The Media Sucks (and other fables)

Something happened today that gave me great joy. On the brink of the seventh game of baseball’s World Series, Cleveland manager Terry Francona gave a press conference filled with laughter. The PR person made last call, and following his response, properly closed out the session. Francona interrupted her, asking, “Can I please say something?” He repeated his plea three times, and was given the floor.

“I would just like to thank you all. The media has made this fun.”

It has been said of Francona that if you spend five minutes talking with him, he will make you feel like it is the most important five minutes of HIS day. That it was important for him to show appreciation for the work of sportswriters and sports broadcasters on this landmark day says much. He gets it. He knows that just as he and his coaches get together long before the crowds arrive to forge a game plan, meet with players, address team issues and finally, play a game, reporters likely are meeting with their editors, forging THEIR game plan, researching, watching and analyzing the game, plotting their post-game questions, conducting their interviews, then filing their stories. Then. Long after the last fan has left the stadium and long after the players have left for home or the team plane or for their own recreation, the reporter packs up their laptop or their microphones and heads home. Or, their editor asks for a rewrite. A little piece of them goes along with the news they report. They are in the public eye as much as the ballplayers, subject to scrutiny and wrath and the all-too-occasional “Attaboy.”

The media sucks.

I hear this all too often, and the kindest response I can issue is “You really don’t know.” It would be antagonistic to point out that the media works harder than they do, and that the story they just saw on TV, in a magazine or in the newspaper was the work of several professionals who were highly trained and well-schooled pooling their abilities to report the days news, event, tragedy or game. When there’s a three-alarm fire, it’s the journalist who is woken from a sound sleep, just like the first responder. When there’s a political rally or a school board meeting that runs an hour over schedule, it is the journalist who stays to the bitter end and then files their story.

Then you critics out there tell them they suck. That they are biased. That they are (fill in the blank). And do you know what? Sometimes they do suck. But consider the source. Those who learned their craft at accredited journalism schools are more interested in concepts like accuracy, objectivity and fair reporting than they are in pandering to some pre-conceived conspiracy or a corporate dogma. But we live in a time when lines are blurred between journalism and entertainment. We have communications billed as news entertainment, entertainment news, infomercials, advertorials, blogs, tweets and political commentary. Many of these pass themselves off as “news” and “news media.” They are not. But it is easy to confuse them with real journalism because they try so damn hard to pass as such. Lines are blurred between what is real and what is somebody’s illusion.

So sometimes they do suck. Let me explain how we got here.

Beginning in the 1960s and into the 1970s, we had the multiple ownership rule, which stated that one entity could not own more than one TV station in a single market unless there were at least eight stations in that market. We had radio/TV cross-ownership prohibition, which outlawed one broadcaster from owning more than one outlet in a single market. We had newspaper/broadcast cross-ownership prohibition, that disallowed one entity from owning both in one market. Similar prohibitions governed billboards and other media. Media companies were limited to owning just seven communications outlets nationally. We had The Fairness Doctrine, a policy of the Federal Communications Commission that proposed that the broadcasters and other media would be licensed as “public trustees” only if they presented ideas and information of public interest, and that all sides of issues were presented equally. Equal time. These prohibitions were placed so that no single corporation or broadcasting group could control the news and information in any one market. To do so would inhibit the free exchange of ideas and could lead to a propaganda takeover by the government, a company or a foreign country.

Beginning shortly after Ronald Reagan was inaugurated, the FCC began licensing media for five years instead of three. Companies could then own 12 broadcast or print media instead of seven. In 1987, the FCC rebuked the Fairness Doctrine, and deregulation of media owners and operators began in earnest. Media was changing. CNN became a challenger to the Big 3 networks, and Fox News (a questionable moniker) began broadcasting with a right-wing slant on events and opinions. Under Bill Clinton, the Telecommunications Act of 1996 lifted bans on the number of broadcast media outlets under one ownership group.

Folks, now our most visible media are owned by vast corporate networks, with thousands of media companies in a single group. Add to that the emergence of “citizen journalists” on the internet and escalating greed from corporate ownership and it becomes very difficult to discern which news messages are true and which are not.

Most professional journalists abide by an ethical code that assures fair and just reporting. Much of the general public, tainted by pseudo-news outlets that bombard them with shoddy and subjective reporting, fails to recognize the difference. Then, they believe it when blowhards try to advance their personal agendae by slamming “the mainstream media.”

My background and education are as a journalist. Even though I have not been a part of the professional journalism fraternity since 1994, I consider myself a member emeritus. I am deeply offended when pure and honest journalists are lumped in with the riff-raff, and people say “the media sucks.” It is the Fourth Estate, and the watchdog of the government. For its efforts, the media is attacked from all sides.

That’s why it is striking and encouraging when Terry Francona makes it a special point in his big day to say thank you to the hard-working and legitimate media. I encourage everyone to contact their legislators to urge a restoration of cross-ownership restraints and the Fairness Doctrine, which will help stem the tide of special-interest journalists tainting the profession.