4 Advances that Set News Back

Jefferson’s vision for news called for a multitude of voices, competing in a freewheeling marketplace of ideas. By the end of his life in 1826, he had watched news make steady progress toward this vision. French historian Alexis de Tocqueville, in his book Democracy in America of that time, marveled at the ability of individual newspapers to attract and organize like-minded citizens into “Associations,” each representing a different voice.

But, soon after his death, Jefferson’s vision for news not only stalled, it reversed itself, and continued in the opposite direction through most of the 20th century. Ironically, each of the 4 primary causes of this reversal, outlined below, held promise to be a great advance toward his vision.

1. The Steam-Powered Printing Press
While the harnessing of the steam engine to newspaper printing presses at first represented a great leap forward toward Jefferson’s vision, ultimately it was a significant step backward. This innovation allowed many more citizens to participate in public policy debates because more were able to afford newspapers — this cost-reducing technology allowed many papers to drop their price to as low as a penny. But, there was a catch. The total number of different newspapers declined because only those with very large circulations could achieve the efficiencies required to achieve the lower costs. In the end, there were fewer newspapers in each locality, and fewer voices in Jefferson’s hoped-for freewheeling marketplace of ideas.

2. Broadcast Technology
Similarly, broadcast technology initially showed a great deal of false promise toward fulfilling Jefferson’s vision. Broadcasting provided the public with no-cost access to fresh news throughout the day, courtesy of a business model in which advertisers bore the full cost. But ultimately, the public was offered a limited number of voices, each constrained in its political speech, because of the federal government’s decision to control the use of broadcasting frequencies through assigned licenses. Only a handful of TV channels were allowed in each local market, which in turn could support only a handful of national networks. Moreover, government insistence that broadcasters meet guidelines for “responsible programming” for license renewal had a chilling effect on speech, as broadcasters quickly understood that their livelihood depended upon keeping politicians happy. In the end, there were few voices, representing little diversity of opinion, a far cry from Jefferson’s freewheeling marketplace of ideas.

3. The Associated Press
The formation of the Associated Press (AP) can also now be seen in retrospect as a significant step backward, away from Jefferson’s vision. This organization began as a win-win proposition for New York papers and their readers. These newspapers decided to pool their resources to get news from Europe faster and at lower cost. It was a clever scheme in which boats met American-bound ships (carrying informed passengers and European papers), sooner (in easterly Halifax), then forwarded news to New York through the newly-invented telegraph.

But, it was not long before the dark side of this collaboration among would-be competitors emerged, ultimately leading to fewer newspapers and fewer voices. Competition was first stifled when AP papers signed an agreement giving Western Union exclusive rights to the AP’s telegraph business in exchange for higher telegraph fees for other news providers. News competition was further stifled by AP bylaws that essentially gave members veto power over admission of new competitors in their circulation areas. E. W. Scripps, creator of the first chain of newspapers, said that the AP is a “monopoly pure and simple” that made it “impossible for any new paper to be started in any of the cities where there were AP members.” Scripps also commented, “I regard my life’s greatest service to the people of this country to be the creation of the United Press, to compete with a monopoly that determined what news was provided to the public.” The U.S. Supreme Court in 1945 seemed to share his sentiments, when it found the AP in violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act — a decision that allowed the Chicago Sun to remain in business.

The continuing anti-competitive effects of the AP are still with us today, limiting the number of newspapers and the number of voices. The remedies from the 1945 Supreme Court decision appear to have been insufficient, as not a single, financially self-sustaining metropolitan daily newspaper has been founded in the more than 60 years since then. The distortion in the competitive environment caused by the AP network preempt today’s newspapers from being the paragons of independence they might mistakenly see themselves to be. Essentially, our newspapers now refuse to compete with each other on the basis of news stories or news angles. In most cases they docilely and unquestioningly reprint wire material provided by the AP and fellow members, like The New York Times and Washington Post. While there is regular news coverage about the potential damage caused by “Big Oil,” Big Tobacco,” and “Big Pharmaceutical,” we hear nothing about the damage done to Jefferson’s vision for a freewheeling marketplace of ideas by what the AP network of newspapers has created — “Big News.”

4. Scientific Journalism
The movement to improve the accuracy, credibility, and professionalism of journalism that began in the early 20th century and continues today represents the last of the 4 false great leaps forward. The foundation for this movement was set by the success, then the excesses, of a style of journalism developed and honed in an epic battle between two New York newspapers led by two larger-than-life journalism figures, Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst. Under heated competition, news was made more and more entertaining through the use of more graphics, sensationalism, and populist themes. Circulation soared, but more upscale readers ultimately became irritated by the eroding seriousness of newspaper content. This style was pejoratively dubbed “Yellow Journalism,” named after the “Yellow Kid” newspaper cartoon.

The Scientific Journalism movement, launched arguably by newspaper legend Walter Lippmann with his 1919 book “Liberty and the News,” called upon the then-discredited journalism profession to embrace scientific goals and procedures. Journalists were to pursue the “truth” and true solutions in public policy through the use of “objective” methods. While these sound like indisputable ideals on their face, this was essentially the opposite of what Jefferson intended and believed. He did not envision specialized “scientists” seeking singular “truths” to form public policy. In a country founded on individual rights, he felt that public policy should be driven by the aggregate of individuals’ opinions, formed by their varied knowledge, experiences, judgment, and preferences. And, he felt that the best way to arrive at this aggregate of opinions (i.e. the “public will”) was through a freewheeling competition in a marketplace of ideas.

And now the Internet has, pretty much at a stroke, begun the elimination of all those problems and a return to Jefferson’s vision.

The telegraph was a doorway through the wall of distance as a barrier to communication. Since it was only a doorway because of the expense of its limited bandwidth, the telegraph enabled gatekeepers to exploit that doorway - and actually, in a real sense, to promote ignorance by using the superficial to distract us from the significant.
The internet has subverted the business model of the gatekeeper by radically slashing the effect of distance as a communication barrier. "There's not much in being a gatekeeper when the walls are down." And we find ourselves yelling at people to look and see that the emperor, Big Journalism, actually has no clothes. The conceit of journalistic objectivity is undoubtedly still being taught as fact in schools. But I think our grandchildren will see through that con a lot more clearly than our contemporaries and our children do.
Of course if abb is correct and network news dies, we'll see an accelerating trend of even adults getting the word.

I think Oprah may have "jumped the shark" by coming out for Obama. She may never recover her status and prestige especially if Obama were to win, and thereby be given enough rope to hang himself - removing all doubt that he is the second coming of Jimmy Carter.
And that would be a watershed for the public's awareness that you can't take an "objective" person's word to the bank.

the presence of misinformation on the web ... calls the integrity of the medium into question

Not really.

Many of those skulls full of liberal mush, who are no longer fit to participate in vigorous discussion, and who are past the age of the teenagers who "grew up with it", can be turned off the internet by the drive by media decrying the abundance of misinformation thereon.

But the rest of us, including most of the young ones, and most of those who aren't yet brain dead, trust something on the internet, some particular sites or groups of people that makes sense to us.

We vary in how much we venture out into the "rest of" the internet and make sense of it; but that's a sign of a healthy diversity, and of the varied and limited resources we each bring to this discussion.

The alternative, some enforcement of "scientific web posting", on the internet would be the death knell of the burst of freedom that the internet has introduced.

I know. I'm reading Ron Chernow's biography of Hamilton right now.

Be careful of Chernow. I've read his bios of John D. Rockefeller and the (JP) Morgan family. He has a decided collectivist bias. It's for the "Greater Good," you see.

You actually believe that there was some golden age of honesty in the print media, or some other one? When was it?

I’ll gladly take Thomas Jefferson slinging mud at his opponents, and there were others who were more ruthless, and would sink to greater depths, than he.

An excellent thesis on the decline of journalism.

...There is also another point (albeit a negative one) that has also caused the News Industry to erode: Arrogance.

When an organization of people believes only their 'brand' of information is 'authentic', 'accurate', and 'legitimate' as is the mindset of the MSM within the Manhattan/Los Angeles circles, and entities such as Fox News, Talk Radio, and the Blogs are seen as unwelcome 'intruders', there's a huge problem, not to mention the swollen egos that go along with it.

You actually believe that there was some golden age of honesty in the print media, or some other one? When was it?

Show me where I said that. I said I don't like lying two-faced politicians and Jefferson was one in spades.

Well of course, the arrogance of which you speak is the natural consequence of being in a powerful organization which gets to criticize to powerful effect ("buying ink by the carload") while no one whom you criticize has a similar platform from which to reply.
And that is the Associated Press (including the membership thereof) in a nutshell.

I agree with your comment from another thread regarding legal action against the AP.

Forcing news agencies to provide disclaimers warning the audience not to expect objectivity would go a long way toward solving the problem.

Forcing news agencies to provide disclaimers warning the audience not to expect objectivity would go a long way toward solving the problem.

News agencies exist to promote the conceit that they are objective, and that it is important to pay attention to them. It is difficult to visualize the precise wording and positioning they should be required to put out in the disclaimer you suggest.
But I do think it would be delicious to have the TV reporters on election night announcing that they have in the past tended to overestimate the vote for Democratic candidates. And I think that is the key - not just disclaiming objectivity but specifically confessing the bias in favor of Democrats which they have demonstrably exhibited.
Don't you just know that the anchorman would look like he was sucking a lemon when he said that!

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