Drawing on the concept of the "Four Estates" of Republican France, it has been popular to call the press the "Fourth Estate," a non-governmental entity whose independence made it one of the pillars which supported liberty, and an important check on the power of government. In a free press the people had a way to express their concerns about government and a relatively unbiased advocate for truth independent of the self-serving assertions of political parties and leaders. In America that great tradition of a free press which truly stood out as a Fourth Estate began with the publication of Publick Occurances in 1690 and lasted for over 300 years before dying with a whimper this Wednesday at the hands of ABC News.
On Wednesday the 24th of June ABC will give over most of its programming schedule to custom programming, much of it direct from the White House, dedicated to promoting and publicizing the Obama administration's multi-trillion dollar healthcare plan. This programming will begin first thing in the morning with a Good Morning America interview with the president and continue throughout the day's newscasts, culminating in a primetime special touting the benefits of government run healthcare. The network has been given unprecedented access to the White House, where it has even been encouraged to set up an office in the East Wing. ABC and the White House are collaborating on the content of the special, few opposing voices or alternative plans will be heard, and they are refusing any advertising from groups advocating patients rights or opposing socialized medicine.
Just a few years ago Democrats were crying foul and demanding investigations when the Department of Education sent out a few Video News Releases to promote the No Child Left Behind Program, yet now they are willing to do the same thing on a much larger scale when it is their program which is being promoted. At a time when Democrats are talking about reinstituting the Fairness Doctrine and demanding a balance to right wing talk radio, turning over an entire network to government propaganda seems particularly hypocritical.
The left has long derided the right for complaining about media bias, insisting that the corporate nature of the media automatically biases it to the right, but here we see a corporate media giant deliberately whoring itself to become the propaganda outlet for a left-wing administration, and there is no question where ABC's loyalties lie. ABC News employees overwhelmingly supported Obama in the last election, donating 80 times as much to his campaign as they did to John McCain. In addition, a study by the Media Research Center shows ABC giving a disproportionate amount of coverage to the Obama healthcare plan compared to other health care options by a 3 to 1 margin.
The Obama administration has made state-corporatism a cornerstone of its economic plans, taking over businesses, forcing them into bankruptcy and handing out the spoils to their cronies and allies. But at least in the financial and auto industries there was some effort to resist, and many of those companies are still trying to buy back their freedom. What ABC is doing is many times worse, because they are volunteering willingly for a government takeover, offering themselves up as propagandists without considering the consequences. Perhaps they see a future where the state controls all media and they want to get in on the ground floor and have a favored status, but that just makes them like the slave who turns in the runaways hiding in the barn to the slave-catchers. He may get more scraps from the master's table but he's still a slave and he's also a traitor.
Journalists used to believe that they had a responsibility to keep politicians honest and hold their feet to the fire. Woodward and Bernstein didn't go to Nixon looking for ways they could help him promote his pet projects. When the press becomes nothing more than another arm of government, promoting the party line and dishing out propaganda, the people have lost one more essential safeguard of their liberty. ABC has decided to leave integrity and objectivity behind and become nothing more than shills for an ideology and a style of government which they believe in. Whether you support socialized medicine or not, this trend in the media should scare you. It's the death of the independent press and the beginning of state-run media. I halfway expect to hear the strains of "Moscow Nights" over the credits on ABC as I did on every radio or television newscast when I lived in the Soviet Union formally confirming that the media has gone from watchdog to lapdog.
Join me and many others in boycotting ABC, starting on Thursday and continuing through their summer line-up of very little but tawdry reality shows. You won't be missing much and you might be striking a blow for freedom. Though it's entirely possible that if we manage to dry up their advertising revenue they'll just get bailed out and taken over completely by the government.
I never imagined that I would feature the thoughts of David Axelrod in a neutral to positive light, but that's exactly what I'm going to do here. Axelrod spoke about his time at the Chicago Tribune Monday night at The Week magazine's "Sixth Annual Opinion Awards Dinner":
"When I began reporting, the news cycle was 24 hours, not 30 minutes. There was no cable or Internet. The pacing was different, as were the competitive pressures. Reporters were not asked to file five and six times a day; on three or four platforms; to blog and tweet.
"Don't get me wrong: the Internet and the availability of the latest news when you want it has enormous value. But it has also contributed at times to sloppy journalism and a dumbed-down public debate. It's become a carnival where every day is Election Day; where we're consumed with who's up and who's down; where we book people on TV to do nothing more than argue with one another, generating more heat than light; where we allow ourselves to be caught up in the trivial tempest of the moment. And I know my profession is not blameless. Folks in our end of the business often feel compelled to play along, feed the beast, and help contribute to an atmosphere of cynicism."
If journalists are not totally blameless, who else is to blame? Has it consumed leaders, thinkers and wanna-be leaders/thinkers on the Right (as well as the Left)? There's no doubt that the Internet has shortened everybody's attention span. Specifically for the Right, I think journalism's new negative effect on public discourse has hampered the Republican Party's ability to dramatically change for the better.
As Jon Henke points out in the last post, "repackaging the status quo is not how the movement and the GOP will be renewed." One of the reasons why the GOP might be sticking to repackaging the status quo is that often times going the "easy and lazy" route seems like the only option in a "30 minute news cycle." Axelrod provides another thought on this subject:
"That's why, more than ever, we need the true public thinkers. People who take the time to ponder and reflect and examine issues in a usefully provocative way. Serious people, with serious ideas."
Unfortunately for Axelrod, he works for a President who is a pretender, someone who isn't following the advice given above. Obama's version of "bipartisanship" is giving the visual of reaching out to conservatives, and then ignoring them when it comes to substantive matters. And Obama's ideas aren't new and provocative in any way: more government spending, more government involvement in the market, more government involved in energy, education, health care, etc. For now, he has successfully duped much of the public into thinking his ideas are "new" just because he himself is "new."
So unlike Obama, can the Right successfully take Axelrod's thoughts into practice? Can we produce serious people with serious ideas and fight the "dumbing down" of public discourse? Yes ...
Second, lawmakers and other leaders on the Right should use the Internet more for promoting ideas than promoting themselves. (I know that this is a long shot.) For a Congressman to get a lot of Facebook friends and Twitter followers is fine. But when will that Congressman start a Facebook group about the need for more nuclear power plants in America to reduce our dependence on foreign oil instead of a Facebook message about how Democrats are bad? When will that Congressman tweet prolifically about immigration and become the go-to-guy/gal on that issue instead of only tweeting his/her office's press releases?
Third, the Right should let ideas lead to movement instead of the other way around. Jon also comments on the recent formation of the National Council for a New America as a group that says "let's start an organization, then figure out why later." As he says, this does not inspire confidence. The Tea Parties showed a glimmer of hope for the Right after Rick Santelli rant; I just wished that there was more public discussion on the core substance of Santelli's message: moral hazard.
An overarching theme for a good public debate, as I have mentioned several times before, is the principle of an "equal opportunity society," where it becomes a discussion about whether government's job is to guarantee certain outcomes by picking winners and losers in society or to provide everyone the equal opportunity to determine their own success. Just as liberals want an active government that promotes specific outcomes, we have to be for an active government that promotes choice and freedom instead of just relying on the "less taxes, less government" message.
One of the most interesting consequences of this recession will be the dramatic reordering of media in America. Many local newspapers will go out of print. Even big national organs like the New York Times will not be immune to these pressures. Internet news will become more and more pervasive.
The copyright cartels of the MSM will raise a hue-and-cry. Many will bemoan the loss of professional news journalism in many metro areas. But the fact is that theirs was always a flawed system. A single publication that mashes up the news, editorials, sports, business, the comics, and the classifieds is a fundamentally flawed product in the 21st century when the Internet gives us deep-dive ability on any particular topic that interests us.
Outside.in founder Steven Johnson gave a great talk in March showing how the new way in media can be better than the old. The transition from old to new media is not unknown -- it's already happened in technology journalism, which used to be dominated by a set of monthly magazines with two-month-old news and is now thoroughly ruled by a flourishing and profitable ecosystem of blogs and podcasts that can bring you the latest Apple announcement in seconds.
The next media vertical to be revolutionized is politics, and it's already happening. Take a look, for instance, at this rundown of headlines from Sunday night in the Politics section of the Washington Post, including blogs, and stack it up to everything on the Politico's homepage, which doesn't have a print product to speak of and is very much the upstart:
Since much of today's media has such a blatant school-girl crush on President Obama, it is important to not only point out the shmoes who can't resist telling America that President Obama gives them a, 'thrill up their leg;' it is also important to point out those few journalists who are credible. National Review did this in their article Jake Tapper Isn't Letting Go. The article not only points out that ABC's Jake Tapper was virtually the only network journalist willing to write an article critical of then candidate Obama, but also that he is now pretty much the only one willing to ask Press Secretary Gibbs a tough question during White House briefings. For many Tapper was the first to show Robert Gibbs as a sub-par press secretary when Gibbs refused to take Tapper's questions about transparency seriously, as shown in the clip below. National Review did all of us who are fed up with the over-the-top media bias a service by not only highlighting Tapper as a solid competent member of the media, but also by reminding us that one can't just complain about those who do a poor job, and that it may be even more important that we applaud and encourage those who are competent than it is to gripe about those whose bias is so obsurd and obvious.
The era of the printing press is ending. The era of Wordpress is beginning. We are all publishers now. How can journalism survive?
Clay Shirky concludes that newspapers will die, but journalism will survive through experimentation with various business models. He's basically correct. I think the fundamental problem is that the return to scale is disappearing. When you no longer need a large, granite building on Main Street, a printing press and a massive support structure to do journalism, the organizations who insist on keeping them will have to evolve or die.
So, what comes next? Clay Shirky and Yochai Benkler both suggest various business models that may emerge (some already are). I think we'll see the re-emergence of the ideological and partisan press - they're generally better at story-telling, because they have a story to tell - with fewer neutral/objective press organizations which can provide independent mediation for the competing claims of the partisan media organizations. Utlimately, I think that's positive. After all, organizations with an ax to grind are the most likely to have the fury needed to turn the wheel
Here are a few approaches I think we'll see...
Niche Journalism: If the return to scale stops increasing at a much smaller level, then we should see those returns going to expertise, instead. The specialization may be topical, geographic or ideological/partisan, but 1000 specialists working independently should be able to provide more value than 10 organizations each employing 100 generalists.
Dynamic Journalism: Why are news stories a static product? We're already seeing Real Time Journalism (as-it-happens reporting that creates a story arc, rather than after-the-fact reporting) from outlets like The Politico and Talking Points Memo. That will almost certainly expand. But the blogosphere exists, in part, because people are unsatisfied with the news, so there is room for more dynamic reporting - that is, an organization which covers a story in an almost Wikipedia-like model - updating and correcting a story as it emerges - with a team of editors and reporters collaborating (with input/feedback from the public) to create what amounts to a single "same facts" overview of a broad story.
Non-profit Journalism: Non-profits may not earn a monetary profit, but monetary profit isn't the only ROI. Ideological magazines (e.g., National Review, The Nation, Weekly Standard, Reason, Washington Monthly, The American Spectator, The American Prospect, Human Events, Mother Jones, The New Republic) may not earn a profit very often (or at all), but much of their value comes from the exposure and publicity they provide for ideas and information. That has a great deal of value to many people and organizations, even if that value cannot be monetized. I expect to see a great deal more funding of journalism by the people and organizations who want that kind of ROI.
One final note that should concern those of us on the Right: while the Right has used the internet to expand the media criticism it had been doing for many years, the Left has been busy using the internet to build their own media infrastructure. At this stage in the Wordpress era, the entrepreneurs have come from the Left. The Right needs new infrastructure and new guards. That is going to require an investment in these new business models.
There has been an interesting discussion on "the widespread and baseless grants of anonymity by journalists", which shields sources - especially government officials - from being accountable for their allegations. Glenn Greenwald says this produces "manipulative and distorting effects", including that "there is no accountability whatsoever when they make false or misleading statements." Journalists who are willing to participate in that game find themselves with better access; journalists who require more accountable sources find themselves cut off.
But Julian Sanchez astutely points out that sources "request “background” or “off the record” status at the beginning of a conversation", so "you don’t know which it is until you hear what they’ve got to say, which often requires agreeing to a source’s terms—at which point you can’t go back on the agreement if they’re just giving you the party line."
The various 'just stop doing it' solutions don't seem likely to help resolve this problem, since (as Alex Massie points out) there are strong incentives for both journalists and sources to continue doing it.
It seems to me there is a much easier solution, though: anonymous sources who knowingly burn a reporter should be burned.
If an anonymous source turns out to have knowingly lied or defrauded the reporter - violating the reporter's confidence and credibility - the reporter should be free to blow the whistle, to expose their identity or their affiliation so that the source, not the news outlet, can be accountable for the fraud.
If a reporter will not blow the whistle on fraudulent sources, they're complicit in the fraud.
Helpfully, this doesn't require endless conference debate and guild approval. Reporters can just adopt the new rule for sources. Immediately. Unilaterally. Like TechCrunch's recent decision not to accept embargo demands, you can rewrite the rules and force others to honor a rule that makes much more sense.
These discussions about what an online right should look like seems to miss several points. There are distinct problems, and they need to be handled seperately. Some of these problems need to be solved organically, some will require time, but some can be solved somewhat mechanically.
One of the things that we need to solve immediately and may be susceptible to a mechanical solution is the crisis of information. The crisis of information is that righty information outlets are having incrementally less influence on the news cycle than lefty ones. The chart is from this WSJ story about the rise of the lefty blogs and specifically Huffington Post vis-a-vis Drudge. TPM, Chris Cillizza, Howard Kurtz, Halperin and others have been talking about this also.
On the list above, Townhall, Michelle Malkin, Newsbusters, and Redstate were the only sites to demonstrate triple-digit growth during the last election period, and only Redstate's and Newsbusters' was truly explosive. (full disclosure: I am a front-page contributor to both of those)
But I don't want to focus on traffic, but rather a related question: who drives the news cycle? This used to be Drudge and still is to a great degree. But any experience watching this electoral cycle will tell you that TPM and Huffington Post are essential in setting narratives and forcing campaigns and other political actors to respond to specific reported and sourced information and distributing it quickly. With that in mind, let's look at something Mark Tapscott said:
But I want to offer a third essential element in addition to punditry and activism. The RightRoots must make a top priority of equiping vastly more of our sites with the reportorial and investigative skills required to dig up and present credible exposes, fact-based analyses and concrete news stories.
In short, we've complained about liberal media bias for decades, but now that the mainstream media is steadily being displaced by online media, many of us need to become ..... journalists, or capable of doing the online analogy of traditional journalism, particularly in its investigative phase.
I would state this slightly differently. Stories are started online with HuffPo and TPM. They are completed on TV and in the newspapers. We are playing in no part of that process. One of the reasons for that is that there is no reliable place to go for fact-based conservative perspective.
This is something that we could do now. There are enough talented reporters to start training and mentorship programs for more. These people could play in the news cycle. This would not necessarily require donors to dump money on "bloggers". Rather the people would be established journalists with records.
Other parts of rebuilding the right as a coherent ideological and electoral force will depend on other things (like a coherent ideological framework linked to coherent policies). But this we can do relatively quickly and start demonstrating immediate results by attacking the terrible policies of a Democratic Congress and, potentially, a Democratic White House.
Part of the reason that liberal bias in the elite media exists is that not enough conservatives and libertarians decide to get involved in journalism, especially straight news reporting.
One of the best organizations on the right trying to combat this is the Phillips Foundation which has a program that pays generous amounts of money to encourage people to get involved in producing high-quality journalism that can really make a difference.
If the idea of this appeals to you, consider applying for the 2009 Phillips fellowships. Full-time fellowships pay out $50-75,000 to successful applicants. Part-time ones pay $25,000.
The program is open to anyone with 10 years or less of professional journalistic experience. Not interested yourself? Forward this post to someone who you think might be.
There is a lot of great potential that we on the right have. It's about time we started using it.
In 2008, the Foundation awarded eight fellowships. For your reference they are as follows:
Full-time
David Donadio for “The Free Press in the Free Market: A Study of How the Internet is Transforming the Newspaper Business;”
Travis Kavulla for “Africa’s New Christianity and the Future of American Influence;”
Emily Krone for “Unchartered Territory: Can Entrepreneurial Charter Schools Achieve the Scale and Sustain the Quality to Transform the American Public School System?;”
Lygia Navarro for “Civil Society and Democracy in Latin America.”
Part-time
Cheryl Chumley for “National Heritage Areas: A Blot against Property Rights or a Boon for the Nation?;”
Matthew Continetti for “The Single Society: The Social Transformation Changing American Business, Politics and Culture;”
J. Peter Freire for “The University Shakedown: How Universities Take Donations but Refuse Input from Donors Based on the Myth of Academic Freedom;”
Jonathan Last for “The Fertility Rate and America’s Future.”
The afternoon breakout session at the Personal Democracy Forum in New York is "Covering the "Click-ocracy": Tracking the Internet's Impact on Politics and Journalism". This is a fascinating view of the media's interaction with the New Media. I'm not sure anybody really has this figured out, but it's fascinating to see reporter's perspectives on how the internet is affecting their job, their profession and our information.
One thing really stood out, though. A reporter referred to "Media Matters...and their lesser counterparts on the Right." Note the word "lesser". I'd bet that this is probably not an uncommon opinion within the media.
New as it may be, the Left's media criticism infrastructure (Media Matters, but much more than just that) is already more effective than that of the Right. The institutions of the Right have failed to evolve, while, as they've done in so many other areas, the Left hasn't just built online infrastructure to compete with the Right....they have built equivalent infrastructure that surpasses the Right.
I think there are a four main reasons for this:
The Left's media criticisms are fresher, more relevant to the current media landscape, and to structural political problems they face.
The Left is addressing issues of media competence, not just ideology (e.g., "that liberal media"). This makes much of their criticism harder to dismiss as pure ideological bulldozing.
The Left's media infrastructure is collaborative.
They focus on inserting themselves into the news cycle, maximizing their daily relevance to reporters, bloggers and activists.
They provide material specifically relevant to the Left's most prominent activists, increasing distribution of their content.
They tap into the work already being done by activists and bloggers, ensuring they remain aligned with, and a part of, their audience and political movement.
The Left's media criticism infrastructure is built for Web 2.0. They're not just trying to re-purpose battleships for guerrilla warfare - they're building for the current fights and in the current landscape. They are very effective at using blogs, petitions, email lists, alerts and other tools that make them better at distribution and targeting online.
These discussions about what an online right should look like seems to miss several points. There are distinct problems, and they need to be handled seperately. Some of these problems need to be solved organically, some will require time, but some can be solved somewhat mechanically.
Part of the reason that liberal bias in the elite media exists is that not enough conservatives and libertarians decide to get involved in journalism, especially straight news reporting.
