Consolidation and Quality

Robert McChesney and John Nichols write:

Recently we have seen an acceleration of the collapse of journalistic standards. Veteran reporters like Walter Cronkite are appalled by the mergermania that has swept the industry, diluting standards, dumbing down the news and gutting newsrooms. Rapid consolidation, evidenced most recently by the breakup of the once-venerable Knight-Ridder newspapers, the sale of the Tribune Company and its media properties and the swallowing of the Wall Street Journal by Murdoch's News Corp continues the steady replacement of civic and democratic values by commercial and entertainment priorities. But responsible journalists have less and less to say about newsroom agendas these days. The calls are being made by consultants and bean counters, who increasingly rely on official sources and talking-head pundits rather than newsgathering or serious debate.

The crisis is widespread, and it affects not just our policies but the politics that might improve them. There are two critical issues on which a free press must be skeptical of official statements, challenging to the powerful and rigorous in the search for truth. One of them is war--and in the case of the post-9/11 wars, our media have failed us miserably. (Even former White House press secretary Scott McClellan now acknowledges that the media were "complicit enablers" in the run-up to the Iraq invasion). The other issue is elections, when voters rely on media to provide them with what candidates, parties and interest groups often will not: a serious focus on issues that matter and on the responses of candidates to those issues. Instead, when the Democratic race was reaching its penultimate stage, the dominant story was a ridiculously overplayed discussion about Barack Obama's former minister. Before the critical Pennsylvania primary, studies show, the provocative Rev. Jeremiah Wright got more coverage than Obama's rival for the nomination, Hillary Clinton. And forget about issues--the most covered policy debate of the period, a ginned-up argument about whether to slash gas taxes for the summer, garnered only one-sixth as much attention as Wright.

I find these complaints about quality plausible, but the alleged connection of these problems to mergers and consolidation is hard for me to see. Preventing firms from assembling chains of newspapers (for example) wouldn't alleviate the declining revenue issues that are driving papers to cut their budgets. What preventing consolidation would do is make it difficult for newspaper firms to realize efficiencies (does every big city newspaper really need its own set of film and television critics? do the LA Times and Chicago Tribune need separate Washington bureaux?) that might let them still produce a decent product in the new economic climate.

What does seem true to me is that really excellent journalism is probably not compatible with strict adherence to a profit-maximizing imperative. It's not a coincidence that the most interesting newspapers and magazines in the United States tend to be run as private or family-controlled or non-profit enterprises, thus allowing managers to pursue ideals other than the pure pursuit of profit. That's long been the case and will presumably continue to be the case, and the issue is largely one of whether or not an adequate number of new people and families can be persuaded to step up, as some old players (like the Bancroft's) decide to abandon journalism.

But it's difficult for me to see how enhanced FCC scrutiny of proposed mergers is going to compel news organizations to become more substantive in their coverage. And it's very difficult for me to see how enhanced FCC scrutiny of proposed mergers is going to compel news organizations to become more skeptical of official claims. It seems to me that such scrutiny would make news organizations more inclined to shade their coverage in order to curry favor with the powers that be.

Comments

The FCC could negotiate agreements on the minimum amount of investment in local/public interest programming in exchange for approving mergers or acquisitions. After all, TV stations and newspapers are profitable ... the internet is just taking them from "unbelievably profitable" to "very profitable".

I'm not saying it's a slam-dunk case, but there are things the FCC can do that it's not, currently.

I think the slamming of mergers is really just a way of slamming the corporate-bottom-line first attitude that accompanies the merger.

Posted by Nicholas Beaudrot | May 30, 2008 6:30 PM

You really don't get this do you? Consolidation leads not only to a consolidation of businesses, but also a consolidation of viewpoints. When you have more voices competing against each other they have to take different approaches to try to get an audience. You have to find a way to stand out. That is why back in the day there would be a labor oriented paper in addition to a business oriented paper (as opposed to now where they are all business oriented). Different voice make different decisions as to which stories to pursue, which angles to push. Consolidation means all of those resources get pushed in the direction that management wants them to, and if management decides that they don't want to pursue certain stories (for example, ones that aren't patriotic enough) they don't get pursued at all, and they definitely don't get published.

Even worse, consolidation means you get the exact same opinions presented as "news" from multiple sources convincing people that those opinions must be "facts". After all, if every "news" source is saying the same thing, then it must be true.

Posted by rickenharp | May 30, 2008 6:34 PM

The problem with the American people is its audience. The American people do not want to be informed; they want to be enterained (or at best what to be informed with entertaining news) If in-depth analysis and hard-hitting exposes sold papers and gained audience share we'd get plenty of it. But we don't want that. Hence the virtual suppression of political scandal reporting except for political sex scandals, of which latter the public cannot get enough.

Posted by JonF | May 30, 2008 6:43 PM

Matt, it is the consolidating and the emphasis on the profit motive - two things that you mentioned - that is slowly killing journalism.

But most people adjust, the way Russians adjusted to reading Pravda. They knew it was crap, read between the lines, and sought alternate means of info. Americans will do the same.

Posted by Nemo | May 30, 2008 6:45 PM

(does every big city newspaper really need its own set of film and television critics? do the LA Times and Chicago Tribune need separate Washington bureaux?)

That's a good question and it is rooted in the value of perspective.

Do you want to turn to a 50s era Andy Rooney-age critic every time you need a review on the latest Marvel Action movie?

Do you want one guy up in Washington trying to make connections with both political parties, dozens of Departments, and 535 Congressmen?

How many eyeballs do you want to rely on? That's the question. I think a plethora of papers and critics, with a high amount of competition and a great deal of transparency is to be preferred. But the top-down authoritarian system in Washington doesn't like oversight or second guessing and it finds investigation annoying when it doesn't find them outright dangerous. So the White House Press Corps gets winnowed down to a handful of stenographers. The smaller papers and tv stations are hedged out in the same way that third-party candidates are hedged out of the political spotlight. You've got giants like News Corp setting up shop and dominating coverage while major stations like NBC, ABC, and CBS are forced to toe the line with threats of being denied "access" to elected and appointed representatives.

The fewer players in the game, the easier it gets to rope the pliant in and edge the defiant out. Every time a Washington correspondent's job gets merged, that's one less person McCain needs to invite to his barbecue party. It's like a game of musical chairs. If the wrong media gets the last seat when the music stops... enjoy your Pravda.

Posted by Zifnab | May 30, 2008 6:54 PM

2 nuances of this issue that I don't think that you're getting -

1) The FCC's brief is limited to regulation of electronic media - so any discussion of, say, newspaper consolidation that includes the FCC is way off base. The only reason the FCC was involved in the recent issue was because it involved electronic media (television stations) also owning newspapers in the same market. Absent the television station part of the equation, no FCC. That field belongs to the Antitrust Division of the DOJ.

2) From a regulatory point of view, the issue of undue concentration of the market for advertising is more of interest to the regulators than the idea that consolidation is bad for "journalism". You can get a better response with a more effective argument opposing a media merger in a particular market by showing that the consolidated media firm can raise advertising rate or otherwise inhibit advertising choices than by making some sort of qualitative argument about the "substance" of the news.

Posted by Ethel-To-Tilly | May 30, 2008 6:59 PM

Your point about the need for efficiencies is well taken, but it would be better to explore the subject in a broader context. There's an alternative to corporate consolidation and that is cooperative relationships among newspapers and other media. Thus, a consortium of newspapers could have a Washington bureau (or, within a state, say, California, a coalition of newspapers could have a Sacramento bureau). One model is the Associated Press or United Press International. Another is C-SPAN, which is supported by the cable networks.

Those kinds of cooperative ventures in the public interest would be enhanced if the FCC required the media to operate in the public interest.

The overall problem really is that the media is driven by profit motives, not the public interest in a democracy. Newspapers (and television) were cuting staff and news coverage before the Internet, when they became driven by Wall Street bottom lines that made small profits anathema and large profits mandatory. Family ownership is important, but I think some public support will be needed, as well as public regulation.

Posted by John Raymond | May 30, 2008 7:01 PM

It depends what you mean by "Washington Bureau." If the various papers actually competed to investigate and report important, interesting news, then yeah. We could use a lot more of those.

But if you mean the current bunch of stenographers on the receiving end of those countless daily press briefings, then I'd say no. Nobody needs even a single one of them and the spokespeople could just as well text their statements directly to my cell phone.

Posted by Aatos | May 30, 2008 7:34 PM

This is one of those issues which, like health care, are served better by some familiarity with the world of empirically based studies of the subject, rather than a really quick off-the-cuff "ya know wat I fink" kind of view.

Posted by El Cid | May 30, 2008 7:35 PM

(does every big city newspaper really need its own set of film and television critics? do the LA Times and Chicago Tribune need separate Washington bureaux?)

Yes they do.

Unless you prefer Commie-style one size fits all reporting.

Posted by Ben | May 30, 2008 7:46 PM

This is rampant throughout most industries as we trundle down the road toward globalization. Have you ever noticed that when you go to a restaurant, ride a plane or got to a ball park that you do not get a choice of Pepsi or Coke? You get either but not both. That is because Pepsi owns half the market and Coca-cola owns the other half. And they call it competition. We are headed down the path towards two pharmacuticals, two banks, two grocery outlets, two auto makers, two media outlets, etc. And they will all tout this as better for us because they can streamline the operations and it will be competitive because there are still two corporations.

rickenharp has it right. Two media outlets will give us two points of view right? Wrong. Pepsi and Coke prices are the same except on alternating weeks when each takes its turn to have a sale. Two media outlets will make sure that neither ever scoops the other so that each get half the market share.

Posted by namekarB | May 30, 2008 8:00 PM

"Have you ever noticed that when you go to a restaurant, ride a plane or got to a ball park that you do not get a choice of Pepsi or Coke?"

Bundling. Want to see the movie at Chain X Movies? You get Coke products. Etc.

Posted by Dan S. | May 30, 2008 9:31 PM

rickenharp does have it right, and I'm also surprised that you don't seem to get it.

Government regulation is one of two arenas of last resort where public interest can be represented when 'consolidation' threatens to reduce the supply of information to a handful of outlets controlled by fewer and few wealthy players.

It isn't about 'protecting choice' for consumers; that argument might be true if we were talking about businesses which supply a manufactured product -- bubblegum, say, or whalebone corsets. And what media outlets offer could only incidentally be called a commodity; they supply information.

Newspapers once made it a point of public pride to print the most well-written and accurate reporting of events as possible. And that idea was frequently bent in the service of a Hearst, or Luce or McCormack, to obviously use their media's influence of public opinion.

As Nemo mentioned, people read, and watch, and listen between the lines; and we try to distill a sense of the truth of events. But that only works if there are multiple, independent media sources.

In the face of an American media market that has shrunk to seven main corporate players, the role of the government through the FCC and the Congress is to protect that multiplicity, not throw it to the mercy of "market forces" -- which has been the Ur-laissez-faire attitude of the Bush 'administration' towards anything which involves corporate America.

One last thing: Adults aren't the only persons who read, or build a knowledge base, moment-to-moment, about the world in order to comprehend it and navigate through it. If you limit the volume or quality of information children can receive, what kind of adults will they become?

Posted by Jemand von Niemand | May 30, 2008 9:37 PM

1) Matthew's viewpoint is BADLY fucked up.

2) The issue is not just the news. It is WHAT News gets disseminated to 300 million Americans and WHO controls that content.

3) Suppose 20 people read Matthew's blog and learn everything important that citizens need to know

(I know -- but go with the unrealistic assumption anyway -- and stop laughing.)

What will the judgment of these 20 philosopher kings matter -- so long as Rupert Murdoch has the power to brainwash the other 299,999,980 citizens into false and deceitful beliefs?

4) VOTES matter -- hence, the national discourse matters -- hence, having at LEAST 4 major sources of info in every news medium matters. The Anti-Trust statutes should be used to make it so.

5) "The Truth is Out There". Yeah, maybe.

But for the past 8 years it might as well have been sealed in an iron box and buried 2000 feet deep in the Atlantic Ocean.

6)We MUST have a process to ensure that the NATIONAL DISCOURSE is high quality -- that the truth gets sucked in and exposed and that deceit and falsehoods are exposed and denounced.

7) Consider our discourse here. People repeatedly expose how the major news media are a pack of liars. But what does it matter?

We have no more influence on national politics than members of that newly discovered tribe in the Amazon Rain Forest -- sitting around the fire and bitching about the shortage of monkey meat.

Posted by Don Williams | May 30, 2008 9:51 PM

El Cid is right; you are far from stupid, so it's distressing how lazy a thinker you can often be.

You are simply wrong to think of "scrutiny" as an important variable. There was a rule that a company cannot own both a newspaper and a tv/radio station in the same market. This was overturned by the Bush FCC. Denying corporations this profit opportunity doesn't make them suddenly diffident; they want all the money they can, and will lobby to change all such laws that constrain their profit. They will curry favor with the gop and any dems who turn a few tricks--regardless of current laws. The incentives point in the same direction regardless of what the current law is.

The diversity thing is important. MSNBC gave shitty hacks like Tucker and Alan Keyes countless opportunities and fired Phil Donahue quickly--despite good ratings. Yet they still managed to stumble onto Keith, during a time when dissent was considered only risky, not treasonous, and he stuck. The more diversity, the greater chance for something of quality to occur. McClatchy was great, and do you really think it being further corporitized is a good thing? If you really believed your case, you'd read nothing but the ap wire. So, no, having a local tv/movie critic isn't necessary, but having the option to ignore some hack in favor of a better reviewer is a good thing.

Implicit in your argument is that you think that NBC being owned by GE, a war profiteer, makes it less likely that profit based incentives to produce favorable coverage of an administration's proposed war (or that there is no discernable effect on the matter). The increased effeciency here is GE's ability to make a profit, not NBC's ability to produce a quality product.

Nor is there any real "efficency" in a tv station owning a newspaper. Writers aren't tv personalities, and both groups need different bureaus. Having Adam Nagorney or Tom Ricks report to Tim Russert doesn't make sense (and certainly won't improve the product). It just makes certain political actors better propagandists, and that is what will make them more effective in currying favor with the adminsitration.

Your case was much better before the internet, when say somebody in Springfield would be better served getting their washington news from the ap or the nyt reporters as opposed to Kent Brockman and whatever local hacks write for the daily. But that was already happening. Now that there is much more effective choice for consumers, there is a greater need to ensure competition is preserved, so that it lasts. The WaPo, nyt, and wsg are fine, but they can't do everything...and I would like to have a real choice, not: Bob Woodward, Judy Miller, whatever hack Murdoch approves of (choose one).

"But it's difficult for me to see how enhanced FCC scrutiny of proposed mergers is going to compel news organizations to become more substantive in their coverage."

This is a strawman; nobody is saying that. What people are saying is we want laws that value diversity, since diversity = more voices = a greater chance that one (or more!) are of quality. No force needed, it's pure capitalism; a true market works better than a monopoly or an oligopoly in meeting the consumer's needs.

Posted by Client #11 | May 30, 2008 11:41 PM

Matt you surprised me with your comment, " I just don't see it."

Mega-corporations have different interests than say the public. Business people are not interested in journalism; they are interested in making money. They have an obligation to their investors. Educating the public is secondary, at best, to their bottom line.

As profit becomes more important than the news cutbacks are being made in every aspect of journalism. To increase profits CEOs start trimming and cutting what they believe are unnecessary expenses such as investigative news departments. Today only a small handful of investigative journalists are left; they are a dying breed. Massive numbers of reporters have been laid-off. Fewer reporters, less information. Profit-driven news is detrimental to all of us.

Equally disturbing is the media's vested interest in abiding by the WH. Corporations want more de-regulation so naturally their inclination is doing whatever it takes to gain favour with the administration.

The following examples are just a minuscule sampling of the aforementioned.

Bush wanted the Iraq war taken off the front pages and off the evening TV news: done. News about Iraq, what little gets reported, has taken a back seat to the story du jour, i.e. Wright incident, lapel pins, etc.

Other important stories are not given prominence or even reported by other news sources. For example two or three weeks ago the NYTimes broke the story about the hundreds of military "experts" on TV, during the run up to the Iraq invasion, were nothing more than Pentagon propagandists selling the war to the American people, but nary a peep from other news outlets.

The fact that Comcast, I know at least twice, blocked outgoing and incoming emails containing political content. That is censorship. How they managed to get away with that without any sort of repercussions is puzzling. How many heard anything regarding that in the news?

Over the past two months or so articles in various international news sources, including an Israeli newspaper shortly after Bush departed, have reported on Bush's plan to attack Iran between now and August although the WH denied it. The US media's silence is deafening notwithstanding.

The quality of our news has deteriorated exponentially the past 7 years. Reporters rarely ask hard questions muchless follow up questions. Bush and his administration members are handled with kid-gloves. Most radio personalities and talking heads on Fox are extensions of the government. Even CNN and MSNBC, generally speaking, lean favourably toward McCain and the republican party. Omission, spin, fabrication, exaggeration better define the context of information we receive today; It continues to worsen.

The majority of American people are incredibly uninformed. Until Bush's policies became personal did the public realize the country was terribly off-course. Although warnings signs were flashing years ago very little was reported in MSN regarding the hedgefunds, the housing market, but nothing about the consequential effects. More importantly this could have been averted, but profit and greed took priority.

Most do not know the extent our rights have been limited nor the fact that Bush's usurped powers exceeds those of King George 111. Our system of government has been weakened almost to the point of irrelevance, our courts are politicized and our Constitution is barely in-tact.

Americans are not stupid people, but we are uninformed about what our government is doing, ill-informed about our country and ignorant about events overseas -- thanks to the powers that be.

The corporate-owned media are interested in making money, deregulation and their investors. Informing the public is last on the list.

Since there are more of us than them, evidently they decided it is in their best interests to keep us out-of-the-loop.

We might demand real news rather than infotainment!

After all knowledge is power and power is knowledge.

Posted by serena1313 | May 30, 2008 11:45 PM

"Denying corporations this profit opportunity doesn't make them suddenly diffident..."

should be:

Giving corporations this profit opportunity doesn't make them suddenly diffident...

Posted by Client #11 | May 30, 2008 11:46 PM

I agree that this post is substandard and misses a lot of angles.

In addition to comments above, the newfangled mega-corporate news/show business has been corrupted by the prospect of corporate crony capitalist goodies. More government sanctioned consolidation, more auctions of spectrum on favorable terms to the bigshot corps, more tax breaks, these all come from legislation and executive regulatory action. So that is another reason corporations have become more government friendly -to curry favor with their legislative and executive sugar daddies from whome they expect more treats.

As with corporate contributions, the corporate media behavior moves towards whoever is in power. I suspect that some of recent ideological balancing we see in the media is due to prospect of heavy Dem majorities in Congress. Except for Fox, which is little more than an arm of the RNC, the corporations are hedging their bets -they still want to currey favor to the extent that they might be able to wrangle soem goodies over the next 8 months, but longer term they see the Dems controlling the spigot to the crony capitalist slop trough.

I don't think this is a good way to do journalism. It is corrupt and a way needs to be found to wreck the current corpoate media system and start over.

Also I think the discussion of the financial problems of the news biz in has become very lazy. I have read about studies looking into profitability and solvency of newspapers. Qaulitatively, I remember results saying that as privately held firms they can return a reasonable profit, but the profits are not good stable enough to meet the mega-corps' quarterly needs for stock market performance.

So, I think there is little evidence that the indiustry of independent news organizations is doomed. But it cannot function in its traditional way when owned by mega-corporations in the go-go short run growth at all costs stock market world.

But then maybe the US style mega-corporate stock market orld is no longer a viable model. Seems like a lot of US style mega corps are crapping out over the long term.

But I am merely an inquiring reader who wants to know, and there are high fixed costs for me to root aournd and find this stuff. I no little about the news publishing and broadcasting industry.

But classy in-the-know hip bloggers should be able to find some reports and studies with actual data, numbers, statistics, and analysis before they go popping off with their expertise (based on what facts, please do tell me). They could find experts to consult. Could McChesney or Nichols for Yglesias come up with some hard numbers before they opinionate in public next time?

Posted by grumpy old news reader | May 31, 2008 3:41 AM

MY, Dood, go to Glenn Greenwald's Friday May 30 post and click on the link

'I interviewed Jeff Cohen'

That is an interview with an ex-producer of Phil Donahue's show. Cohen says towards the end that the corporate suites wanted a 100% purely pro-Bush lineup for upcoming FTC ruling that had potential goodies for the corporation. See? Completely corrupt news from completely corrupt corporations for money, for bribes, for corrupt crony capitalist favors. Rotten, corrupt, worthless, depraved, and it needs to be completely wrecked and razed right down to the ground.

So, there you go. On this topic MY seems to be indulging himself in frivolous. facile, fact free and superficial Slate/Kaus/Kinsely style goofing. But this topic deserves far more than that. So, do more solidly researched posts on this topic please.

Posted by grumpy old news reader | May 31, 2008 4:25 AM

Just got to point out that it isn't 'declining revenue'... it is declining revenue growth rates. The Wall Street expectations for media companies, especially papers, are pretty insane and certainly part of the problem.

Private ownership, even an owner who demands a 10% rate of return or more, is far better than the corporate model which demands ever increasing rates of return.

Posted by travc | May 31, 2008 5:09 AM

The other commentators have raised excellent points. Here are few things that weren't covered above:

1. Many businessmen own news outlets for reasons other than making a profit on that particular news outlet. For example, you might have a real estate devleoper owning a big city newspaper, he may lose money on the newspaper but use it to push policies and politicians favorable to real estate development. A lobby might fund a high brow think tank publication to push its poliices.

2. In Italy (Belusconi) and the US (Bloomberg) you have the new phenomenon of media moguls seeking elective office. All media coverage, not just their own outlets, seems to be favorable to the moguls turned politicians, disproportionate to their actual achievements in office.

3. The evidence for this is purely anecdotal, but main stream media coverage always seems to become more pro-administration right before and right after a major government ruling liberalizing the rules of media ownership.

4. Other countries have government owned broadcasters that have strict rules over what they can cover and what slant they can give to their coverage. Opposition political parties are very sensitive to a pro-government slant from these broadcasters and are quick to complain. This isn't a perfect arrangement, but this seems to have been the closest anyone has come to constructing an impartial mass media outlet. It may not work here due to the high level of collusion that often occurs between the two political parties. But the US did have similar rules governing what the TV networks could broadcast until the early 1980s, that seemed to work well.

5. Much of the damage with media consolidation and media bias in this country occured during the Clinton and Reagan administrations, so not all the blame can be pinned on the current administration.

Posted by Ed | May 31, 2008 5:50 AM

Excellent post, Matt. It's easy to lose sight of reality when everything is viewed through ideology. It's absurd to posit malice from The Usual Suspects as what's driving all sorts of major historical trends and events, including the dumbing-down of the media, and its relationship to the war in the Persian Gulf.

The performance of the media is often a subject of boring navel-gazing by media types. In this case you've done a service.

Posted by robert powell | May 31, 2008 7:42 AM

Re: Other countries have government owned broadcasters that have strict rules over what they can cover and what slant they can give to their coverage. Opposition political parties are very sensitive to a pro-government slant from these broadcasters and are quick to complain. This isn't a perfect arrangement, but this seems to have been the closest anyone has come to constructing an impartial mass media outlet.

Huh? Can you imagine the Bush adminstration running a media outlet? That really would make Fox News "fair and balanced" in comparison!

Re: The fact that Comcast, I know at least twice, blocked outgoing and incoming emails containing political content.

My email provider filters all sorts of incoming email as "spam". This includes various unsolicited political pieces. Most people find spam-blocking desirable. Check with Comcast if there is a way to skip this blocking service if this bothers you.

Re: Over the past two months or so articles in various international news sources, including an Israeli newspaper shortly after Bush departed, have reported on Bush's plan to attack Iran between now and August although the WH denied it.

If this could be confirmed it would Big News (=sells papers/increases ratings=more advertizing $$) and would be reported. The media has no incentive to suppress news like that since doing so would be counter to their financial interests.

Re: The quality of our news has deteriorated exponentially the past 7 years.

More like the past 30 or 40 years. The media has dumbed itself down all through my life time. This is in response (unhappily) to the American public dumbing itself down, preferring entertainment to information. The media simply panders to what sells.

Re: Bush and his administration members are handled with kid-gloves.

which explains why they are so unpopular and so much of the reporting on Bush (Fox News excepted) these days is negative. Even rightwing stalwarts like the WSJ and National Review are starting to criticize Bush.

Posted by JonF | May 31, 2008 10:05 AM