tending towards the extremes
Media bias is a common topic on the nz political blogs, and no doubt overseas. The left think it is biased to the (usually) big business owners, protecting the status quo, property rights, etc. The right consider particularly state owned media to be heavily in favour of the left, and journalists, regardless of employer, to be closet socialists.
I tend to think that the privately owned media has a centre-right pro-establishment editorial line, and that state owned media probably has a reasonably neutral management and editorial line, but is less likely to stamp on left-leaning individual journalists.
But what I'm starting to realise is that on the whole our mainstream media isn't consistently left or right, but instead tends to the extremes. Coverage is frequently biased, and that bias is not always for an ideological reason, but for a financial one - ratings, sales, profit. (Although a financial motive strikes me as fundamentally right-wing.)
Sensationalism sells papers, it brings in the audience, it enrages them into calling that dodgy 0900 poll.
Not only is sensationalism more vulnerable to becoming biased one way or t'uther, it is also a hotbed for shoddy journalism that tends to confuse or mislead rather then illuminate and inform.
Maybe if we took the profit motive out we'd get more balanced reporting...
4 comments:
The alternative is state funding, which is achieved by giving politicians what they want. When you look at the countries with state-controlled media and the countries with privately-controlled media, a very clear pattern emerges and it's not a pretty one.
Profit is achieved by giving the public what they want. So your suggestion amounts to nothing more than saying that the public should be the information that the government chooses, instead of what the public chooses, because the government knows best.
If the public can't be trusted to make wise choices about the news they consume, maybe they also shouldn't be trusted to make wise choices about which government they elect ...
Greg: It's not that NZ papers are particularly partisan, it's that they exaggerate problems and hence encourage those who favour authoritarian solutions.
NZ is fortunate to be a small country with relatively few social problems. We don't have the "sink estates" of the UK, France and the US. We've only ever had one act of terrorism. Our public utilities work, the economy is reasonably buoyant and we have a relatively small underclass. We're fairly prone to natural calamities, but we've got the ability to handle most of them without massive casualties.
Thus, there is not that much to fill a newspaper or a 60 minute news bulletin. So incidents which would make "inside page 15" in a UK or US newspaper will become front page news here - this frightens people into thinking that bad things will happen to them. Authoritarians love fear - its the only way they can convince people to let them "protect" them through more oppresive laws.
I am not sure what taking the profit motive out means. Does it mean it will be illegal for anyone but the state to own media? People die overseas for the right to have media not owned or controlled by the state.
All you will achieve is replacing one motive (profit) for another.
Government's motives aside (usually retaining power), if the profit motive were removed in the hypothetical case of private media not pursuing profit you would merely substitute that for fame (or infamy) or whatever barrow the publisher is wanting to push.
Either way, I don't think you will remove sensationalism as a way of attracting attention (even some of my favourite bloggers resort to it).
Cheers
GT
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