A Cornucopia of Complicity: The For-Profit Media and the Idle Masses
Objectivity is the weakling on the playground, taunted by the leonine roar of its most avid opponent: profit. Like a shambling structure with no foundation, an attempt in understanding the events occurring in the world is constantly intercepted by the mixed messages and facts perpetuated by our direct surroundings and the media. As a result of this confusion, we give up. We attach our names to other names; we move our legs and feet but rarely think , as it is easier to be told — and there is no shortage of greedy story-tellers. The incomprehensible scale of daily occurrences and the curiosity of the public makes the media in all its forms the perfect vehicle of social control. The people in the driver’s seat hold the extraordinary power of painting the picture of reality in the minds of the masses. Whilst one would think that journalism, a profession which can potentiate shifts in socio-political and cultural attitudes would be held by revered individuals of high honor and prestige, this is far from the case, and there was no one more influential in evaluating and criticizing the media than Walter Lippmann. He thought that the function of news was “to signalize an event”, and the function of truth “to bring to light the hidden facts, to set them in relation with each other, and make a picture of reality on which men can act,” a premise that starkly contrasts the for-profit, sensationalist, polarizing, and untrustworthy media of today.
Born to German-Jewish parents in New York City in 1889, Lippmann was one of the most revered and influential political writers of his time. While attending Harvard, he was the editor of Harvard Monthly and the co-founder of the socialist club, though his political views shifted immensely as he grew older. After graduating from Harvard in 1911, Lincoln Steffens, editor of the muckraking Everybody’s Magazine employed Lippmann. Just two years later, Lippmann’s first work was published: A Preface to Politics. On June 28, 1919, Lippmann was commissioned a captain in the Army and was assigned to the intelligence section.
During this time, Lippmann saw the detriments of war first-hand, and found newspaper coverage to be inaccurate and misleading. His book Liberty and The News was published in 1920. In his book, he shifted the blame of the inaccurate wartime news coverage away from the advertisers and governments, and placed it on the smugness and arrogance of the journalists imposing their opinions rather than reporting the facts. Both then and now, the lack of media created and consumed that is entirely objective has lead to widespread corruption and falsehoods within the news, which has detrimental implications that undermine the fabric of our governmental and political structures. As Lippmann wrote, “people increasingly are baffled because the facts are not available; and they are wondering whether government by consent can survive in a time when the manufacture of consent is an unregulated private enterprise. For in an exact sense the present crisis of western democracy is a crisis of journalism” (Lippmann, 22). Furthermore, “the journalistic tendency for instructing and imposing the readers with moral opinions, has confused the work of reporters with the work of preachers, revivalists, prophets, and agitators” (Lippmann, 31). His solution is veracity: the conformity of facts, accuracy; objectivity.
While Lippmann’s critique on journalism in his book Liberty and The News , which was published nearly one-hundred years ago remains relevant in today’s media climate, his proposed solution of pure objectivity will seize to ever be realized because of the private for-profit structure of the media. The problem cannot be solved by altering journalistic methods and standards; journalists cannot act as a check on power when the very system encourages complicity.
The first amendment of our constitution places the authority to determine the vision of the common good into the hands of the people; but instead of a stellar representation of objective reporting and current affairs, battling groups and individuals with differing civic views led to the descent of American media into extreme political polarization, vulgar language, and slander. This type of reporting is no new phenomenon of the twenty-first century, it is a part of our historic pattern, and now we are at the point of this cycle where we swoop in, criticize, philosophize and determine appropriate solutions and standards of journalistic ideals. In the words of DeTocqueville in his legendary book “Democracy in America,” which was published in 1835, he wrote: “The characteristic of the American journalist consists in an open and coarse appeal to the passions of his readers; he abandons principles to assail the characters of individuals, to track them into private life and disclose all of their weakness and vices.” This does not sound an awful lot different than many of the journalists active today.
“History repeats itself” is a sentence so overused that it incites the quick dismissal of a cliche; however, the Progressive Era of the 1910s which closely preceded the publication of Liberty and the News in 1920 and the present do share some commonalities. The modern “free press” was born in the mid-to-late 19th century; free from government forces, the structure was characterized by private for-profit ownership with advertising support. The founding fathers had stressed the importance of a press which gave access to a range of viewpoints, including unpopular ones, yet this notion was abandoned with the defense that if the existing range of viewpoints was insufficient, new newspapers could be created and enter the market (McChesney, 20).
Mark Whalan wrote on page 21 in his novel American Culture in the 1910s : “The energy of The Masses was symptomatic of American journalism in the decade, which in quantity and influence would not be surpassed in the nation’s history. Some 2,200 daily English-language papers existed in The United States in 1910, along with four hundred foreign language and special-interest dailies; together, they had a circulation of around 22.4 million.” In 1911, Pulitzer began a fact-checking bureau at the New York World , in a response to the recurring public concern over editorial bias and quality after the previous decade had been dominated by ‘yellow journalism’(Whalen, 24).
However, by 1914, 66 percent of the major paper’s revenue came from advertising. The growth of great chains and fortunes of people like Pulitzer, Hearst, and Scripps within the competitive newspaper markets led to the concentration of the market with fewer and larger papers and higher barriers of entry. America’s press was placed into the hands of a few powerful people, and there was no way to challenge this market with new newspapers without having an extraordinary amount of money. The reliance on advertising for profit, and the greater reach of the leading newspapers minimized local newspaper markets from oligopoly to duopoly, and in some cases, monopoly, as the advertisers tended to do business with the newspapers that had the greatest audience reach (McChesney, 62).
The media of the 1910s tells “the story of how the institutional organization of culture in wartime consolidated trends towards the nationalization of culture and the homogenization of tastes, and how it took the progressive vision of culture as associative and meliorative in the direction of propaganda and coercion in a way few could have foreseen” (Whalen, 34).
Today, print media is facing a different crisis. With the insurgence of technology, the masses are no longer eager to buy the daily newspaper, nor subscribing to magazines when the same content, and then some, is conveniently a click away. Major news outlets now primarily function online, and profits are still mostly made from advertising. Despite using different mediums, news outlets in the 1910s and in the present have the same masters: the advertisers. This tension between commercial and public interests has now spanned for over 100 years. The potential and realization of making large amounts of revenue continues to cloud the news’ responsibility as a public servant; an informer (McChesney, 86).
When this issue was prominent in Lippmann’s time, there was an attempt to improve this issue with the creation of the Newspaper Guild; professional journalism, with the primary aim of dividing the owner/advertiser and the journalist/editor. It was to be a public service mission that overcame the qualms of being ruled by a commercial overlord. This quest stabilized somewhere in the 1940s, and newsrooms were not defined by partisanship, but after some time greed came knocking on the door: editors increasingly became frustrated with the lack of opportunity for profit growth, and slowly the feigned integrity of the news was exposed as they were still receiving subsidies from outside entities in secret.
Next came the newsroom non-commercial “as-if” with no straight sense of proper journalistic code, and things further evolved into the cornucopia of complicity within the media that we see now (McChesney). So here we are today: the numbers are greater and the medium is different, but the style is the same: on every political side of public matters, libelous exaggeration and furious aggrandizements rule the 24 hour news cycle. Those who resist choosing sides and joining the partisan battle are voices that are barely heard.
With an overwhelmingly sensationalist media, frivolous stories are labeled as “breaking,” and the contents are often manipulated in order to engage the reader, but not necessarily educate them or paint a clearer picture of the reality. After coming home from a long day of work, articles about Kylie Jenner’s new baby, or a listicle with “Twenty Reasons Why Drinking Wine Every Day is Fine,” seems more appealing to many than a cut and dry objective breakdown of a current event. Demand creates supply, and it has become clear what sort of “news” generates the most traffic, and therefore, what sort of “news” generates profit.
Thus, the problem of our unawareness and full understanding of the facts is not completely caused by the media; the consumers’ gravitation towards instant gratification and sensationalism lies at the other end of the distorted realities that are created by media outlets. However, those who do choose to diligently read the news must always be skeptical of the validity of stories. Even when events are portrayed in a seemingly objective manner, the validity of the statements is never completely verifiable, which is another major issue. Lippmann writes in Liberty and the News : “When those who control them [the newspapers] arrogate to themselves the right to determine by their consciences what shall be reported and for what purpose, democracy is unworkable.”
But it is not merely the moralistic judgment of the journalists that is problematic, “the world about which each man is supposed to have opinions has become so complicated as to defy his powers of understanding. What he knows of events that matter enormously to him, the purposes of governments, the aspirations of peoples, the struggle of classes, he knows at second, third, or fourth hand. He cannot go and see for himself. Even the things that are near him have become too involved for his judgment” (Lippmann, 46). The mere complexity of the ongoing events around us makes us reliant on the stories we are being told, and cultivate our form of reality.
He further writes: “When freedom of opinion is revealed as freedom of error, illusion, and misinterpretation, it is virtually impossible to stir up much interest in its behalf. It is the thinnest of all abstractions and an over-refinement of mere intellectualism. But people, wide circles of people, are aroused when their curiosity is baulked. The desire to know, the dislike of being deceived and made game of, is a really powerful motive, and it is that motive that can best be enlisted in the cause of freedom.” It is impossible to argue that Lippmann’s observations from nearly one hundred years ago are not relevant to our world today. However, his proposed solution of pure objectivity can never be realized because of the for-profit commercial structure of the media industry, and choosing money over the truth does have severe consequences: “There can be no liberty for a community which lacks the information by which to detect lies.”
Liberty is a much thought about concept by philosophers such as John Stuart Mill and Plato. Lippmann regards liberty as a condition under which men can be unafraid of differing ideas and opinions, “the furnishing of a healthy environment in which human judgment and inquiry can most successfully organize human life,” “that is why nine-tenths of the effort to live and let live consists in proving that the thing we wish to have tolerated is really a matter of indifference” (Lippmann, 47). However, liberty ceases to exist in tumultuous times, “because in a time of stress nothing is easier than to insist, and by insistence to convince, that tolerated indifference is no longer tolerable because it has ceased to be indifferent.”
The highly opinionated, slanted, and untrustworthy media have in the present truly painted jaded worldviews in the minds of many. Liberty was certainly lost during the 2016 presidential elections and the outcomes were dangerous. With no clear picture on the validity and trustworthiness of either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump which the media should be held accountable for, led to an out-of-touch public which became polarized and violent. Lippmann warned of the implications as objectivity continues to be lost: “The cardinal fact always is the loss of contact with objective information. Public as well as private reason depends upon it. Not what somebody says, not what somebody wishes were true, but what is so beyond all our opinion, constitutes the touchstone of sanity” (Lippmann, 19).
That touchstone of sanity vanished during the election cycle and thereafter. There is no veracity, but there certainly is bombastic edification. However, the liberty of journalists was under fire as well. As a large group of individuals protecting their means of employment, many had to comply and manufacture content that would generate the most profit — sensationalist and provocative — in the same step of that as their peers, as not to be ostracized, or fired by the powers that be.
Journalism cannot be a check on power, because the very system encourages complicity. Those who are in power, and those who report on them are in bed with each other. When the story is inconvenient for the powers that be, you’ll see the flack machine in action. Discrediting sources, trashing stories, and diverting the conversation. To manufacture consent, you need an enemy; a target, and we see this happen over and over again. Hillary Clinton versus Donald Trump was a perfect display of our democracy in crisis. There was no “right” manner to discern what was fact, what was fiction; what was important, and what wasn’t. The polarizing personalities, platforms, and genders of the candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump tended to create immense hostility among people who differed in preference. Opinions were not tolerated on both ends of the spectrum, and an uproar of a nation ensued. There was no middle ground. The political insidiousness of the empty phrase regardless of the mouthpiece it came out of was ever-present and prevailed.
Facts were and still are framed with the note that “this person says this happened,” which leaves the reader to determine the validity of the statements that follow. When there are hundreds of stories that contradict one another it is difficult for the public to discern which one is fact and which one is fiction. The further abstraction of the ongoings in the world leave is deeply in the dark.
The utter confusion of the public combined to the desperation of being a part of something, or fighting for some sort of cause has led millions to hide behind hashtags and pseudo-statistics. The internet is a powerful tool that can be used for good, but currently distorts the view of the world in the minds of the consumers and leaves them jaded as to what is important around them. Lippmann’s assertions are extraordinarily important and relevant, yet true objectivity cannot flourish if the market isn’t demanding for it fervently enough. The responsibility lies with the powers that be, but it is shared with us, the consumer.
Works Cited
The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica. “Walter Lippmann.” Encyclopædia Britannica ,
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 10 Feb. 2017, www.britannica.com/biography/Walter-Lippmann . Lippmann, Walter. Liberty and the News . Scholar’s Choice, 2015.
McChesney, Robert Waterman, and John Nichols. The Death and Life of American Journalism: The Media Revolution That Will Begin the World Again . Nation Books, 2011. Tocqueville, Alexis de, et al. Democracy in America . Dover Publications, Inc., 2017.
Whalan, Mark. American Culture in the 1910s . Edinburgh University Press, 2012.
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