American enemy....
Posted on 05/25/2008 4:04:16 AM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion
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.
Steve Boriss teaches the class “The Future of News” at Washington University in St. Louis and is a principal of The Future of News, Inc.Boriss' work is extremely significant IMHO. Hat tip to Milhous
My vanity, The Right to Know, has a similar thrust to it.
ping
Ping.
BTTT
Ping.
So in your considered opinion, just how transforming will the invention of the internet be? In my not so humble opinion, history will show it to be as significant as movable type. It will shatter more centers of power than you can imagine.
As always - excellent read. So many generations influenced and taught by a one-thought source.
Big Brother has been with us a long time.
bump!
The more one reads about him, the more one realizes that there were at least two Jeffersons, the public Jefferson who is today always quoted as a paragon of one thing or another and the private Jefferson who bought newspaper publishers to slander his opponents and sneakily put the knife into the backs of more than one of his fellow Founders.
The downside of that is the presence of misinformation on the web. It doesn’t matter if the misinformation is unintentional or purposeful. It still calls the integrity of the medium into question. News sources don’t sell facts, they sell trust. Everyone has facts. What matters is whether the readers believe the speaker. Although modern journalism is much better than the stuff of old, it too often lets agenda politics interfere with reporting.
I often think about printing a small, weekly publication that examines issues and events without inserting the editor’s politics into every story. But even if I could do that, the market would be very small.
But that makes me love the guy even more!
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”
. . . or, as I have been calling it, "Big Journalism."The monopolistic nature of the Associated Press is what unifies the voice of journalism. Independent editorial pages don't amount to much when the whole rest of the paper reeks of the same perspective - the perspective that cheap, second guessing talk is more honorable than action. No wonder Big Journalism is so hostile to physical accomplishment! All journalists have to do is talk, and award themselves credit for their good intentions. The businessman or the cop or the soldier has to act on the basis of limited knowledge of the results of his action because by the time he knows fully - if indeed he ever can, without trying it and finding out what happens - it will be too late to do much good.
Our culture has been saturated for a century and a half with propaganda to the effect that the news is important. Placing that much emphasis on the new inevitably denigrates what is not new. Not only so, but by promoting the new so intensively, journalism creates the presumption that they will in fact deliver the news as quickly as possible - but experience shows that that is only true of news which fits Big Journalism's template. For example, during election night 2000 the news of Gore victories in various states came notably more quickly than news of Bush victories did - the margin of victory and thus, presumptively, the time required to obtain a reliable indication of the result - being the same. To such an extent that, most famously, Big Journalism called Florida a victory for the wrong man, before all the polls in Florida were even closed. Had victories for Bush been called as rapidly as those for Gore were, voters on the West Coast would have been treated to the news that Gore had lost his home state of Tennessee and Clinton's home state of Arkansas before the polls were closed in California.
The Federal Election Commission presently lacks a quorum because the Senate will not act on a Bush nominee. The Majority Leader initially claimed that the reason for holding up his nomination was because the nominee favored Voter ID laws. However, the Supreme Court has vindicated that position in the Indiana case, so that is not the reason for the hold - which has practical financial implications for the McCain presidential campaign in the here and now. I question why that is not grounds for a plea to SCOTUS for relief from McCain-Feingold - if not indeed for "Campaign Finance Reform" generally. Of course we know that McCain himself, self-righteous prig that he is, will not pursue such an action. But is it actually true that the candidate is the only one harmed when people who wish to express their approval of a candidate - or disapproval of his opponent - are deprived of the right to do so to an extent limited only by their own purse, rather than by the arbitrary diktat of the government?
Given the present makeup of the Supreme Court, it would certainly seem that there would be cause for civil action against the Associated Press and Big Journalism somewhere in all of that!
With the modern public Internet, cable and satellite TV and satellite radio, the world of de-massified media started to become reality between 1995 and 2001. It is of my opinion that the Internet really started to explode in 1995 with the release of Windows 95, since Windows 95 included the Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP) stack very necessary to connect to the Internet from a home computer through a telephone modem, DSL modem or cable modem. Before Windows 95, you had to install a third-party software to get Internet access, something a lot of users did not want to do.
American enemy....
But that would not be hypocrisy, would it? IMHO-Jefferson was advocating "partisan journalism", which everyone would understand was partisan and the content of which should be evaluated in light of other "partisan" views. Partisan journalists would be understood to be biased, and to engage in attacks that might be viewed as slander. But, as the article indicates, today we have self described "scientific journalists", who purport to be "scientific" but who, like everyone else, are incapable of producing unbiased content; and the vast majority of MSM are of the Left.
Unfortunately, many Americans buy the "scientific journalists" outright lie that they are, and are capable of, being "scientific".
So you like slimey, lying politicos, eh? That’s a conservative value if ever there was one.
the private Jefferson who bought newspaper publishers to slander his opponents and sneakily put the knife into the backs of more than one of his fellow Founders.
Hamilton and Jefferson went at it hammer and tongs, and it is not necessary to accord Hamilton the status of victim and not that of aggressor.The lesson to be found in the political contest between the two, as they waged it in their newspapers, is that the First Amendment was written to protect a "press" which nobody at the time would have claimed was objective. In fact, you can look at the battling newspapers and see in them nascent political parties. The reason you don't see that today is that we have in the Associated Press a gigantic propaganda machine which is the Establishment, and it calls its own politics "objectivity."
And you and I absorbed that propaganda with our mothers' milk - that Establishment was founded a century and a half ago and has long since become part of our culture. Which makes it a redoubtable opponent - but no less of an invidious assault on democracy, and no less worthy of destruction by any possible legal means, because of its power.
And now the Internet has, pretty much at a stroke, begun the elimination of all those problems and a return to Jefferson’s vision.
What I don't like about St. Thomas is his early use of "plausible deniability" and public denials of what he was doing.
I know. I'm reading Ron Chernow's biography of Hamilton right now.
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