Don't Get Fooled, Again

A couple of months ago I had a relatively brief conversation with one of my roommates about the effectiveness of different network news stations. Among other things, we debated whether we think a partisan news network like Fox News is more “effective” than a self-proclaimed unbiased network like CNN. If you judge “effectiveness” by advertising revenues and viewership, it’s no contest; Fox blows CNN out of the water, along with every other news network for that matter.

A week ago The New York Times reported that Fox News makes more money than CNN, MSNBC, and the evening newscasts of ABC, NBC, and CBS combined, and it’s no surprise why. Fox is the only network that explicitly caters to a conservative audience and thus stands out as the lone dissenting voice in a purportedly “liberal” media. Looking at it from this point of view, I told my friend that it’s almost impossible for any unbiased news entity to compete because people can’t remain on the fence forever and will inevitably make up their minds. This may be partially true, but there are also a host of well-researched reasons behind why this is, the most prominent being that people look to Fox News to feed a priori beliefs they have on current affairs. This means that the network’s constituents generally view current issues a certain way — which is why they are watching that network to begin with – and confirm these views through facts and arguments presented by the network.

Yet there’s another aspect to “effectiveness” that can’t necessarily be measured by profit margins or numbers of viewers. This has to do with the degree to which viewers’ beliefs are shaped by the very media enterprises they depend on for news. I’m not talking about a priori beliefs mentioned at the end of the previous paragraph either, even though these may be related. What I’m interested in is the viewpoint that arises once any previously unadulterated issue enters the news. To be clear, this isn’t, for example, about those for/against health care reform and watch MSNBC/Fox News to support their belief. It’s about those for/against health care reform because of what they learned on MSNBC/Fox News, and I think we can all agree this is a whole different story.

A slightly different, albeit cynical, perspective on this dilemma says that anything we know, or pretend to know, through the media is manufactured in a way that we have no control over. Not only does it apply to what’s in the news, but anything we learn in any form of media. For instance, I could tell you off the top of my head that the distance from home plate to the right-field foul pole in Yankee Stadium is 314 feet. The reason I know this isn’t because I’ve been to the stadium so many times to observe, but because I’ve watched so many Yankee games on television that it’s embedded in my memory. Yet theoretically, the number on the outfield fence could turn out to be some televised illusion¹, in which case I would have no empirical evidence for the distance and would probably begin to question whatever else I think television might be lying to me about. It may seem farfetched, but I can’t really argue with the logic and find it pretty fascinating nonetheless.

But how does it apply to media bias? Naturally, I’ll acknowledge two ways in which it’s a stretch. First, every time we receive information through the media we enter into an unspoken contract with said media that the information is accurate, based primarily on a past reputation of journalistic integrity and truthfulness that they would have no discernible reason to deviate from. Second, a fact is a fact, and regardless of whether we get it from Fox News or the Associated Press, it’s doesn’t make it any less true. The way it does apply, however, has nothing to do with distorting facts or misreporting news (that we can leave to Jon Stewart). It’s that instead of not trusting news providers enough to report information accurately, we tend to trust them too much. We’ll believe anything they say as long as it sounds good and can be backed by a few verifiable facts. We therefore struggle to perceive the essential line between reporting of news/information and the analysis of it, a line that some try all too hard to blur.

As insidious a gambit as it may seem, subjective media producers have many a good reason to distort the line between fact and opinion (if it is in fact their goal to push a particular political agenda onto their viewers). One reason has to do with the scarcity of on-air time dedicated to any specific issue in the news. Since most broadcasts must fit into an allotted time slot, producers must be selective with what they’re going to show on the air. This affords them the latitude to devote as much time as they want, within the aforementioned time restrictions, to any matter they feel is important enough or that they feel strongly about. Instead of discussing a variety of issues that all have great import, they can discuss certain issues which they deem significant, for a seemingly inordinate amount of time, under the guise that they actually don’t have enough time to talk about everything. As viewers, we complacently let this happen because (a) we have strong beliefs on certain topical matters and (b) think it’s important to remain knowledgeable about these matters. The creators know this, and therefore give us more detail about less things (especially if they have to do with politics) rather than less detail about more things, which we probably didn’t care about in the first place.

What they also know is that most Americans have day jobs (though maybe not for long) and that they don’t watch TV at these jobs. But they love to when they get home, in perfect time to hear Bill O’Reilly or Chris Matthews proselytize on their screens about what was “important” that day. This, as you might have guessed, isn’t exactly a coincidence.

I’m not entirely sure about this, but prima facie the intended American news cycle goes something like this: (1) Americans read the morning newspaper, an allegedly objective presentation of the day’s news; (2) Americans discuss some of that news with co-workers; (3) Americans go home to listen to “expert” analysis from gloating cable news personalities. Unfortunately (or fortunately, for some) it doesn’t always work that way.² Believe it not, some Americans actually receive certain news items during these prime-time broadcasts, which makes it virtually impossible for them to disentangle what actually happened from the broadcaster’s spin on it. There you have the type of dilemma I brought up earlier: people whose knowledge and opinions are fabricated almost exclusively by what they learn from any one news network. Sorry it took so long to get to.

Now, this might sound way too simple and contrived, and there are thousands of other variables to consider like other forms of print media, radio, and of course the Internet. Yet this brings me to my next point, and why I hope this problem will become less and less relevant to my generation. Ostensibly, the Internet eliminates the two problems confronting televised news broadcasts: there is an almost unlimited scope for content and it can be accessed at any time. Unlike the previous few generations, we don’t depend on the 3-step process mentioned earlier to receive and analyze our news. This relative³ level of autonomy on the Web is why we can turn over 50 years of normative media culture on its head.

Obviously those who hold the reigns will try everything in their power to prevent this from happening and I must admit that their efforts to discredit the Internet as a viable news medium aren’t entirely spurious. For all its breadth and diversity, the Web has many more people than TV seeking to push radical or mendacious content on their readers. Also, just because people get their news on the Web doesn’t mean they are getting it from more than one source, which may or may not present information objectively. Despite all this, the success of sites like the Huffington Post – which aggregates content and opinions from different sources – may be a testament to an online community looking to rectify its own subjectivity and extremism. The Huff Post may have tapped a heterogeneous audience longing for equality and diversity in the news⁴, though it’s also just very good at what it does.

Look, I understand I’m not the first person to claim some quixotic Internet revolution and I’m probably not even the first to make this observation. But I genuinely believe that the Internet returns a possibility that as media consumers we haven’t faced in a while. Perhaps more than at any other point in our scant media history, we have the opportunity to think on our own. Now it’s time to start taking advantage.

¹Similar to the way advertisements are superimposed onto backstops behind home plate.
²Especially due to the growing irrelevance and obsolescence of daily newspapers.
³I say “relative” because of the theory I depicted earlier; we still have no control over the information we receive through the Internet. It’s ultimately always up to someone else.
⁴I understand that the Huff Post publishes mostly liberal opinion pieces, but this clearly isn't the only reason why it has had such sucess.