Journalism and good governance

Some thoughts

I believe in newspapers so I pay for news. I support journalists as professionals, preferring they get pay from an employer rather than someone trying to influence a story. That doesn’t mean I am not disgusted by what I see at times in the field but I think journalism is vital for a participatory governing system and it’s people.

As you know, I read (and pay for to assure journalism survives) multiple sources from across the world because I see that as the method to improve my knowledge of the world. I certainly don’t pay (or even read regularly) sources from Russia or China since they are state-driven, if not entirely controlled. I don’t read fringe publications, either, where Martians or QAnon dominate (That is propaganda which I don’t need but likely see in other social networking sites, each of which I take with a hefty grain of salt well, by the way). Russia and China are places where skin-skinned leaders, to return to my column earlier this week, fear challenges to their imperious dicta will become ignite society-wide threat so the “leaders” invariably label opponents enemies rather than as people demanding facts to back up peculiar, if not absurd claims.

Rather than focus on the characterization, I would remind all that what is driving this fundamental insecurity for these thin-skinned rulers is a deep down grasp that they have no legitimacy with those they rule. Vlad the Impaler may win elections but his internal police colleagues have eradicated a substantial number of courageous, independent journalists over the quarter century he has dominated this vast country to end their investigations of Kremlin sweetheart deals. The assassinations of journalists then become public knowledge to menace, thus dissuade others from picking up the stories. That anyone in Russia would genuinely seek to engage in honest investigative rather than fawning “reporting” on Vlad with his shirt off as a muscular specimen ought earn deepest respect and thanks in societies where the evidence of threats against them are on-going and obvious.

Xi Jinping prefers jailing people by all indications. I am not sure that time in any Chinese prison might not feel like a death sentence but am convinced a similar inability to tolerate authentic scrutiny of objectives, motives, methods, and accomplices indicates a regime far from decisively winning the hearts and minds of the Chinese people. China over millennia has been a top down, stovepiped society where culture discourages challenging the Son of Heaven’s views. But Xi reinforces this by ominously trotting out memes about foreigners (read the United States, of course) seeking to undermine China, if not return the Middle Kingdom to the hated victimization during the Century of Humiliation. Many Chinese journalists seem to have faded into the background as ever increased monitoring of the internet and surveillance of one’s contacts makes this profession more challenging daily. As a friend who is a cyber expert noted well over a decade ago, this leads to self-censoring as much as state-driven efforts, all working to protect a fundamentally illegitimate government in the eyes of a public feeling frightened or too worn out to fight against it.

Are we immune? Are we better off with the “democratizing” of news through an explosion of non-traditional news sources like brand new networks, social media sites, TikTok influencers (whatever leads people to believe these folks is truly beyond me), pdocasts, or YouTube channels? I am dubious so I asked someone else with more experience in the field.

I had lunch a fortnight ago with a retired reporter who taught graduate students in a major U.S. journalism program for decades. I asked her about her thoughts on the field transforming before our eyes in the United States and around the globe. I expected her to discuss fake news or attacks on the press in our current election March or even the role of social networks. Instead, she mourned the death of local news reporting because of the corruption she suspects is now going undetected. Local reporters were embedded in their communities, each with a stake in where the future went. My immediate response was that a small newspaper on Long Island first raised serious questions about former Congressman George Santos, ousted by his own party for corruption and veracity reasons. Ellen’s wistfulness for what we have lost caught my attention because it was a reminder of what we say we value yet are now eschewing for online hits of obvious nonsense in far too many cases.

I fully understand many people don’t trust traditional news sources as was true perhaps half a century ago when Walter Cronkite’s Midwest tone assured all of us about the chaotic world we saw around us. Of course Cronkite, like every single one of us, had biases. Somehow over the past fourth-five years, the idea that anyone could put personal biases away as a reporter disappeared. Simultaneously, it seemed, readers no longer felt the need to sift out obvious lunacy from plausible or evidentiary data; things went awry. In an era where doubts about news reports, vaccine skepticism, motives of journalists working for large companies (as if we were equally dubious of eating at an outlet owned by a large corporation or buying something from a huge online sales outlet), and our willingness to apply common sense analysis all eroded, we are falling prey to rejecting entire professions while embracing conspiracies, furies, and actions en lieu of assuring legitimacy of our own systems in western democracies. All within less than half a century.

Please do not misunderstand: all of us, including journalists and academics, err at times. It’s the human condition but I simply don’t see evidence that journalists willfully are any more deceitful than used car salespeople, preachers, or political figures or anyone else I can name. People simply are not entirely correct all of the time. The question of intent certainly plays in but journalism, like any other profession, as ethics honed over decades for a reason. The ethics of a journalist held accountable by his peers and those buying (or not) her newspaper or watching his station gives me more comfort that sources funded by murky masked donors. Yes, yes, I am indeed an institutionalist.

We ignore the value of authentic, self-policing journalism at our peril. The juxtaposition of our society currently being so certain with so little actual, legitimate data is a fascinating one. I have to wonder how it will turn out, as we see ourselves casting about to tell the tale of day to day life. I just hope we don’t allow unwitting embrace of illegitimacy to make us into those societies we most reject for being hideously governed.

Please send me your thoughts, rebuttals, and questions as this is a column to generate measured, civil conversation. If you find this of value, please circulate it. Thank you for your time. Thank you for the subscribers’ support that allows me to pay for multiple information sources as you matter a great deal.

Only in Vegas would they have an entire block decidedly dedicated to New York, New York. One cannot make up this place as someone beat you to it!

Be well and be safe. FIN