Can journalism play the role of 4th estate?

Whenever a group of journalists get together and discuss the future of news,it is always the case that the talk will turn to the professions role as the 4th estate.

As we approach the general and local elections in this country,will journalism provide the service that voters require?

According to Robert Reich this is the criteria for forfilling the democratic principle

Democracy requires at least three things: (1) Important decisions are made in the open. (2) The public and its representatives have an opportunity to debate them, so the decisions can be revised in light of what the public discovers and wants. And (3) those who make the big decisions are accountable to voters.

Journalism should play a role in all three.The question is will it,does it want to and even can it as its budgets are slashed?

Should newspaper funding revert to charitable status

An interesting post from Geneva Overholser over at OJR.

It's the economic model for journalism and Geneva realises that business and mission don't necessarily go together.

This she says

throws a complex light on the collapse of the conventional economic model for journalism – which has consisted of trusting business with this mission so dear to our (and, we hope, the nation’s) hearts. That collapse feels no less catastrophic to those who are losing their jobs, nor to faithful news consumers who see shrinking newspapers and dumbed-down newscasts. And it’s still deeply worrisome when you think about who will have the power, guts and access to go up against big government and big business, so as to keep us informed about the nation and the world

and the consequences for the 4th estate role of the media.The views of Adlai Wertman, of USC’s Marshall School of Business are imperative for the argument

The profit model may be responsible for much of the problem: “There is a major difference between a mission-driven business and a business,” he said. Profit-seeking companies “quickly go from no social mission to no social responsibility.” The result has been, in Wertman’s opinion, a distorted notion of “what the public wants” when it comes to journalism, and a terribly inadequate news diet for a self-governing people.

So can the two be balanced? Well the solution is to look at the charity model of business where donors look for realised goals.
Will it work?

Trust us we went to business school

The stakes are enormous in a fast-moving crisis where the traditional concern about journalists causing a run on the bank is hardly a theoretical danger. But as news organizations chase exclusives about the Wall Street meltdown, they also are grappling with a troubling question: Why didn't they see this coming?

I am sure that there is going to be a lot more on this,I have reported on the rumblings of journalists before and the abdication of their fourth estate responsibilities when it came to checking on the financial institutions on both sides of the Atlantic.

It is worth reading Howard Kurtz's piece published earlier this week in the Washington Post.He quotes PBS's David Brancaccio who says

we journalists have had a long history with accepting what the smart people hand down to us, especially on complicated stuff. . . . When I would cover these very issues about problems with regulation, problems with 'is this a disaster waiting to happen?' people would say: 'Well, young man, you don't have an MBA like I do. Trust us. We went to business school.'

"

Blogs bad for democracy?

Are blogs bad for democracy?

They are according to Kate Maltby.

She recounts an experience

Recently, I was mentioned on Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish. My heart leapt - I'm just one of many student bloggers, banging away at a keyboard and trying to kid myself that someone was reading. Until suddenly, the number of visitors leapt by 4000%, random bloggers started linking to my post and I realized that I had an exceptional opportunity to get myself noticed by potential media employers.

But for her rather than making her more linked to the world

On the contrary. It made me even more isolated.

I thought about this.Rubbish surely for as your blog is read by more and more people your views are surely influencing more and more people.

A typical blog post involves linking to another, often more widely read, writer's post or news article. The blogger quotes a chunk, explains why its of interest, and then gives a little personal spin on the ideas in question. Sure, at times bloggers will take issue with their ideological opponents and real right-left debates will happen across the blogosphere. But blogging is a very cheap medium, and therefore it's typically the realm of people who are trying to get noticed enough to jump start careers in more solidly funded media.

Yep can agree with that to a certain extent.But also for Kate,

the deeply personal nature of blogs, in combination with the echo chamber effect, has fueled the rise of single issue campaigning. To be engaging to readers, a blog has to be constantly updated and have a clearly distinct theme, because the mystique of blogging is that it allegedly provides for personal expression. A blog is a news digest, filtered according to personal taste, and to get the exact collection of news summaries that are relevant to my lifestyle,

How the media's fascination for celeb is undermining politics

An interesting piece in the FT this morning.

John Lloyd claims that in his opinion the media far from maintaining its role as the 4th estate is undermining it.

He argues that

the media are now everywhere undermining democracy – by proposing and boosting a “democracy” of their own, through votes for winners in talent contests, or for those who must leave a Big Brother house or island. Or through making a game of politics. This is contentious: but the proofs lie in the use by television, and the internet, of the means of democracy – voting, association in groups for common purposes, political argument – for the ends of show business.

and

The nature of the democratic systems operated by democracies both old and new, are based on two types of citizenship involvement. The first is minimal: it is the once-in-a-while vote for a representative, for a chamber either near or distant. The second is intense: it is the labour put in, by activists, to ensure that parties continue to exist, to operate and to attract support.

and Lloyd claims both are in decline


For Lloyd the evidence is everywhere

1.the rapid spreading of networks of relationships, through Facebook and MySpace, in which the currency is the revelation of the private self, not participation in the public sphere

2.the dominance of television – not new, but always growing – in national elections, and in the ever greater importance, to the political class and the politically active and aware, of the analysts and opinion-formers who judge performance

3.the explosion of websites and blogs and the creation of a world of commentary, one of whose major themes is contempt for politics and journalism which puts boundaries on the investigation of public figures’ private life

4. the enormous and still spreading popularity of the “platforms” – for game shows, reality TV and celebrity programmes, most of these containing some element of voter choice, and usually involving the continued participation of one or more of the participants in the programme

Pilger on why the media should forget political tittle tattle

A couple of articles about the media on both sides of the Atlantic.

Writing in the New Statesman,John Pilger as always controversial writes that

The media turns the other way, or perverts the truth, while an increasingly imperialist United States, with Britain in tow, pursues its expansionist interests

and argues that the media whilst happy to indulge in political tittle tattle is unwilling to look at our politicians records when it comes to foreign affairs.

Journalists from all areas are implied but it is Larry Elliot of the Guardian who comes for the beating for he

has written that the Prime Minister "resembles a tragic hero in a Hardy novel: an essentially good man brought down by one error of judgement". What is this one error of judgement? The bank-rolling of two murderous colonial adventures? No. The unprecedented growth of the British arms industry and the sale of weapons to the poorest countries? No. The replacement of manufacturing and public service by an arcane cult serving the ultra-rich? No. The Prime Minister's "folly" is "postponing the election last year".

Whilst the media on both sides of the pond have firmly placed the blame on Russia for the troubles in the Caucasus and holds up the country as a pariah of war and aggression

Meanwhile over at the Columbia Journalism review, Ryan Chittum looks at the press's reaction to the current financial meltdown and wondering why the media are not asking more probing questions

The press should ask why companies whose collapse would threaten economic apocalypse aren’t being slimmed down and split up until they’re not so scary. Instead, we have Bank of America, the nation’s biggest commercial bank, swallowing Merrill Lynch, the second biggest investment bank with nary a peep from the press about whether this is a good idea. B of A was already too big to fail. Now it’s something worse

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Why the web won't protect the news gatherer.

Do read Chris Hedges' posting The Internet Is No Substitute for the Dying Newspaper Industry

Ht-Richard Sambrook

The decline of newspapers is not about the replacement of the antiquated technology of news print with the lightning speed of the Internet. It does not signal an inevitable and salutary change. It is not a form of progress. The decline of newspapers is about the rise of the corporate state, the loss of civic and public responsibility on the part of much of our entrepreneurial class and the intellectual poverty of our post-literate world, a world where information is conveyed primarily through rapidly moving images rather than print.

Strong words indeed and for Chris the Web cannot replace either the revenues that the newspaper product brings in or more importantly their status in society

Newspapers, when well run, are a public trust. They provide, at their best, the means for citizens to examine themselves, to ferret out lies and the abuse of power by elected officials and corrupt businesses, to give a voice to those who would, without the press, have no voice, and to follow, in ways a private citizen cannot, the daily workings of local, state and federal government.

Now there are many that would argue that Web 2.0 forfills this role in a much better way allowing instant publication of a 4th estate investigation.

For Chris though

We live under the happy illusion that we can transfer news-gathering to the Internet

Furthermore

Reporting, which is time-consuming and often expensive, begins from the premise that there are things we need to know and understand, even if these things make us uncomfortable. If we lose this ethic we are left with pandering, packaging and partisanship

Arguments that are often not heard in this new media environment that we inhibit.

It was 5 years ago today

Greg Mitchell writing on Editor and Publisher reminds us of a 5 year anniversary.

Five years ago tonight, on March 6, 2003, President Bush conducted a televised press conference – less than two weeks before he would order the U.S. invasion of Iraq -- stating in his intro, “We will not wait to see what terrorists or terrorist states could do with weapons of mass destruction.”

It was a time as Greg reminds us that journalism failed in its role as the 4th estate,something that some organisations have yet to get over.

As Greg describes

It was the mood of the affair that was most noteworthy. Bush smiled and made his usual quips, and many of the reporters played the game and did not press him hard. This was how these press gatherings had gone throughout the run-up to war. But this meeting was heavily scripted with Bush looking at a slip of paper and calling on reporters in a pre-arranged order. No one challenged him on this.

To make up for it,he lists the qusetions that should have been asked including

If our allies have the same information on WMD -- and the Iraqi threat is so real -- why do some of our friends refuse to take part in your coalition?

Is the Sarkozy walk out typical of American interviewers?

Interesting thoughts from Steve Borris on the aftermath of Sarkozy's walkout on American TV.

the question that must be asked is not why Sarkozy would act the way he did, but why a seasoned American reporter like CBS’ Stahl felt she could act the way she did, by asking such a personal, inappropriate, and disrespectful question.

Steve adds,

The sad truth is that many American journalists like Stahl cultivate reputations for being brave by acting in a rude and intimidating manner when they are on home soil, where Americans fear their power. But when they are abroad with foreign leaders, they rarely show such bravery, and often allow the most heinous dictators to tell their stories the way they want them told

I couldn't agree more with you Steve.Some much for journalism being the 4th estate.Journalism is about keeping our politicians in check,not discussing private lives that have no bearing on their abilities to perform their public duty.