It’s been a long, rough-and-tumble two-year election season, and I’m sure I speak for most when I say I’m glad it is finally over. But now that the dust has settled and I am finally able to look back over the whole process, I’m lamenting a loss.
No, not John McCain’s loss: I’m crying over the death of journalism.
It’s been dying for a while now. Perhaps it was inevitable, seeing as journalism is tied to capitalism. For generations, publishers have struggled to find the balance between journalistic obligation and populist sensationalism. In other words, do we report on events and issues the public should know or what they want to know? Who decides what’s news? Is it what sells newspapers?
The questions have never really been answered. In this country, we began with a biased press. In the 1700s, publications existed to advance the interests of political parties. Then in the late 1800s, publishers like Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst relied on rumors and exaggerations to sell newspapers. Eventually, The Washington Post and The New York Times became dedicated to the unbiased pursuit of issues relevant to their readers.
And for a while, things were looking good. We had the exposure of Watergate, Iran-contra and other monumental stories that proved journalism was truly serving the public interest.
But then along came Ted Turner and his 24-hour news coverage – CNN. Soon it became obvious there was not enough interesting news to sell 24/7, so the network hired some talking heads to shoot off their opinions. Suddenly news and opinion, which had been concretely separated in the print media, were hard to differentiate. It was difficult to tell what exactly was “news.”
Then Rupert Murdoch, the man responsible for that beacon of journalism, The New York Post, launched Fox News. Sean Hannity – who holds only a high school diploma, who has never reported in the truest sense of the word – received a prime-time spot. Meanwhile, MSNBC now features liberal sportscaster Keith Olbermann (I still can’t figure out how ESPN gives you any insight into politics) and Air America Radio personality Rachel Maddow, who has grown accustomed to venting her own liberal opinions rather than reporting. Maddow replaced established reporter Dan Abrams, a Columbia Law graduate who covered significant legal cases including Bush v. Gore during the course of his journalism career.
And how can we forget the rise of the Internet? People abandoned the hard copies of credible sources like The New York Times and The Washington Post and moved to the information superhighway, where the lines between true and false are blurry at best. Blogs such as The Huffington Post and DailyKos add flames to the fire by spreading gossip and rumors in the name of news.
This leaves me asking, where have all the journalists gone? It’s been especially hard to tell during this election cycle.
Sarah Palin’s nomination triggered a controversy over whether she faked her own pregnancy to protect her 18-year-old daughter, Bristol. And that story, which originated on a liberal blog, made its way to all the major media outlets. That prompted the revelation of Bristol’s real pregnancy and the request that the media respect the privacy of the family. That didn’t stop the Associated Press from getting an interview with Bristol’s boyfriend, the father of her child, Levi Johnston, and promoting it as “a rare interview.”
Once upon a time, the press functioned quite differently. We know now Presidents Franklin Delano Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy habitually cheated on their wives, but nothing ever ran in any newspaper. We had a depression; we had a Cold War. Today, The New York Times has no problem with running a piece suggesting Senator McCain may or may not have had an affair with a female lobbyist.
Perhaps the trend can be traced to the fact that our politicians are becoming more like celebrities. This election was certainly different from 2004: Our president-elect was treated like a superstar. Remember those crowds of 80, 90, 120 thousand people? The Republican vice-presidential nominee drew comparable crowds and headlines. John McCain and Joe Biden were, for the most part, left in the shadows.
We started seeing their faces on the covers of Rolling Stone and US Weekly. But over the course of this campaign, headlines in the celebrity magazines slowly started making their way onto the covers of publications like Time, The Washington Post and The New York Times. And let’s not forget the blogs and Internet news sites that scrambled to be the first to report on how many houses McCain owns (even though most serve as investments, not residences).
The consequences of this type of journalism have become obvious. On Oct. 30, Harvard University’s Center for Public Leadership released a poll on the public’s trust in the media. Of those polled, 89 percent said the news media places too much emphasis on trivial issues; 39.5 percent of respondents said they trust cable news the most; 77 percent think the news media is biased.
Even now, careful fact-checking and journalistic standards are rapidly deteriorating.
We see reports, for example, of an unnamed McCain aide claiming Sarah Palin didn’t know Africa was a continent – and the story runs unconfirmed in The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times. Even our own college newspaper, THE HOYA, has stricter standards. Since when are journalists in the business of spreading rumors? Isn’t it their job to deliver the truth?
On Friday, President-elect Obama assembled his team of economic advisers to address job losses and the possible collapse of the U.S. auto industry. It was a sobering event, and for the most part, the questions were tough. Would Obama support a stimulus package? Would he negotiate with Iran? Any news on cabinet appointments? But amid the real reporting, someone asked: “Everyone wants to know what kind of dog you’ll be getting your girls.”
aybe I’ll find the answer on “Countdown with Keith Olbermann.”
John Swan is a senior in the College and a former editor in chief of THE HOYA.
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