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<strong>[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_W._McChesney Robert McChesney] is a media scholar who's work goes beyond the academy. A co-founder of the non-profit FreePress.net (Free Press staffer Josh Stearns is with us at RJI Five), McChesney is a prolific book writer on the rise and fall of journalism. One of his most frequent refrains is that the Founding Fathers intended postal subsidies for circulating newspapers as a recognition of the "public good" function of journalism. Why, McChesney asks, shouldn't that be one option for sustaining journalism? Nonsense, say some journalists, who argue that financial independence from the government is necessary to the practice of fierce watchdog reporting on government. How can we move beyond such a binary argument? Here is a recent summary by McChesney of his view, from a July 8, 2013 interview on the program "Democracy Now" during a [http://www.democracynow.org/2013/8/7/how_the_washington_posts_new_owner discussion about Jeff Bezos' impending purchase] of the Washington Post</strong> | <strong>[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_W._McChesney Robert McChesney] is a media scholar who's work goes beyond the academy. A co-founder of the non-profit FreePress.net (Free Press staffer Josh Stearns is with us at RJI Five), McChesney is a prolific book writer on the rise and fall of journalism. One of his most frequent refrains is that the Founding Fathers intended postal subsidies for circulating newspapers as a recognition of the "public good" function of journalism. Why, McChesney asks, shouldn't that be one option for sustaining journalism? Nonsense, say some journalists, who argue that financial independence from the government is necessary to the practice of fierce watchdog reporting on government. How can we move beyond such a binary argument? Here is a recent summary by McChesney of his view, from a July 8, 2013 interview on the program "Democracy Now" during a [http://www.democracynow.org/2013/8/7/how_the_washington_posts_new_owner discussion about Jeff Bezos' impending purchase] of the Washington Post</strong> | ||
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ROBERT McCHESNEY: "Well, I think that the absurdity is that we’re reduced to the point where journalism is dying in this country as an undertaking supported by commercial enterprise, and we’re reduced with these monopoly franchises to hopefully get a good billionaire, relative to the Koch brothers, for example. But we should stand back and understand how ridiculous the situation is, that we’re reduced to this pathetic state of affairs, because we really actually need real journalism. We need journalism that tells us about war plans, that tells us about the NSA, long before it becomes too late or deep into the game. And we’re not getting that now, and there’s no reason to think the current system is going to give us that. It’s incredibly corrupt. | ROBERT McCHESNEY: "Well, I think that the absurdity is that we’re reduced to the point where journalism is dying in this country as an undertaking supported by commercial enterprise, and we’re reduced with these monopoly franchises to hopefully get a good billionaire, relative to the Koch brothers, for example. But we should stand back and understand how ridiculous the situation is, that we’re reduced to this pathetic state of affairs, because we really actually need real journalism. We need journalism that tells us about war plans, that tells us about the NSA, long before it becomes too late or deep into the game. And we’re not getting that now, and there’s no reason to think the current system is going to give us that. It’s incredibly corrupt. | ||
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"It’s worth noting that we have a system like the one we have now a hundred years ago in the United States. If you were to look at American journalism in between 1900 and 1915, it had grown incredibly concentrated except in our very largest cities. There were huge empires, and the Hearsts, the Pulitzers, the Scrippses—the bosses of that era—used their power to actively and aggressively promote their politics, their generally right-wing, anti-labor politics. And it was a result of that period that there was a great crisis of journalism that led to the creation of professional journalism, the idea that the editorial content should not be influenced directly by the owners and the advertisers. And we’re going back to that era, except for we’re doing it without any resources, and there’s even less accountability, far less, than there was then. There’s—you know, in those days, there were four, five, six, eight major daily newspapers in each of our great cities, like New York, Philadelphia, Chicago. Today we don’t have anything like that. | "It’s worth noting that we have a system like the one we have now a hundred years ago in the United States. If you were to look at American journalism in between 1900 and 1915, it had grown incredibly concentrated except in our very largest cities. There were huge empires, and the Hearsts, the Pulitzers, the Scrippses—the bosses of that era—used their power to actively and aggressively promote their politics, their generally right-wing, anti-labor politics. And it was a result of that period that there was a great crisis of journalism that led to the creation of professional journalism, the idea that the editorial content should not be influenced directly by the owners and the advertisers. And we’re going back to that era, except for we’re doing it without any resources, and there’s even less accountability, far less, than there was then. There’s—you know, in those days, there were four, five, six, eight major daily newspapers in each of our great cities, like New York, Philadelphia, Chicago. Today we don’t have anything like that. | ||
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| − | "What we have is a plaything for these billionaires that they can then use aggressively to promote their own politics. And when we talk about promoting your own politics, we’ve got to understand, it’s not like Jeff Bezos has to march into a newsroom and say, "Cover this. Don’t cover that." It rarely works that way. That happens once a decade. You basically set an organizational culture, and smart journalists who want to survive internalize the values, and those that don’t internalize the values get out of the way." | + | "What we have is a plaything for these billionaires that they can then use aggressively to promote their own politics. And when we talk about promoting your own politics, we’ve got to understand, it’s not like Jeff Bezos has to march into a newsroom and say, "Cover this. Don’t cover that." It rarely works that way. That happens once a decade. You basically set an organizational culture, and smart journalists who want to survive internalize the values, and those that don’t internalize the values get out of the way."</big> |
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Revision as of 14:00, 8 September 2013
RJI Five Past/Five Forward -- Bob McChesney's view is we need subsidies, not billionares
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Robert McChesney is a media scholar who's work goes beyond the academy. A co-founder of the non-profit FreePress.net (Free Press staffer Josh Stearns is with us at RJI Five), McChesney is a prolific book writer on the rise and fall of journalism. One of his most frequent refrains is that the Founding Fathers intended postal subsidies for circulating newspapers as a recognition of the "public good" function of journalism. Why, McChesney asks, shouldn't that be one option for sustaining journalism? Nonsense, say some journalists, who argue that financial independence from the government is necessary to the practice of fierce watchdog reporting on government. How can we move beyond such a binary argument? Here is a recent summary by McChesney of his view, from a July 8, 2013 interview on the program "Democracy Now" during a discussion about Jeff Bezos' impending purchase of the Washington Post
ROBERT McCHESNEY: "Well, I think that the absurdity is that we’re reduced to the point where journalism is dying in this country as an undertaking supported by commercial enterprise, and we’re reduced with these monopoly franchises to hopefully get a good billionaire, relative to the Koch brothers, for example. But we should stand back and understand how ridiculous the situation is, that we’re reduced to this pathetic state of affairs, because we really actually need real journalism. We need journalism that tells us about war plans, that tells us about the NSA, long before it becomes too late or deep into the game. And we’re not getting that now, and there’s no reason to think the current system is going to give us that. It’s incredibly corrupt.
"It’s worth noting that we have a system like the one we have now a hundred years ago in the United States. If you were to look at American journalism in between 1900 and 1915, it had grown incredibly concentrated except in our very largest cities. There were huge empires, and the Hearsts, the Pulitzers, the Scrippses—the bosses of that era—used their power to actively and aggressively promote their politics, their generally right-wing, anti-labor politics. And it was a result of that period that there was a great crisis of journalism that led to the creation of professional journalism, the idea that the editorial content should not be influenced directly by the owners and the advertisers. And we’re going back to that era, except for we’re doing it without any resources, and there’s even less accountability, far less, than there was then. There’s—you know, in those days, there were four, five, six, eight major daily newspapers in each of our great cities, like New York, Philadelphia, Chicago. Today we don’t have anything like that.
"What we have is a plaything for these billionaires that they can then use aggressively to promote their own politics. And when we talk about promoting your own politics, we’ve got to understand, it’s not like Jeff Bezos has to march into a newsroom and say, "Cover this. Don’t cover that." It rarely works that way. That happens once a decade. You basically set an organizational culture, and smart journalists who want to survive internalize the values, and those that don’t internalize the values get out of the way."
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