Economist Joseph Stiglitz spoke at the National Conference for Media Reform this past weekend, focusing in on some of the many of the conflicts that are inherent to news media. I videotaped his presentation (see below).
The most obvious conflict is between wrongdoers (e.g., banks) who are actively hiding their wrongdoing from news reporters. For example, the Federal Reserve had been hiding the fact that it used U.S. tax dollars to bail out foreign banks, a fact that was recently revealed. But there are many other types of conflicts. For example, accurate information is a public good. Unfortunately, there is not a strong incentive for producing accurate and essential information, "because everyone benefits from this." Exacerbating this problem is the fact that there are strong private incentives for distorting information (e.g., by financial institutions or the ). The upshot is that we hear ridiculous claims by those positioned to benefit from that false information (e.g., that the economic stimulus was necessary and effective).
Here's another conflict: Much of the "news" is a byproduct of advertising. This creates a conflict of interest because the "new" provider will try inevitably attempt to be sensitive to the economic needs of the advertisers. This bias is far more dangerous when it shows up in newspapers than when private parties issue their own press releases, where we all expect such information to be biased.
Another problem is that those who want information to be promulgated will be inclined to spin the information as necessary in return for the willingness of a news provider to provide coverage. When I heard Stiglitz state this, I thought of the tendency of news providers to enhance the conflict of their stories in order to make them more "newsworthy."
Here's another conflict: Some reporters are owned by certain politicians. If they fail to provide coverage that satisfies the politician, they will get cut off from future information.
Here's yet another conflict. Everyone wants to be a cheerleader. Reporters tend to report good news. They want to hear that everything is OK, and that the stock market is going up up up. Hence, that is too often the way the news is spun, regardless of the facts on the ground.
Robert McChesney and John Nichols have written an excellent new book: The Death and Life of American Journalism: the Media Revolution That Will Begin the World Again (2010). This book precisely articulates a litany of bad news with regard to journalism:
Newspapers are dying. Only 16% of young Americans read the paper. The death of newspapers has not been caused by the Internet; they been dying for two decades. They are dying because they are not exposing readers to new challenging ideas. Rather, they excel at presenting us with "weather reports, celebrity gossip, syndicated fare and exercise tips."
Newspapers are dying because corporate chains gobbled them up and milk them by cutting their new status, virtually eliminating investigative journalism.
Modern-day journalism relies far too much on officials in power to set the agenda, thus making news cheap and bland; they explore important issues only when those in power bicker amongst themselves about those issues.
Because of the loss of journalists, 50% of our news is now based on press releases issued by PR specialists and uncritically repeated on the pages of America's newspapers.
[More . . .]
Economist Jeffrey Sachs appeared on Democracy Now. Sachs, an economist, is director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, also president and co-founder of Millennium Promise Alliance. He finds the deal to be absurd for reasons he states below:
You can view the transcript of this interview here.
I realize that with hostile Republicans controlling the House, there’s not much Mr. Obama can get done in the way of concrete policy. Arguably, all he has left is the bully pulpit. But he isn’t even using that — or, rather, he’s using it to reinforce his enemies’ narrative.
Krugman was commenting on Obama's lack of fight during the recent budget deal. That bad deal comes on the heels of Obama's recent lack of fight on net neutrality, where Obama and his hand-picked commissioner Julius Genachowski purposely steered clear of the promising solution of declaring the Internet to be a mode of "telecommunications" pursuant to the Communications Act of 1996. That wasn't doable with AT&T looking on, spending more on lobbyists than all members of the military-industrial complex combined. Obama's recent collapse occurred after he declared that he would "Take a back seat to no one" regarding net neutrality.
Well, it's clear that Obama didn't have the guts to fight for what he apparently once believed regarding net neutrality. That's the awful trend. Consider his inept Wall Street finance alleged reform ("banks" are now bigger than they were prior to the collapse) and consider his convoluted health care reform, which dumped us into the waiting arms of virtually monopolistic private health insurers (mine raised my premium 10% last week--so much for "cost control," Obama's original justification for health care reform).
And then there is Guantanamo--yes, it's still open for business, and consider that the "Peace President" ramped up our military presence in Afghanistan, where we still waste $2B/week, killing and maiming numerous civilians in America's longest war. And consider that Obama has become quite the "Secrecy President." And consider his unwillingness to speak up to protest the torture of Bradley Manning. And why is he taking the side of tens of thousands of tax cheats while ignoring the massive injustice done to a man for whom we should be holding parades, Bradley Birkenfeld?
Barack Obama is a President who doesn't have the guts to fight for the promises he made during his campaign. It's apparently not in his bones to do so. He's the Political-Free-Market President: He apparently believes that good things will happen in Washington if only he charms everyone and stays out of the way. Because of this deep character flaw, his window of opportunity to implement the program he campaigned slammed shut. At best, he'll be playing defense, though the recent budget deal suggests that he doesn't have the grit to play tough defense. If I were a Republican, I'd probably be wondering whether I'd actually want to replace Obama with a Republican.
This is all so incredibly surreal. My thoughts are similar to those expressed by Lawrence Lessig at the 2011 National Conference for Media Reform. He boiled the problem down to this: "Private funds drive elections." He noted that members of Congress spend 30-70% of their time raising money to get re-elected. This has got to change, because "every issue we care about is blocked by this rot." The Citizens know about this problem quite well; Lessig cited a poll showing that 70% of voters "believe that money corrupts Congress." He has declared that it's often not worth our time to fight issues of the day, because good ideas don't have a chance of winning. Instead, we all need to become "rootstrikers." Here's the idea in a nutshell:
""There's no progress so long as private funds drive public elections."
And see the Rootstriker video here.
Two nights ago, in the midst of all of this frustration, I had dinner with an African American man who looked at me with shock and disbelief as I expressed my frustrations regarding Barack Obama. The man warned me that we can't "afford" to criticize Obama, or else Obama's opponents will use that against him. "We worked so hard to get him elected."
Yes, it seems unsavory to criticize the bad judgment of those who we generally respect, but it is often one's moral duty. For many months I've been losing hope for Obama, evidenced by many articles I've written at this website, but now I'm losing respect for him. I'll admit that my frustration occurs in the following context: We've been moving toward the political right for at least 10 years now (longer if you include Bill Clinton's disastrous de-regulation of Wall Street). Based on this long sad slide, it would be immoral for me to not criticize the current president, for whom I voted. There was so much hope in the air a mere two years ago. Is there still hope? The current situation brings to mind a quote regarding FDR:
FDR once met with a group of activists who sought his support for bold legislation. He listened to their arguments for some time and then said, "You've convinced me. Now go out and make me do it."
I will do everything in my meager power to try to make Obama do what he promised, even when that seems hopeless. I will not hold back criticism. Obama has been making a ghastly string of mistakes ever since elected, even though he ran one of the most brilliant campaigns I've ever seen. But now he appears to almost fully settled as a comfy resident of Washington, D.C., which is now more visibly than ever a highly big seductive coin-operated town.
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