4 ms·

One thing I learned from following the US elections for a year is that all those people saying "omg free media is soooooo important in a democracy" turned out t

One thing I learned from following the US elections for a year is that all those people saying "omg free media is soooooo important in a democracy" turned out to be absolutely right. The subtlety is that "controlled media" isn't just "state-owned media" (something that the US media loves pointing out about RT for example). If you have a system where incentives are put in place so that the media has an interest in presenting an image of those in power which is the image that those in power would like to present, then the media won't show you an objective picture. In the case of democracies (and here I'm not only talking about the US) these incentives are what's called "access". That is, the idea that if someone in the media wants to call an insider in the government, that guy will take the call. Media companies who don't have this access aren't seen as serious and lose viewers. That is why media in the US (and most democracies) isn't really free (for the most part; there are exceptions): because if they're seen to be very anti-establishment, they won't get any access. Here's a thought experiment. Imagine that we institute by law a "Chinese wall" [1], of the type that banks already have, between government and media. Prediction: the first time this idea will be proposed, both the government and the media will hysterically oppose this idea. The government because they lose on of the most important forms of control that they have over the media, and the media because they lose their competitive advantage over any well informed youtuber with smart things to say. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_wall https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_wall

maxerickson 10y ago
What does compliance with your rule look like? The media only talking to designated spokespeople on recorded video? The media just publishing press releases? How do they investigate things that the government PR doesn't want to discuss? I have a problem with the way access is traded on, but I think the solution is to convince some media companies to have some backbone (we invited Titus J. Stuffington on tonight, he didn't want to talk about the bribes he took, we decided not to get some damn fool to defend the bribes in his stead), not to ban them from talking to government officials.
- rahrahrah 10y ago
  I hear you, this is the old debate of incentives versus regulation: which one should you use in order to extract the outcome you believe is better. I don't know. The problem with "convince media companies" to have backbone is one of incentives. Media companies are fighting amongst them, and if the incentives are such that the ones that "have a backbone" will always lose to the ones that don't, then your approach is a non-starter (and I believe this is currently the case because viewers demand that the media company have "access"). So how could you align a media company having a backbone with it winning in the media company competition? Well, for example by targeting a niche audience that hates seeing media companies pandering for the establishment. With that audience, your media company would win. Of course, only small companies target small niches. Then the question becomes: is that audience big enough that the big established media companies notice and want to gun for it? Then there's an additional complication which is that with your method media companies aren't _really_ calling out poor bad governmental behaviours, but only having the appearance of doing so. That is, they try to appeal to the "no bullshit crowd" by calling out minor pre-negociated points, while still cuddling with the government on the things that really matter. It's a complicated world.
  - maxerickson 10y ago
    Again, what does compliance with your rule look like? How do journalists do journalism if they can't talk to key players in the stories they investigate?
    - rahrahrah 10y ago
      Again, I don't know. Maybe the answer isn't that they can't talk altogether, but that regulations should be put in place for communications. For example, if a journalist wants to talk to a government official they can do so whenever the government officla say so, but the _full_ content of the conversation has to be made available to all media companies before any one of them can publish anything. The downside with this approach is that it removes the incentive of any one media company to put much resources into investigative journalism that gets it scoops from conversations with the government. The upside with this approach is that it removes the obvious conflict of interests which is that media companies won't trash the government in order to be fed these scoops (and when I say "the government" I'm including the opposition; one's business model is to be fed by the Republicans (Fox) the other's will be to be fed by the Democrats (MSNBC))

maxerickson 10y ago

What does compliance with your rule look like? The media only talking to designated spokespeople on recorded video? The media just publishing press releases? How do they investigate things that the government PR doesn't want to discuss? I have a problem with the way access is traded on, but I think the solution is to convince some media companies to have some backbone (we invited Titus J. Stuffington on tonight, he didn't want to talk about the bribes he took, we decided not to get some damn fool to defend the bribes in his stead), not to ban them from talking to government officials.

rahrahrah 10y ago
I hear you, this is the old debate of incentives versus regulation: which one should you use in order to extract the outcome you believe is better. I don't know. The problem with "convince media companies" to have backbone is one of incentives. Media companies are fighting amongst them, and if the incentives are such that the ones that "have a backbone" will always lose to the ones that don't, then your approach is a non-starter (and I believe this is currently the case because viewers demand that the media company have "access"). So how could you align a media company having a backbone with it winning in the media company competition? Well, for example by targeting a niche audience that hates seeing media companies pandering for the establishment. With that audience, your media company would win. Of course, only small companies target small niches. Then the question becomes: is that audience big enough that the big established media companies notice and want to gun for it? Then there's an additional complication which is that with your method media companies aren't _really_ calling out poor bad governmental behaviours, but only having the appearance of doing so. That is, they try to appeal to the "no bullshit crowd" by calling out minor pre-negociated points, while still cuddling with the government on the things that really matter. It's a complicated world.
- maxerickson 10y ago
  Again, what does compliance with your rule look like? How do journalists do journalism if they can't talk to key players in the stories they investigate?
  - rahrahrah 10y ago
    Again, I don't know. Maybe the answer isn't that they can't talk altogether, but that regulations should be put in place for communications. For example, if a journalist wants to talk to a government official they can do so whenever the government officla say so, but the _full_ content of the conversation has to be made available to all media companies before any one of them can publish anything. The downside with this approach is that it removes the incentive of any one media company to put much resources into investigative journalism that gets it scoops from conversations with the government. The upside with this approach is that it removes the obvious conflict of interests which is that media companies won't trash the government in order to be fed these scoops (and when I say "the government" I'm including the opposition; one's business model is to be fed by the Republicans (Fox) the other's will be to be fed by the Democrats (MSNBC))