from radio or television news, and while 60 Minutes is in many ways a fine program, it definitely blurred the line between hard news and “news entertainment,” with its slanted coverage, aggressive, confrontational interviews and ambush tactics. Nowadays, it is taken as a matter of course that news programs of any kind be profitable, but news for profit contains a great evil within its core, to wit: what is true often does not sell. Many of the most important stories of modern times, such as the savings-and-loan collapse in the 1990s, or the fact that the Pentagon cannot account for 6.8 trillion (with a t dollars of taxpayer money, hardly entered the public consciousness because no way could be found to “sex them up” in the manner of, say, the O.J. Simpson Trial. The desire people have for salacious gossip and tawdry scandal is never going to go away, but that doesn't mean that legitimate news entities have to give these grotesqueries more coverage than they deserve. We must return, however painfully, to the idea that a large majority of the populace are uninterested in meaningful news, and leave them to TMZ and Extra!. But those with functioning brains, who want to know what the hell is doing and being done in the world, deserve the best, the hardest-hitting, the gutsiest journalism we can give them, and never mind the goddamned profit margin. Now, it so happens that the United States has 540 billionaires, vastly more than the rest of the world combined. These individuals have more money than they could ever possibly spend and many of them look for ways to spend some of it charitably. Surely one or two of them could be convinced, with the right arguments, to pump cash into the hardening arteries of our better news organizations, or failing that, fund their own, one which approaches stories without worrying about the economics of covering them, or whether their reportage will anger some important sponsor whose advertising money must not be lost. Such a news entity, freed from economic concerns, would provide Americans with a quality alternative to the ideologically bigoted trash we are now being served in super-sized helpings. It would also attract many young people, journalistically inclined, who are notweaklings, as well as many old journalistic veterans who have been marginalized and disenfranchised simply because their standards are too high for the great unwashed. The vets could supply the experience, the standards, and the discipline necessary to maintain them; the young could supply the passion and technical, social-media savvy.

Such a union, incidentally, would actually assist us with my fourth point, the idea that the 24 hour news cycle, by virtue of having to keep each of those hours filled with content, changed the character of journalism by forcing scribes to create, rather than merely report, the news. Our imaginary news organization – let's give it the working title "5WH" – would operate along older-fashioned lines, appearing for no more than six, or in times of crisis, perhaps eight hours a day on television. What's more, it would operate under these guidelines:

1. Understand that the first duty of a news agency is to inform the people, while shaping their views is fit only for the op-ed section. This leads us to....

2. Divide the “paper” between hard news and opinion-editorial, and make explicitly clear where the line is drawn, if necessary by the gross expedient of labeling each individual story. This is precisely the opposite of the present trend of mingling news and op-ed in such a way that the distinction no longer exists.

3. Insist on objective, factual reporting at all times. Avoid use of partisan political words and phraseology in reportage. Avoid the impulse to ridicule or condescend those who are interviewed, or, for that matter, to be overly sympathetic with them. Prevent journalists from injecting themselves, their personalities, or their politics into their hard-news stories, except in those cases (undercover/investigative journalism, for example), where it is impossible.

4. Practice public self-assessment and self-criticism, if necessary through the use of an ombudsman, an independent watchdog within the organization with the power to discipline those who fail to meet standards.

5. Invite scrutiny. Never hesitate to admit, and be held accountable for, errors and mistakes. They are going to occur, and when they do, they can be defused by a simple mea culpa, which will restore public confidence. Above all, avoid the practice of doubling down on tainted stories, a la Rolling Stone with its libelous “A Rape on Campus” piece, simply because you wanted the story to be true. Mistakes happen. Admit them, learn from them, and move on. Journalists live to destroy politicians who would rather cover up a minor peccadillo than confess to it, and what's sauce for the goose should be sauce for the gander.

5. Keep a finger on the pulse of America – not just New York or Los Angeles – by maintaining the afore-mentioned bureaus, or at least individual reporters, in cities and towns across the country, and keep those reporters reporting. Poke. Prod. Dig. Report. Ask questions and listen to the answers. And don't be afraid of Americans from Cleveland. They probably won't bite you. Probably.

6. As I stated in Part 1, anyone with a working internet connection can call themselves a reporter, and I asked that the reader learn to differentiate between the legitimate and the fake before clicking his or her mouse.
But legitimate journalistic agencies should have even less compunction about calling out hacks, frauds, race-baiters, fear-mongers, and the plain morons of the community for what they are. Here, as in all areas of reportage, objectivity is a must: a left-leaning news agency must drop the hammer on left-wing frauds, and vice-versa. Sympathy with someone's political aims must never be allowed to influence the way we grade the reliability of the news.

It will be seen here that many of my suggestions to date, are not solutions in themselves but merely components of solutions, and mostly very broad in character. This is true, because the problem we face is itself both broad in nature and deeply rooted in our societal flaws as a whole. A disease which has been progressing slowly for years will not be cured in a day, a fact which is disheartening at the outset of the struggle. On the other hand, a disease left untreated is invariably fatal -- in this case, to our democracy -- and this disease can be stopped. The task is large, the obstacles many, and the people most effected by the problem either unaware of it or too apathetic to do anything about it. This does not serve as an excuse for the awakened, active individual to do nothing: indeed, it robs him or her of that excuse. Generations of Americans, reaching back to the time of the Revolution, to the Civil War, through the age of the Civil Rights Movement and beyond, suffered and in some cases died so that basic human freedoms could be enjoyed by everyone in this country. Perhaps the most basic freedom we enjoy -- the reason "freedom of the press" was enshrined in the First Amendment -- is the right to be told the truth, and to make decisions based on those truths. Freedom of the press, which in this case is synonymous with "the honesty and integrity of the press" is the cornerstone of all democracy. But we cannot have the latter without the former, and we cannot have either unless everyone participates in this fight. In the 1950s, when civics were still taught to every schoolchild in America, one of the slogans was "Freedom is Everybody's Job." This holds no less true of freedom of the press. It's everybody's job. It's your job.

Now go out there and do it.