Extract from The Guardian
We
are now in an age of transition. 20th century assumptions about mass
media, and particularly the press are breaking down, but nothing has
emerged to replace them
The current campaign by The Australian newspaper against the Australian Press Council not only casts doubt on the future of the Council, but raises the question of whether our concept of “the press” is obsolete.
The immediate motivation for the campaign is the likelihood of an unfavourable outcome from complaints regarding a series of stories about the late Arthur Gietzelt. The more fundamental problem is that the idea of “the press” as a social institution with special rights and responsibilities, is being eroded both from within and without.
As with much of our mental furniture, the idea of the press dates to the 19th century. In 1791, when the United States adopted the first amendment, guaranteeing (among other things) “freedom of the press”, the term “press” did not refer to a body of professional journalists, but to the printing press itself and, by extension, to any kind of publication. The US supreme court has repeatedly ruled that the press freedom protected by the first amendment applies equally to journalists and ordinary citizens.
This approach reflected the technological conditions of the time. Printing presses were simple and cheap, and newspapers were in their infancy. Political debate was still, in large measure, conducted through pamphlets, broadsides and other once-off or ephemeral publications. The dominant style was polemical, with no pretence of balance, and this did not change when occasional pamphlets turned into regularly published newspapers.
By the late 19th century, however, all this had changed.
The production of newspapers turned from a craft into an industry, employing huge amounts of capital and a whole range of specialist trades and occupations: journalists, editors, subeditors, typesetters and photographers, among many others. The high point of this process was the Linotype machine, invented in 1884 by Ottmar Mergenthaler, which ruled supreme for nearly a century, and permitted the production and mass printing of newspapers as we know them today.
The term “the press” came to refer to those engaged in this industry, and particularly to the journalists and editors whose words were now read by thousands, or even millions, every day. In the 20th century, with the rise of radio and television, the press became part of “the media”. Even more than newspapers, radio and TV were mass media: the limitations of spectrum and the cost of production meant that only a handful of outlets could reach a vast audience.
The concentrated nature of 20th century mass media conferred great power on the handful of proprietors (routinely referred to as “lords” or “barons”) who controlled the means of communication. Journalists wielded less individual power, but acquired a set of professional privileges going far beyond the notion of “freedom of the press” embodied in the US constitution. A well-known, though sharply contested, example, is the right of journalists to protect confidential sources from exposure in the face of question by police and judges. Less often remarked, but striking in its departure from the social conventions applicable to ordinary people, is the assumption that journalists can legitimately question anyone they want about (almost) anything, and expect an answer.
The obvious power of the press produced demands for a corresponding responsibility (Stanley Baldwin’s attack on the press barons Beaverbrook and Rothermere famously described power without responsibility as “the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages”, a phrase originally coined by Baldwin’s cousin Rudyar Kipling). Media responses to this pressure took the form of professional ethics for journalists, conventions like the separation of news, opinion and advertising content, and the creation of bodies like Press Councils, aimed at staving off external controls.
Over the past 20 years, this set of conventions, and the institutions that supported it have eroded to the point of collapse. The two crucial events were Rupert Murdoch’s creation of Fox News in 1996 and the emergence, around the same time of the World Wide Web (Mosaic, the first widely used Web browser was released in 1993).
Before Fox News, broadcast television in the US was the most complete embodiment of the 20th century media model. Three nationwide television networks served an audience of hundreds of millions. The “fairness doctrine” imposed by the United States Federal Communications Commission between 1949 and 1987 required TV stations to cover “both sides” of any major issue (the operating assumption being that the range of legitimate disagreement was encompassed by the positions of Republicans and Democrats). Fox upended those conventions, presenting hardline rightwing advocacy, while claiming to be “fair and balanced”.
The success of Fox News spawned imitators and rivals, most notably the leftwing equivalent, MSNBC. In place of the carefully balanced centrism of the 20th century, US TV is coming to resemble the scabrous and partisan, but lively and entertaining, newspapers of the 18th and early 19th.
While Fox has challenged the conventions of the press from within, the Internet permitted an assault from without. Before the Internet, the institutions of 20th century media acted as gatekeepers, deciding both what news was worth reporting and what opinions about that news was worth discussing. As the web emerged, this gatekeeping role came under fire from successive innovations: online discussion forums, blogs, aggregators and tweeters.
We are now in an age of transition. 20th century assumptions about mass media, and particularly the press are breaking down, but nothing has emerged to replace them.
Attempts to reimpose 20th century professional ethics and standards on the 21st century media, such as those suggested by the Finkelstein media inquiry, are doomed to failure. The best response to our current situation is to free ourselves from the assumption that such ethics and standards are the norm, and departures from them an exception.
We can no longer assume that a news story is true (let alone “fair and balanced”) simply because it appears on broadsheet paper. We have to make our own judgements about the credibility, or otherwise, of any given publication. Conversely, blogs and tweets run the gamut from irresponsible and malicious gossip to factual reporting and careful analysis. There is no way, apart from experience and observation, to tell which sources are reliable and which are not.
The immediate motivation for the campaign is the likelihood of an unfavourable outcome from complaints regarding a series of stories about the late Arthur Gietzelt. The more fundamental problem is that the idea of “the press” as a social institution with special rights and responsibilities, is being eroded both from within and without.
As with much of our mental furniture, the idea of the press dates to the 19th century. In 1791, when the United States adopted the first amendment, guaranteeing (among other things) “freedom of the press”, the term “press” did not refer to a body of professional journalists, but to the printing press itself and, by extension, to any kind of publication. The US supreme court has repeatedly ruled that the press freedom protected by the first amendment applies equally to journalists and ordinary citizens.
This approach reflected the technological conditions of the time. Printing presses were simple and cheap, and newspapers were in their infancy. Political debate was still, in large measure, conducted through pamphlets, broadsides and other once-off or ephemeral publications. The dominant style was polemical, with no pretence of balance, and this did not change when occasional pamphlets turned into regularly published newspapers.
By the late 19th century, however, all this had changed.
The production of newspapers turned from a craft into an industry, employing huge amounts of capital and a whole range of specialist trades and occupations: journalists, editors, subeditors, typesetters and photographers, among many others. The high point of this process was the Linotype machine, invented in 1884 by Ottmar Mergenthaler, which ruled supreme for nearly a century, and permitted the production and mass printing of newspapers as we know them today.
The term “the press” came to refer to those engaged in this industry, and particularly to the journalists and editors whose words were now read by thousands, or even millions, every day. In the 20th century, with the rise of radio and television, the press became part of “the media”. Even more than newspapers, radio and TV were mass media: the limitations of spectrum and the cost of production meant that only a handful of outlets could reach a vast audience.
The concentrated nature of 20th century mass media conferred great power on the handful of proprietors (routinely referred to as “lords” or “barons”) who controlled the means of communication. Journalists wielded less individual power, but acquired a set of professional privileges going far beyond the notion of “freedom of the press” embodied in the US constitution. A well-known, though sharply contested, example, is the right of journalists to protect confidential sources from exposure in the face of question by police and judges. Less often remarked, but striking in its departure from the social conventions applicable to ordinary people, is the assumption that journalists can legitimately question anyone they want about (almost) anything, and expect an answer.
The obvious power of the press produced demands for a corresponding responsibility (Stanley Baldwin’s attack on the press barons Beaverbrook and Rothermere famously described power without responsibility as “the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages”, a phrase originally coined by Baldwin’s cousin Rudyar Kipling). Media responses to this pressure took the form of professional ethics for journalists, conventions like the separation of news, opinion and advertising content, and the creation of bodies like Press Councils, aimed at staving off external controls.
Over the past 20 years, this set of conventions, and the institutions that supported it have eroded to the point of collapse. The two crucial events were Rupert Murdoch’s creation of Fox News in 1996 and the emergence, around the same time of the World Wide Web (Mosaic, the first widely used Web browser was released in 1993).
Before Fox News, broadcast television in the US was the most complete embodiment of the 20th century media model. Three nationwide television networks served an audience of hundreds of millions. The “fairness doctrine” imposed by the United States Federal Communications Commission between 1949 and 1987 required TV stations to cover “both sides” of any major issue (the operating assumption being that the range of legitimate disagreement was encompassed by the positions of Republicans and Democrats). Fox upended those conventions, presenting hardline rightwing advocacy, while claiming to be “fair and balanced”.
The success of Fox News spawned imitators and rivals, most notably the leftwing equivalent, MSNBC. In place of the carefully balanced centrism of the 20th century, US TV is coming to resemble the scabrous and partisan, but lively and entertaining, newspapers of the 18th and early 19th.
While Fox has challenged the conventions of the press from within, the Internet permitted an assault from without. Before the Internet, the institutions of 20th century media acted as gatekeepers, deciding both what news was worth reporting and what opinions about that news was worth discussing. As the web emerged, this gatekeeping role came under fire from successive innovations: online discussion forums, blogs, aggregators and tweeters.
We are now in an age of transition. 20th century assumptions about mass media, and particularly the press are breaking down, but nothing has emerged to replace them.
Attempts to reimpose 20th century professional ethics and standards on the 21st century media, such as those suggested by the Finkelstein media inquiry, are doomed to failure. The best response to our current situation is to free ourselves from the assumption that such ethics and standards are the norm, and departures from them an exception.
We can no longer assume that a news story is true (let alone “fair and balanced”) simply because it appears on broadsheet paper. We have to make our own judgements about the credibility, or otherwise, of any given publication. Conversely, blogs and tweets run the gamut from irresponsible and malicious gossip to factual reporting and careful analysis. There is no way, apart from experience and observation, to tell which sources are reliable and which are not.
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