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Because the news media's job is to be a government watchdog. "The concept of the media or press as a fourth branch stems from a belief that the news media's res

Because the news media's job is to be a government watchdog. "The concept of the media or press as a fourth branch stems from a belief that the news media's responsibility to inform the populace is essential to the healthy functioning of the democracy" [1]. They haven't been doing their job for a long time. Edited to explain: Fixing the news media could be viewed as addressing an underlying cause for a dysfunctional representational system. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_branch_of_government https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_branch_of_government

dllthomas 13y ago
As I understand it, it's the news media's job to sell papers to people or people to advertisers. Presently this has arguably not enough to do with informing the populace, but I don't see that this is substantially more the case now than historically.
- davidcuddeback 13y ago
  > As I understand it, it's the news media's job to sell papers to people or people to advertisers. If you look at it from a capitalistic perspective, I suppose you're right. I meant it from a civics perspective. For "job," try substituting "importance." You can't have a functioning democracy (or representational government) without an informed electorate. > Presently this has arguably not enough to do with informing the populace, but I don't see that this is substantially more the case now than historically. You're right that the motives to sell papers (capitalistic goals) don't require them to fulfil their role as a watchdog (civics goals). I don't think these incentives were ever aligned, and I think that's what you meant by your last statement. I never said that it was any different in the past. Not being "substantially [different] now than historically" doesn't preclude something from being broken. I was just explaining to the parent commenter who said, "I'm not sure how fixing the media would change that."
  - dllthomas 13y ago
    All perfectly reasonable. I wholeheartedly agree we need means of being informed; I welcome proposals. I'm always skeptical about stopping the discussion at vague notions of "fix X".

dllthomas 13y ago

As I understand it, it's the news media's job to sell papers to people or people to advertisers. Presently this has arguably not enough to do with informing the populace, but I don't see that this is substantially more the case now than historically.

davidcuddeback 13y ago
> As I understand it, it's the news media's job to sell papers to people or people to advertisers. If you look at it from a capitalistic perspective, I suppose you're right. I meant it from a civics perspective. For "job," try substituting "importance." You can't have a functioning democracy (or representational government) without an informed electorate. > Presently this has arguably not enough to do with informing the populace, but I don't see that this is substantially more the case now than historically. You're right that the motives to sell papers (capitalistic goals) don't require them to fulfil their role as a watchdog (civics goals). I don't think these incentives were ever aligned, and I think that's what you meant by your last statement. I never said that it was any different in the past. Not being "substantially [different] now than historically" doesn't preclude something from being broken. I was just explaining to the parent commenter who said, "I'm not sure how fixing the media would change that."
- dllthomas 13y ago
  All perfectly reasonable. I wholeheartedly agree we need means of being informed; I welcome proposals. I'm always skeptical about stopping the discussion at vague notions of "fix X".