The American media is dying. And money is at the heart of it.
Media bias is nothing new. It is as old as mass information and will likely be around until the free press dies. This should come as no surprise to our modern world, which is constantly bombarded with hyper-partisanship and mistrust of major mass communication outlets. With these various issues at hand, it is vital to look at the most harmful ones and take note of how they are affecting our news.
Take a moment to imagine turning on your television to FOX News, or perhaps CNN. You know what to expect when you watch those channels, and that both have a heavy skew. Yet most do not bat an eye at this fact. Rather, most people actually enjoy the content and have a devotion to these news channels as if they are preaching the Gospel, taking many of the opinion segments as fact. It is generally thought that the purpose of the free press is to ensure that a society makes informed decisions, and keeps the power within the people.
It can only really achieve these goals, when the press is kept true and fair. This then begs the question of why the media outlets that are the most biased and opinionated receive the most attention?
Simply because they let you hear what you want to.
In America, there is a heavy division between republicans and democrats, with everyone categorized by a political party whether or not they truly fit them..While American politics always have had sharp divides, hyperpartisanship is more present now, with political differences having doubled since 1994.
Of course, this is not to romanticize the past partisanship in America.You can look at the American civil war to dissolve that notion for you, an era in which politics and economics split the nation in two. For most of the 20th century, there was a strong belief that by working together the problem would be solved. At this point, parties now see each other as mortal enemies and often view one another as an “evil” that needs to be rectified almost as if in some holy crusade.
It is this mentality coupled with exactly this herd mentality on both sides of the aisle that has caused the devolvement of American media. This has been done so, primarily through three things– Echo chambers, media framing, and the oh so beloved American dollar.
In 2022 alone, FOX News, CNN, and MSNBC, combined made a little over 6 billion dollars, with roughly half of that being purely profit. In 2021 the U.S. newspaper industry generated a total revenue of 22.04 billion dollars. If there was any doubt that this sector was for profit, just a quick look at those numbers can quickly dispel that notion.
This is where the heart of the problem lies. While the press can be free from government intervention (including monetary incentives) and can produce reputable and unbiased information it also means that it must support itself in order to sustain that goal.
Aforementioned, money is the root of all evil and the news industry is no exception. Rather it is a prime example of how “for-profit organizations” will quickly compromise their morals in order to make a quick buck. This can most easily be seen in the major slants that occur in some of the world’s most popular news outlets, specifically FOX and CNN.
Both FOX and CNN have a strong tendency to report the facts in such a way that only supports their preferred party, often bringing on guests that are either ridiculed for their opposing beliefs, or lauded for their homogenous ones. While this can just be bad journalism, it goes beyond the ways in which the media conglomerates make money. In an industry that focuses on bringing in profit, it quickly becomes a game of both how to grab attention and how to keep it.
This is where the echo chambers come in.
Echo chambers are a phenomenon that occur within a group that does not have access to outside information. Typically echo chambers cause distortions in reality within a community by not allowing them to see an outside perspective. This is what is occurring within American politics today, and it is easy to see why.
According to University of Idaho’s assistant professor of philosophy Bert Baumgartner, “The truth is often inconvenient. We have a natural inclination to meet with people similar to us.”This truth is exactly what lies at the center of our issue. In a study conducted by Baumgartner, he found that echo chambers lead to extremist mindsets and an inability to meet an opposing opinion with reason which leads polarized groups to be “Less receptive to truth.”
Through this we see a clear way in which major media conglomerates can capitalize, and that is by ensuring that there is always an echo chamber for their specific opinion. This can be incredibly harmful to a society, which we can see today not just on the news, but in our own personal lives, and even in ourselves. Yet the problem goes beyond echo chambers. It goes straight to the heart of how we get our information, and not just the truthfulness of it.
According to a 2016 study from “Our world in data,” non-communicable diseases make up for 84.1% of all deaths in the US, yet only 28.3% of these cases are given media coverage by the New York Times. In contrast, terrorism and homicide combined only account for less than 1% of all deaths in the US yet receive a whopping 58.4%of news coverage.
Once again, the question of “why” is asked.
Primarily, viewership is based on interest and excitement. The more interesting or out of the ordinary a story is, the more people are willing to watch. This leads to a very frustrating predicament. If news networks actually report based upon what actually happens often as opposed to what is interesting, they lose views and money.
Alternatively, if they solely report with the intent of keeping views high, they have to constantly keep up a stream of entertaining stories that distorts our view of the world as a whole. Without revenue from views, they cannot report it at all, and ethics goes out the window in order to keep the lights on.
The primary issue with this predicament is that it is just another form of bias, but one that controls what the public has in their minds, what fears they have, and ultimately what their view of the world is going to be like.
When taking a further inspection at this information, it becomes clear that something needs to change. While there is no clear-cut solution, there are a few ways we can better our situation, and keep American media from furthering its predicament.
One example of this is a revamped.Fairness doctrine. This would require equal reporting on controversial partisan matters, and force echo chambers to be broken, thus introducing alternative ideas into hyper polarized groups. With this, tax incentives or a shift to nonprofit reporting could help our media become as truthful as possible, by having no monetary incentive to report in an untruthful way.
But ultimately it comes down to us—the people—to call for a free press that is truthful, fair, and ultimately interested in presenting nothing but the facts. If we change what we want, and let our voices be heard one day we may enjoy a media that allows us to make our own decisions and that presents the world as it is and not the way we want to see it.
