Originally published in Editor & Publisher
magazine; Sept. 26, 1992.
Journalism and the Public Trust
By KEITH PURTELL
In that anxious moment when a distraught talk-show guest hesitates to reveal her private anguish for the intrusive, goggling eye of the television camera, a relentless host leans forward. He prods her, pushes her with thinly-disguised impatience, trying to compel the flow of human emotion.
It's what the studio audience wants. It's what the show's producers want. It's what the sponsors want. And they're all waiting. It's also what the nation wants, as millions tune in daily to mutely witness the lurid confessions of people who think being on television will somehow help them.
Although such circuses of dysfunction are often presented under the banner of broadcast journalism, one wonders at the mentality that misnames as journalism a parade of problems so profoundly irrelevant to the issues most people face.
General television programming is the marketing executive's triumph; a merchandising of human distress carefully calculated to capitalize on the flaws of the many members of our vagabond society who are already tending towards withdrawal, callousness and factionalism.
Few seem able to resist seeing extinguished hopes rekindled, lost loved-ones located, passion aroused and conflict resolved, all without complication in only one hour (with a few commercial interruptions).
America has turned to the electronic teat. Longing for community, for relief, for answers, we tune in the raucous squawking and flickering images that play on our fears and hopes; a pointless video therapy involving no long-term solutions, no effort and, worst of all, no participation.
In bygone years, legitimate journalism furthered a sense of community, a tradition exemplified by the hometown newspaper. Reporters were seen as community representatives whose sharing of the events and issues of the day furthered a sense of oneness. They were the eyes and ears of the
people, and on the editorial pages, their advocate. Everyone with access to a good local newspaper could see a little farther and a little clearer. Readers were eager to get the newspaper, and welcomed journalists' revelations.
Now they don't want to know. Newspaper articles are condemned, not only for the inexorable negativity of narrow-minded reporting, but also for the prejudice and ignorance apparent in what is omitted. The ominous increase in corporate control does not inspire much hope for reform. Of the daily papers being published in 1900, only 1.3 percent were owned by newspaper chains. By the late 1980s, over 70 percent of all dailies were owned by chains, many of whom were more interested in maximizing their profit margin than in maintaining community ties. Despite the growth in corporate ownership, however, per capita readership continues to slip.
Most of the responsibility for this mass desertion lies with newspapers themselves. The public has opted for television because newspapers failed to keep up with their changing needs. Once dominant, newspapers grew lazy in both design and content. Typical newspaper pages remained masses of gray on dingy white paper, relieved only by clumps of black headlines and an occasional poorly-done photograph. Most still are.
Competition from television and magazines has forced newspapers to scramble for ways to reverse the outward flow of lost readers. What have newspapers done? They've made themselves more "graphic." They have begrudgingly sprinkled their pages with decorative artwork and shorter articles, trying to snare the attention of an impatient reader.
But it's mostly just a paint job; a move of desperation rather than inspiration. They've overlooked the problem of content. Contrary to what most newspaper publishers apparently believe, they are not manufacturing and delivering a "product." They are not cranking out widgets. Theirs is a service industry; a community service.
America's history has become a strange passageway where past deeds are re-encountered as grim landmarks; totems refusing to remain in abeyance, whispering disturbing messages about the relationship between our social ills and our unconfronted selves. There is a need for what legitimate journalists can offer. The challenge is embodied by a nation clustering gape-mouthed in darkness, hypnotized by a glowing cathode-ray tube and a careening, battering-ram soundtrack.
To restore the public trust, newspapers must go beyond merely telling readers that things are not as they should be, beyond being a directionless medium that only responds to shock and catastrophe.
Newspapers have usually conveyed the essential elements of events, but, despite a lot of high talk about helping readers make informed decisions, have abandoned the public when it came to that critical moment. Most of the process or results of decision-making has been left out of newspapers, making them more of a one-way communication than a true public forum.
As our world grows smaller and humanity is forced elbow to elbow, this is the time to build consensus and find commonality. This is the time for people to recognize each other as allies, not as resources to be exploited.
Copyright © 1999 by Keith Purtell. All rights reserved.