Media Bias Bullshit

I have probably read a dozen diaries or blog posts in the past week where the writer mentions "media bias." (Here is one, and another, and another.) The tone of most of these pieces suggests that the media should be unbiased or that reporters should provide balance. An unbiased media is a myth. The media has always been biased; it will always be biased.

I do not believe it is a stretch to suggest that publishers influence the content of their papers. This influence is direct, like when a publisher says, "Don't print that," or it is indirect, through the publisher's choice of editors, writers, and stories the editors select. Whether direct or indirect, it would be unrealistic to assume that publishers do not influence their publications. Every media outlet (newspaper, TV Network, Web site) has its bias. It is the natural consequence of individual ownership of media outlets.

Yet something is wrong. For some reason or reasons, we are more concerned about media bias now than ever. What is different? I propose that two significant phenomena are tipping the balance towards a one-sided media bias. Before I present these forces however, let us look at 19^th century media bias.

Previous Media Bias

As I suggested above, media bias has always existed. As "evidence" of previous media bias, I point to the 19^th century media as detailed in Doris Kearns Goodwin's account of Abraham Lincoln and his cabinet in Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln.

Throughout this book, Goodwin quotes the newspapers of Lincoln's time. However, nearly every time she quotes a paper, she qualifies it as Whig, Democrat, Republican, etc., or she qualifies her quotes by writing, "From the partisan New York Tribune..." or similar statement. Prior to reading Goodwin's book, I had only heard about the bias of 19^th century newspapers. Goodwin, with her collection of quotes, makes it blatantly obvious. For example, after the 1860 Republican Convention, which nominated Lincoln for the presidency, the Democratic New York Herald wrote,

He is a third-rate western lawyer,

and,

The conduct of the Republican Party in this nomination is a remarkable indication of a small intellect growing smaller.

They continued,

Rejecting Seward and Chase who are statesman and able men, they take up a fourth-rate lecturer who cannot speak good grammar, whose speeches are illiterate compositions interlarded with course and clumsy jokes."

(Were they writing about the guy who would pen the Gettysburg Address?)

 The Charleston Mercury wrote:

After him, what decent white man would be president?"

Could you imagine any mainstream paper printing these statements today?

Despite this bias, it appears that readers managed just fine. I am not surprised. If you assume media bias, "news" takes a completely different meaning - "opinion."

We must imagine that readers of Lincoln's day just assumed media bias. However, since they knew how to read, comprehended what the read, took the time to read, and did not have TV to distract them, they were able to create balance. This they accomplished by reading multiple papers. In effect, each reader of news acted like a judge. They read and carefully considered the arguments of all sides then decided for themselves what the "truth" was.

Forces Tipping Media Balance

In Lincoln's time, there were two important components towards creating media balance a literate population and a diverse media. Both of these components are under attack. Without them, our democracy is in trouble.

Force 1: Television - The number one weapon in the "The War on Literacy^TM"

There is no expedient to which a man will not resort to avoid the real labor of thinking. - Sir Joshua Reynolds

One key force that is tipping media balance is television and its effects on literacy.

Al Gore recently pointed out (Hat tip: DailyKos writer Lale),

It's been forty years since the majority of Americans got their information from the printed word. That's when the television took over as the dominant source.

Gore specifically links the onset of television with the decline of our democracy starting around the mid 1950s. I think Gore is correct; television is at the root cause of our decline. However, the mechanism is not direct. As Gore suggests, it is television's effect on literacy that is destroying our democracy. Yes this might sound snobbish, but even though more people than ever read, what do they read? The TV Guide? People Magazine? Dan Brown? That is not literacy. That is just reading.

As Gore pointed out, the most literate people of America were our founding fathers. Their Federalist Papers appeared as essays in the colonial newspapers. These essays, were, by no means "easy reading." However, they were read and debated by an informed citizenry. This suggests that the average colonist was also more literate than a majority of today's Americans.

Television, unfortunately, is not a substitute for reading. In fact, television cuts into our nations reading time. The average American watches about 4.6 hours of TV per day (yes that is more than 30 hours per week). In a sad way, this makes sense. TV is an appealing substitute because it is passive, requires little effort, or thought on the part of the viewer, it "disables" the mind and sooths pain. Depending on which shows you watch, you can easily forget all the problems of the world.[1]

The alternatives, reading, writing, exercising, volunteering, hobbies etc. require effort and in most cases thought too. Not surprisingly, we have known about TV's danger for a long time. For example, back In 1968 Harlan Ellison, in a series of essays published in the LA Free Press called TV the "Glass Teat." Thanks to technology, we can now call it the LCD or Plasma Teat (or the iPod or VCast Teat), but his analogy remains obvious; Lie there and suckle, be calmed by its emissions.[2][3][4]

While it is difficult to prove a direct link between literacy and television, the circumstantial evidence is compelling. Consider the possibility that newspapers are an indication of literacy.

Newspaper Trends

Newspapers therefore become more necessary in proportion as men become more equal, and individualism more to be feared. To suppose that they only serve to protect freedom would be to diminish their importance: they maintain civilization. I shall not deny that in democratic countries newspapers frequently lead the citizens to launch together in very ill-digested schemes; but if there were no newspapers there would be no common activity. The evil which they produce is therefore much less than that which they cure. - Alexis de Tocqueville

Using the newspaper industry as proxy for reading and literacy, I searched for data describing what has happened to the newspaper industry over the same period as the rise of television and the internet. Data from the Newspaper Association of America (NAA) was quite helpful.

NAA's data shows that daily newspaper circulation has dropped from a high near 63 million in 1985 to just over 54 million in 2004. This 54 million is a dramatic change since 1985 and is also substantially lower than the 59 million of 1960. The steep drop in circulation precedes the rise of the internet in 1995 (when WWW traffic exceeded FTP traffic).

The obvious conclusion is that fewer daily newspapers are printed but we can't say for certain that people are reading less. (While this data is compelling, it does not tell us how many people are reading the same paper nor does it tell us about population trends.)

Journalism.Org's data is perhaps, a more compelling case that we read less:

To fully appreciate the drop in the newspaper's popularity, it is also useful to take a closer look at so-called "household penetration" - the number of newspapers sold as a percentage of all households in the country. In one sense, penetration reveals the full extent of newspapers' declining appeal. In 1950, 123 percent of households bought a newspaper (in other words there were 1.23 papers sold per household.) By 1990, only 67 percent of households bought a newspaper. By 2000, it was 53 percent.

So again, well ahead of the internet boom in 1990, only 67 percent of households bought a newspaper.

NAA also reports that from 1950 to 1980, the number of daily newspapers fluctuated slightly with no discernable trend. Starting from about 1980 however, the number of daily papers began a noticeable and consistent downward trend (we may be seeing a leveling of this trend since 2002).

 

In this period, 427 morning daily papers came into print and 735 evening daily papers went out of print for a net decrease of 288 daily papers or about 16% (1% per year). It is hard for me to know if 1% per year is a large or small number but in comparison to the prior 30 years, the drop is dramatic. Again, it is interesting to note, however that this trend started long before the internet and not long after the beginning of Television's dominance.

Force 2: Publisher Consolidation

Newspaper disappearance is not the only disturbing trend in the newspaper business. Another, less obvious trend gnaws away at marketplace of ideas, consolidation. From 1998 to 2001 (the years for which I have data [5]) the percentage of papers owned by the top twenty newspaper publishers has grown. In 1998, the top twenty publishers owned 470 of 1,489 daily papers or about 32%. By 2001, the top twenty publishers owned 564 of 1480 daily papers or about 38% (2% per year).

If economy-of-scale is the key driver behind this trend, then the consolidation rate is likely increasing. For example, publishers can reduce costs through volume purchasing of raw materials, and they can increase ad revenue by expanding market size. These cost savings and revenue enhancements are potentially powerful motivations for consolidation. (I was unable to find data to support this assertion however.)

Narrowing Perspective

Viewed on its own, the consolidation in newspaper publishers is not an alarming trend. However, since nothing happens in a vacuum, we cannot view this trend "on its own."

As I asserted above, publishers influence the content of the papers. When there were more publishers, there were more perspectives. With a greater number of perspectives, readers had a greater chance of getting a complete picture of the news. For example, if one paper wrote "black" a competing paper might write "white" while several other papers might write various shades of gray.

The black, white, and shades of gray in the news meant the reader had to reconcile the differences and it meant that the reader was more likely to hear competing biases. In effect, with many papers in the mix, the readers saw a more complete picture of reality. Furthermore, if every paper wrote "black" then you could bet that "black" was the reality of the time. (Occasionally Druge and Markos agree).

In the past, this environment of multiple perspectives and well-informed (well-read) readership created balance. However, that balance was a function of the collective press as interpreted by the reader. It was not a feature of any one publication.

The Real Danger

Whenever the people are well informed, they can be trusted with their own government. - Thomas Jefferson

I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power. - Thomas Jefferson

Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people. -John Adams

Perhaps the biggest challenge to democracy is keeping its people "in the loop." Citizens must both be smart enough to understand what government is doing and must participate in the governing. Being smart enough requires constant effort, participation, at a minimum, means voting.

As suggested by the quotes above, our forefathers knew how important education was for our democracy to survive. Unfortunately, a TV drugged population with sagging literacy is both intellectually less able to participate, and less well informed. (It is also likely that a less diverse press has serious impact on voter turnout.)

When democracy has an uninformed electorate, another, more subtle and damaging phenomenon is possible. If the population believes that their press is unbiased, then manipulation by that media has a high likelihood of success. Whatever propaganda that media puts forth is viewed as credible. Thus, the assumption of media balance in an environment where balance does not exist, serves those who control the media.

Our democracy is in danger and it is our fault. We watch too much TV, read too little, and belive what we hear from our consolidated mainstream media. I can only hope that the internet, and people powered journalism can change things.

Endnotes:

[1] I must confess, I watch about 7-10 hours of TV per week during the regular season.

• Simpsons including daily reruns and Sunday's first run. It is family time.
• Grey's Anatomy because it is funny.
• House, though it is quite predictable, I watch because of the attitude (In one episode, Cuddy said to House, "I though I met all of your friend." Ouch!)
• Bones because the science is cool and I used to watch Angel so I started watching Bones to see if David Borneaz was any good in a non-fantasy and got hooked (and Borneaz is not bad either).
• CSI (Las Vegas) even though the stories are usually nonsense and the rolls played by the actors are non-existent, the science is interesting enough.
• My Name is Earl because it is very funny in an I-hope-people-are-not-that-stupid sort of way.
• Who's Line is it Anyway if I feel like staying up late, because it is usually funny.

For the duration of the "dramas" (Anatomy, House, Bones, and CSI) I am able to suspend disbelief. (even though my health-care-professional wife quickly points out nearly every medical error and my own knowledge occasionally catches science nonsense). I watch "my shows" with a crossword puzzle in hand. The puzzle, I convince myself, is to keep my mind active. It has taken practice, but now I can comfortably crossword and "watch" the tube.

[2]Ellison published his "Glass Teat" articles in the Los Angles Free Press starting around 1968. At that time, the paper was nicknamed "The Freep." It appears that the term "Freep" now means the opposite of what it meant 35+ years ago. (If Orwell were alive, he would be saying, "I told you so.")

[3] Some history on The Glass Teat by Harlan Ellison. The Glass Teat and the Other Glass Teat were originally a series of essays critical of television written by Harlan Ellison and published by the Los Angles Free Press starting in 1968. Ellison wrote an article every other week for two and a half years. In 1970 Ace Books published the first collection as The Glass Teat and Ellison signed a contract to publish the second collection The Other Glass Teat. Ellison's criticism of TV got him in a bit of trouble, with, of all folks, Spiro Agnew. From the 1975 intro to a reprint of The Glass Teat,

Then suddenly, everything turned into a nightmare! A friend called from Sacramento to tell me I'd been placed on Ronald Reagan's "Subversives list." Dig it: this was four years before we were to learn of "enemies list" via the Watergate route, though such lists undoubtedly existed at that time. My name was one of several hundred on a semi-public document being circulated out of the California state capitol... By December 30, 1970, what looked like a sellout of the 88,565 copy print run turned out to be a total sale of 36,304.... TEAT had been [A Major NY Book seller] bestseller for three solid weeks.... Distributors, news dealers, wholesalers, and retailers all got the clear but surreptitious message: This book ain't for sale not nowhere, not no how, not no way! That was the first indication I had that maybe my big fat typewriter had gotten me in deep stuff with the shadowy Them ...

What pissed off Agnew? Ellison wrote,

Spiro Agnew masturbates with copies of The Readers Digest.

[4] Another example: In one of Bill Watterson's famous Calvin & Hobbs cartoons, when Calvin pondered the meaning of Marx's famous quote, "Religion is the opiate of the masses." A TV, in the next frame observed, "Marx hadn't seen anything yet."

[5] Oddly, The Newspaper Association of America stopped posting the top twenty's holdings after 2001.