We understand the world through stories—heroes and villains, triumphs and tragedies. But the stories implanted in journalists' minds give the news a particular shape.
I was just thinking about the reason for so many journalists being focused on drama and mostly drama caused by bad events. I wonder if people drawn to journalism tend to be people who have fear-based personalities or if they are just excitement junkies. I know the need for clicks is a motive for prioritizing exciting stories but it seems that was the case even before news was driven by the profit motive.
Whether or not fear is the reason for the media’s hyping of negative “Henny Penny” stories that hype is huge gift to the right. Most of the people I know who have been sucked in by their insane propaganda have always been fear-based people who see the world as win-lose so they were primed to be easily seduced by all the rightwing fearmongering despite the fact that they are well-educated and perfectly reasonable about most things.
I still don’t understand why the media has ignored the well-designed research that shows people actually prefer to hear stories about solutions to problems and are more willing to pay attention to those kinds of stories. That study is well worth reading:
Thanks for this important article. I have been really frustrated by so many in the media treating the midterms election as just about Trump. They are framing the primaries as a referendum on his power to continue to influence our politics. All that attention only serves to strengthen Trump’s influence.
As a result of that framing on the night of the primary elections in my state, North Carolina, all I heard about was Madison Cawthorn’s race. What I wanted to hear were the results from the Democratic Senate primary and how well Cheri Beasley had done in a crowded field. (She blew everyone else away, getting a whopping 85% of the vote.) Beasely is very impressive. She was a NC Supreme Court Justice for seven years and then our Chief Justice, the first African American woman in our state’s history to hold that position. Beasley is thought to have a good chance at winning Richard Burr’s seat yet the media has ignored her candidacy instead they chose to give that crackpot Cawthorn their attention for a race for just one House seat. In a sane world the media would be talking a lot about the NC Senate race which may well result in a Senate seat being won by an African American woman. Of course that focus would undermine another preferred media storyline — that Democrats are doomed.
Thank you for sharing your insights and thoughts! so interesting, really, from one of the world's most famous journalists.
Is President Joe Biden one of our greatest Presidents? I also thought Bill Clinton was one of our finest Presidents and that Hillary Clinton would have saved our world. President Hillary would have created a much different world by now. Russia interfered, the GOP that my father belonged to, after fighting the Nazis in Europe, utterly failed the country with their extreme cowardice.
About the world's bravest human beings, the world's journalists, the media content today is 85% driven by the advertisers' interests and dollars, according to Common Cause. So even the finest reporters find themselves outside the MacDonald's reporting on the newest iteration. Everything is Sold American. Thanks for super article!
Press coverage of tonight's hearings, strangely enough, is related to America's - or rather Congress' - inability to rid ourselves of the scourge of gun deaths: they are both "follow the money" scenarios.
There is a popular and cynical poem that has been around for a while now and reappears after each major mass shooting. It's entitled "America is a Gun." It rings true: we've written guns into our collective DNA. But I think guns are a symptom, rather than the disease. The disease is our worship of the almighty dollar. We know why Congress won't pass any laws designed to lower gun deaths - these laws will also decrease gun sales, and hence the people who fund political campaigns favor laws that increase gun manufacturers' profits, not reduce them. Congress' infinite need for "more campaign funds," as evidenced by constant emails asking for more money to pay for more ads no one wants to see, is the root of our legislative dysfunction.
Tfg managed to gather enough popularity to sit behind the Resolute Desk in no small part because so many Americans equated his appearance of wealth with all the other positive attributes we want in a leader. That is just one of many manifestations of our worship of money: we equate it with virtue. Another is that major news outlets, as you have described, have all but abandoned the core values of reporting - objectivity and accuracy - and replaced them with the need to constantly increase shareholder value.
When Friedman said "The social responsibility of corporations is to increase profits," he formally stated that which had been assumed since the first corporation was formed: a corporate entity has but one goal, and that is to maximize profit. Like the Terminator, a corporation has no soul, no conscience, no concern whatsoever outside of its core function of maximizing profit.
Of course this entire conversation begs a significant question about the foundations of our economic system: can capitalism be regulated enough ("de-Friedmanized," if you will) to prevent the rapid deterioration of our system into complete chaos, or are we doomed? Is there enough strength in journalistic efforts such as this page to make a difference in public opinion, and reverse this trend toward profit-above-objectivity?
That's a fine setup, Jim, and I am going to watch on C-Span just as I imagine you will, too. I was listening to some of the other media outlets but was quickly tired of their preemptive arguments.
Your reference to so-called professional wrestling resonated for me in a sense that might surprise you: I am increasingly conscious of the subsequent rise of relatively serious if still "entertaining" mixed martial arts competitions in which the theatrical chaos of Pro Wresting is replaced by the highly regulated if still brutal confrontation of young men and women in refereed combat.
From that I would simply suggest that the former has always had its parallel in our national politics but that the latter has existed as well, but the 'rules' and 'norms' of political combat have almost always been maintained by the principal competitors for political power whether individuals candidates or the parties they represented (which is not to say that ordinary people and specific communities were saved from harm).
In our political life - and perhaps in our national life - these distinctions are at great risk. I have now listened to Representatives Thompson and Cheney and am both impressed by what I have heard and am hopeful that the committee will be heard loudly and clearly.
Absolutely on point JF! I have been astounded by the unfairness of treatment in the media (from either side of the spectrum) on the Biden Administration's deft handling of the war in Ukraine and the skillful rallying of the EU, NATO and even previously neutral Finland and Sweden for the cause. To date this masterful diplomatic success, has been dismissed as business as usual, and the only news that is heard is the relentless pummeling of the administration for the state of inflation on the economy, higher oil and gas prices and the loss of Ukrainian wheat stocks stolen by the Russians.
I was just thinking about the reason for so many journalists being focused on drama and mostly drama caused by bad events. I wonder if people drawn to journalism tend to be people who have fear-based personalities or if they are just excitement junkies. I know the need for clicks is a motive for prioritizing exciting stories but it seems that was the case even before news was driven by the profit motive.
Whether or not fear is the reason for the media’s hyping of negative “Henny Penny” stories that hype is huge gift to the right. Most of the people I know who have been sucked in by their insane propaganda have always been fear-based people who see the world as win-lose so they were primed to be easily seduced by all the rightwing fearmongering despite the fact that they are well-educated and perfectly reasonable about most things.
I still don’t understand why the media has ignored the well-designed research that shows people actually prefer to hear stories about solutions to problems and are more willing to pay attention to those kinds of stories. That study is well worth reading:
https://sjn-static.s3.amazonaws.com/SmithGeiger2020.pdf
If profit is what is really driving the media that study should have made a big impact.
Thanks for this important article. I have been really frustrated by so many in the media treating the midterms election as just about Trump. They are framing the primaries as a referendum on his power to continue to influence our politics. All that attention only serves to strengthen Trump’s influence.
As a result of that framing on the night of the primary elections in my state, North Carolina, all I heard about was Madison Cawthorn’s race. What I wanted to hear were the results from the Democratic Senate primary and how well Cheri Beasley had done in a crowded field. (She blew everyone else away, getting a whopping 85% of the vote.) Beasely is very impressive. She was a NC Supreme Court Justice for seven years and then our Chief Justice, the first African American woman in our state’s history to hold that position. Beasley is thought to have a good chance at winning Richard Burr’s seat yet the media has ignored her candidacy instead they chose to give that crackpot Cawthorn their attention for a race for just one House seat. In a sane world the media would be talking a lot about the NC Senate race which may well result in a Senate seat being won by an African American woman. Of course that focus would undermine another preferred media storyline — that Democrats are doomed.
Thank you for sharing your insights and thoughts! so interesting, really, from one of the world's most famous journalists.
Is President Joe Biden one of our greatest Presidents? I also thought Bill Clinton was one of our finest Presidents and that Hillary Clinton would have saved our world. President Hillary would have created a much different world by now. Russia interfered, the GOP that my father belonged to, after fighting the Nazis in Europe, utterly failed the country with their extreme cowardice.
About the world's bravest human beings, the world's journalists, the media content today is 85% driven by the advertisers' interests and dollars, according to Common Cause. So even the finest reporters find themselves outside the MacDonald's reporting on the newest iteration. Everything is Sold American. Thanks for super article!
Press coverage of tonight's hearings, strangely enough, is related to America's - or rather Congress' - inability to rid ourselves of the scourge of gun deaths: they are both "follow the money" scenarios.
There is a popular and cynical poem that has been around for a while now and reappears after each major mass shooting. It's entitled "America is a Gun." It rings true: we've written guns into our collective DNA. But I think guns are a symptom, rather than the disease. The disease is our worship of the almighty dollar. We know why Congress won't pass any laws designed to lower gun deaths - these laws will also decrease gun sales, and hence the people who fund political campaigns favor laws that increase gun manufacturers' profits, not reduce them. Congress' infinite need for "more campaign funds," as evidenced by constant emails asking for more money to pay for more ads no one wants to see, is the root of our legislative dysfunction.
Tfg managed to gather enough popularity to sit behind the Resolute Desk in no small part because so many Americans equated his appearance of wealth with all the other positive attributes we want in a leader. That is just one of many manifestations of our worship of money: we equate it with virtue. Another is that major news outlets, as you have described, have all but abandoned the core values of reporting - objectivity and accuracy - and replaced them with the need to constantly increase shareholder value.
When Friedman said "The social responsibility of corporations is to increase profits," he formally stated that which had been assumed since the first corporation was formed: a corporate entity has but one goal, and that is to maximize profit. Like the Terminator, a corporation has no soul, no conscience, no concern whatsoever outside of its core function of maximizing profit.
Of course this entire conversation begs a significant question about the foundations of our economic system: can capitalism be regulated enough ("de-Friedmanized," if you will) to prevent the rapid deterioration of our system into complete chaos, or are we doomed? Is there enough strength in journalistic efforts such as this page to make a difference in public opinion, and reverse this trend toward profit-above-objectivity?
Can America be saved from itself?
That's a fine setup, Jim, and I am going to watch on C-Span just as I imagine you will, too. I was listening to some of the other media outlets but was quickly tired of their preemptive arguments.
Your reference to so-called professional wrestling resonated for me in a sense that might surprise you: I am increasingly conscious of the subsequent rise of relatively serious if still "entertaining" mixed martial arts competitions in which the theatrical chaos of Pro Wresting is replaced by the highly regulated if still brutal confrontation of young men and women in refereed combat.
From that I would simply suggest that the former has always had its parallel in our national politics but that the latter has existed as well, but the 'rules' and 'norms' of political combat have almost always been maintained by the principal competitors for political power whether individuals candidates or the parties they represented (which is not to say that ordinary people and specific communities were saved from harm).
In our political life - and perhaps in our national life - these distinctions are at great risk. I have now listened to Representatives Thompson and Cheney and am both impressed by what I have heard and am hopeful that the committee will be heard loudly and clearly.
Absolutely on point JF! I have been astounded by the unfairness of treatment in the media (from either side of the spectrum) on the Biden Administration's deft handling of the war in Ukraine and the skillful rallying of the EU, NATO and even previously neutral Finland and Sweden for the cause. To date this masterful diplomatic success, has been dismissed as business as usual, and the only news that is heard is the relentless pummeling of the administration for the state of inflation on the economy, higher oil and gas prices and the loss of Ukrainian wheat stocks stolen by the Russians.
Cutting! Also, accurate. No wonder none of the networks invite Mr. Fallows on air anymore.