Fixing Journalism
News — local, national, and international — is often interlinked. Global events can affect local communities on the other side of the world, COVID-19, for example. The need for accurate, accountable journalism has never been more critical. Yet, in its current state, it is beaten, battered, and bruised. Much of journalism’s debt is carried by class interests, the other “objectivity.” Who owns news media, their empires, and thusly who has say in what and how news stories are covered, guides a lot of journalistic operations — its editorial voice, narrative, and views that are published, especially when business-driven and profit-orientated. Also, when news media owners have class interests, politics are automatically attached. Connected to this is the false and misleading idea of “objectivity.” Reporting “objectively” may give readers facts, maybe, but facts often with no context. How useful is that to the readers? Are we better off or worse off? Blending the false and misleading notion of “objectivity” with “fairness” and “neutrality,” we begin to witness a picture of how this neutrality can be weaponized to protect powerful institutions and structures. It acts as a bludgeon to fend of popular movements and criticism of those institutions, including media empires. The corporate interests of news media become entwined with those they are supposed to report critically on. Separation of the fifth estate from private and state power must occur. Still, before that, neutrality, “objectivity,” must not be the crutch or the excuse journalists use in their journalistic processes.
Dominant voices in media are, by definition, the large corporate outlets. Their editorial sections acting as sort of little brother to Big Brother. Confidently, shaping the preeminent and preferred opinions for the public. There are other voices, however, outlets and journalists that care deeply about not only the public they serve but the craft of journalism. Ones that operate outside the streams and airwaves of our corporate monologues. Voices from the fringe.
Dave Cournoyer and Adam Rozenhart, host and producer (respectively) of the Edmonton based podcast, Daveburta, offer some perspective and analysis on today’s journalism ecosystem. Cournoyer provides a historical review, noting how easy it was for media companies to flourish, “thirty-years ago owning a newspaper was basically like owning a Tim Horton's franchise, it was like a licence to print money. In terms of advertising revenue, in terms of classified revenue. The newspapers really didn’t have the same kind of financial problems they do now, until, well, the internet came along. The business model, pretty much, broke overnight.” As companies found out when times were good, they could spend-spend-spend and face little repercussion, but then bad times hit. Cournoyer notes, “… so any kind of solution to look at, how to fix journalism, you can’t solely rely on ad revenue or classifieds. Or I wouldn’t think that it could. It wouldn’t be the best decision.” Indeed, according to a 2019 New York Times article, Google made $4.7 billion from the news industry in 2018. The article highlights how important news is for Google; some 40% of its trending traffic is news clicks. Content “that Google does not pay for,” according to the cited report.
Media Ownership
“The concentration of media ownership in this country is not good,” Cournoyer states, and he describes how Post Media fails in quality even as it had swallowed up so many newspapers, a lot of them local. “So, I think Post Media is probably one of the big things that’s standing in the way of a new or perhaps more vibrant news media [in Canada], or in the way of something else,” he says. According to The Tyee, Post Media traded with Torstar for 41 community newspapers. 290 people losing their jobs as 36 of those community papers reportedly closed. Cournoyer also notes Post Media’s significant US ownership, the Tyee reporting that it’s 98% owned by US hedge fund managers. The impact of the US-owned Post Media has wrecked the Canadian news landscape, leaving many communities without a voice and unable to seek coverage for their current events. “I think we’ve seen a real decline in the quality of journalism in those newspapers because of the concentration of media ownership in Post Media,” Cournoyer states.
Independent, Grassroots, & Utility Journalism
Cournoyer speaks to podcasting and independent journalism and how that offers something else a larger organization like Post Media isn’t doing. With all the cuts to newsrooms and reporting staff, “they don’t have the bodies to cover the stories, so stories go untold,” Cournoyer explains. Something that Daveburta can do as a niche political podcast is to provide something more insightful, with more nuance, and from different angles than what Post Media is offering, so he doesn’t see them as competing with Post Media. Cournoyer sympathizes with today’s journalists, “they’re [one reporter] doing [now] 30 years ago what four reporters would have been doing.” Which is one of the reasons why Cournoyer and Rozenhart started their podcast. Rozenhart follows up and explains where to go from here. “Post Media needs to die for journalism to survive in Canada,” he states. “We need to remove the profit motive from it because it’s actually a public good. A utility. Today more than any other day, with all the news that’s breaking with COVID-19, it’s so, so apparent.”
Rozenhart and Cournoyer aren’t alone in their views on journalism. Responses gathered from the question asked to readers about “how [they] would fix journalism,” on social media (Facebook and Twitter), showed appeals for in-depth reporting, ethics codes, editorial freedom for writers and journalists and a reduction in editor “interference.” Further, calls for a more independent and grassroots journalism rather than a corporate-controlled and politically aligned news media were voiced; also, suggestions about better-aligned laws to bring back fairness requirements, and encourage “co-operative worker owned newspapers.” Also, the view of journalism’s “public good,” its “utility,” are underscored with those responses.
Readers clearly do value journalism; they want it and, in fact, are willing to pay for it. Last year more Canadians paid for a New York Times subscription than any other news outlet in Canada. Why would Canadians purchase NYT subscriptions more than their own national paper? What does the NYT offer that larger corporate Canadian indigenous competitors do not?
Rozenhart described how podcasts have developed a tight relationship with their listeners. When asked about them, listeners not only respond with “‘ya, you should try listening to this,’ but a, ‘YOU BETTER FUCKING LISTEN TO THIS CAUSE IT’S AMAZING!’” Rozenhart emphasizes how the conditions for paid content relationships do exist. He explains further, laughing, “I actually don’t pay for any Canadian media. I pay for the New York Times and Washington Post.” He muses about cancelling the Post and picking up the Globe & Mail or the Toronto Star — which he says he really enjoys. “I don’t know if I’m the exception or the rule, but I’m willing to pay for information that I trust now,” Rozenhart concludes. Cournoyer adds that whether it was public opinion research or executive decision, big media thought people were too busy, so they needed to be provided with less content — quick stories. He disagrees and says people are willing pay for higher-quality stories, as Rozenhart wants. Noting how several online news organizations have popped up, “I’m thinking about the Sprawl in Calgary, The Narwal, The National Observer. … They’re focused on certain topics … but I think there really is an audience for that — long-form, in-depth, investigative journalism,” Cournoyer reasoned.
The Myth of Objectivity
When asked about media objectivity, Rozenhart exclaims, “objectivity is bullshit. I’m not even sure the value of ‘balance’ at this point. The job of journalism is to call a spade a spade.” Rozenhart thinks that as a society, we should agree on specific standards for this stuff, i.e. racism. The desire to achieve balance for him is so artificial. He continues questioning that maybe it’s done to escape criticism, not being called, “the left-wing media.” “But man,” he rejected, “fuck that! Stand by your convictions. Call a spade a spade.” Rozenhart adds, “… It’s telling that in the face of this idea that journalists should all be ‘objective,’ you’ve got folks like John Oliver, and in the past John Stewart, who are actually sources of news for people because they do tell it like it is.”
A once “unnamed [Bush] Administration official,” Karl Rove, told writer Ron Suskind of The New York Magazine:
That’s not the way the world really works anymore. We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re [journalists] studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.
Rove, a senior Bush Administration architect, was describing journalisms role as many in power see it: which is serve power, observe, and studiously report. All the while, allowing them to act as they wish. So, while we are left to study and debate “enlightenment principles and empiricism,” to simply be a “reality-based community,” we will be left to serve power rather than oppose it. In Canada, we witness similar views from our political elite. Former prime minister Stephen Harper, notorious for his relationship with journalists, often went months without answering questions, and if he did, imposed strict limits on them. At one event, allowing only five questions. Four were given to national outlets, which paid up to $70,000 to attend, and the fifth was to a local outlet. So, Harper moves from event to event and tightly controls media questions, which allows for his message to resonate. For Harper, as well as Rove, journalists serve power rather than remain adversarial to it.
“Objectivity,” fulfills this power need. It allows narratives and stories to be compromised by histories actors, instead of serving communities and the readers. Honest, transparent journalism is something that can do done without the veneer of objectivity. By valuing honesty and transparency in a journalist’s work, one can spell out plainly to readers what is happening. The truth, reality, isn’t “objective,” it has determinable facts, facts with context. We can write those facts and be both honest and transparent — and readers want that.
