There is a story about Benjamin Franklin exiting Independence Hall and being asked, “What have your brought us?”
His response “A Republic, if you can keep it.”
The essential impact is “If you can keep it.”
Maintaining a functioning democracy is always the challenge. So many attempts have been made throughout history, and so few have succeeded over the long haul.
Of all the framers, Franklin probably understood more than the others that a free press is essential for a functioning democracy. I would like to add “balanced” to free press, since what’s left of the mainstream media are so caught up in their financial woes that they are flailing about trying to remain relevant. They will do anything for ratings, and some think the path to ratings is a lurch to the Left.
For the majority of history, the press was held in check by what their competition was doing – the “Liberal’ outlets would not stray too far from the truth in their reporting of the news because their cross-town rival, the “Conservative” outlet, would immediately call them on it. Television was under the same pressure, and radio, which had mere moments to deliver information, never really had the time to deliver much more than essential information.
There was a set of facts that were reported. Opinion was strictly corralled in the commentary and editorial pages. In the past, you likely knew where the outlet you were reading or watching stood politically, yet the news that was being reported was likely factual.
You could rely on one newspaper or network for reasonably balanced coverage, not some borderline partisan drivel. That’s no longer the case. The people I know who are well informed have to scan multiple media outlets, including foreign ones, and infer what’s being reported with their knowledge of economics and political reality. It’s a time consuming process, and is completely unfair to the reader or viewer.
Late last month, CNN, the Cable News Network, fell below 500,000 viewers in the ratings. The most expensive hour of television to produce, financed by advertising, dropped to an unprecedented low.
The advertisers who buy those advertisements are looking for a favorable cost-per-thousand for their advertising dollar. CNN just became a very expensive advertising vehicle and will likely lose advertising and revenue.
Half a century ago, newspapers were thriving. Appointment television was about your only option, and “Film at 11” meant the breaking story was too close to deadline for the film of the talking reporters head to be processed and aired.
Today, we have shrinking newspapers, both physically (the move from “Broadsheet” to Tabloid sized newspapers), and circulation. Their business model changed. They made money on Classified and Help Wanted advertisements, both of which have been eliminated by online media, both social and otherwise.
Radio news, like the medium itself, is dying. Since the beginning of the year, an award-winning 24-hour news outlet in the number one media market in the United States is no longer. There are less than a handful of all news radio stations nationwide. Television is facing its own set of challenges. They have amazing technology – crystal clear high-definition video from around the globe in an instant, but the viewers have left them.
We have birthed a couple of generations who never watched television news on a regular basis. Or read a newspaper. Or listened to radio news.
The point of a free press is to inform. Fair, impartial presentation of the facts. Today, the phrase “forming public opinion” is freely bantered around newsrooms. They are no longer reporting the events of the day, they are trying to sway public opinion. To their way of thinking, which is generally far left of center.
Some networks, including CNN, have become their own little echo chambers where disparate views are not permitted. All of the “facts” are delivered with a huge helping of leftist spin. The historic first 24-hour news network delivered good and meritorious service for the first couple of decades of its existence. It was a grand experiment in television, and they employed a large number of talented journalists. They were always a little to the Left. but just a little.
In the early 2000’s, CNN consciously took a hard left, and have driven their network right off a cliff. Fox News is hardly impartial but much closer to the center, and it now has more viewers in a week than CNN has in a month. Meanwhile, newspaper lost the foil that kept them centered, and hence are either left or right, with a very small number actually reporting the news.
That we as individuals need to work so hard to be well informed individuals is a downright scary state of affairs.
Benjamin Franklin, who had such high hopes for the press and its duty to inform the citizens of the new nation that he helped form, would be appalled. As he should be.
We are a Republic and can keep it as long as the people are well informed.
