The problem with journalism
The chattersphere is all over bias in the press these days. Is it too liberal? Look at the numbers on party affiliations in newsrooms. Is it too conservative? That's what many editors defensively say they're told.
I worked in large newsrooms for 20 years, and say this traditional left-right debate is orthogonal to the real issue. The "press" (MSM, elite media, whatever you call it) has a bias ... but it is not towards the party of Howard and Hillary. It is towards government.
The press inhabits a world that is dominated by the multiple layers of the state, from city council to state legislature to Congress to White House to EU to UN. Look at the core local newsroom beats: city hall, police, courts, fire, schools, state house, planning commission, social agencies, the military and, of course, the politics desk and Washington bureau. Oh, and a business writer. And a dozen sports writers.
Throughout their careers, journalists spend large amounts of time talking to and writing about public employees. Their conversations take place in and are to a large extent about the world of the public employee: a world that is always doing its best to meet urgent needs, but is sadly short of resources.
Over time, the bureaucratic view becomes most reporters' worldview: Government is the driving force of civil society and its sphere should increase. New programs are needed. Local residents are urgently in need of assistance. Advocates rally in protest against cuts. Study shows need for tax increases.
The problem is, this is not the real world. It is a soap bubble upon the surface of the real world.
The real world is business: private employers pursuing gain in a Darwinian environment almost entirely outside journalists' view. This is where the decisions are made that have the greatest impact on most Americans' daily lives. Where do jobs exist? How good are they? What is for sale, and how much does it cost? These questions are primarily answered, or dictated, by business. I don't mean this critically; capitalism is the best thing we've come up with so far.
Most of the decisions that most affect most Americans' lives happen in the world of business: where they live; what they eat; who they work for; where their job is; how much they earn; what they can buy; prices at stores they shop at; the value of their home; the value of their car; the entertainments they attend; the trips they make; and so on.
Journalists are largely blind to the world of business. Many have little facility with numbers and less with balance sheets. It is easier to write about subjective states of mind: conflict, bias, grief, victimhood, fear, concern. And so they do.
Government is easy to cover: It meets in public at regular locations and intervals and even publishes agendas in advance. It is required to talk to the press.
Business is hard to cover: It meets in private where and when it pleases, and is rarely obliged to say anything to anyone about the decisions that are made.
Guess which gets more column inches?
I submit that the bias observed in the American press is driven more by government's world view than by how reporters vote. Journalists are almost all Democrats, but it's not because they identify with the party. Rather, they identify with the interest groups that identify themselves with the party: politicians and public employees above all, academics, artists, writers, intelligentsia, public-employee unions, advocates for the downtrodden and all the other usual suspects that so predictably show up in news stories.
Business interests are just as deeply in bed with government, of course, but they try to keep it private, and they don't invite the press to watch. So it doesn't get covered ... except afterwards in the rare cases where it becomes scandal, or in the 0.001% of business decisions that the press otherwise happens to stumble across.
And there, I submit, is the bias: not to the left or right -- but towards the public rather than the private sphere. Most journalists don't notice it -- they think the world they live in is normal. It's not. The real world is people everywhere quietly doing private deals, far beyond the reach or interest or understanding of the press.
I worked in large newsrooms for 20 years, and say this traditional left-right debate is orthogonal to the real issue. The "press" (MSM, elite media, whatever you call it) has a bias ... but it is not towards the party of Howard and Hillary. It is towards government.
The press inhabits a world that is dominated by the multiple layers of the state, from city council to state legislature to Congress to White House to EU to UN. Look at the core local newsroom beats: city hall, police, courts, fire, schools, state house, planning commission, social agencies, the military and, of course, the politics desk and Washington bureau. Oh, and a business writer. And a dozen sports writers.
Throughout their careers, journalists spend large amounts of time talking to and writing about public employees. Their conversations take place in and are to a large extent about the world of the public employee: a world that is always doing its best to meet urgent needs, but is sadly short of resources.
Over time, the bureaucratic view becomes most reporters' worldview: Government is the driving force of civil society and its sphere should increase. New programs are needed. Local residents are urgently in need of assistance. Advocates rally in protest against cuts. Study shows need for tax increases.
The problem is, this is not the real world. It is a soap bubble upon the surface of the real world.
The real world is business: private employers pursuing gain in a Darwinian environment almost entirely outside journalists' view. This is where the decisions are made that have the greatest impact on most Americans' daily lives. Where do jobs exist? How good are they? What is for sale, and how much does it cost? These questions are primarily answered, or dictated, by business. I don't mean this critically; capitalism is the best thing we've come up with so far.
Most of the decisions that most affect most Americans' lives happen in the world of business: where they live; what they eat; who they work for; where their job is; how much they earn; what they can buy; prices at stores they shop at; the value of their home; the value of their car; the entertainments they attend; the trips they make; and so on.
Journalists are largely blind to the world of business. Many have little facility with numbers and less with balance sheets. It is easier to write about subjective states of mind: conflict, bias, grief, victimhood, fear, concern. And so they do.
Government is easy to cover: It meets in public at regular locations and intervals and even publishes agendas in advance. It is required to talk to the press.
Business is hard to cover: It meets in private where and when it pleases, and is rarely obliged to say anything to anyone about the decisions that are made.
Guess which gets more column inches?
I submit that the bias observed in the American press is driven more by government's world view than by how reporters vote. Journalists are almost all Democrats, but it's not because they identify with the party. Rather, they identify with the interest groups that identify themselves with the party: politicians and public employees above all, academics, artists, writers, intelligentsia, public-employee unions, advocates for the downtrodden and all the other usual suspects that so predictably show up in news stories.
Business interests are just as deeply in bed with government, of course, but they try to keep it private, and they don't invite the press to watch. So it doesn't get covered ... except afterwards in the rare cases where it becomes scandal, or in the 0.001% of business decisions that the press otherwise happens to stumble across.
And there, I submit, is the bias: not to the left or right -- but towards the public rather than the private sphere. Most journalists don't notice it -- they think the world they live in is normal. It's not. The real world is people everywhere quietly doing private deals, far beyond the reach or interest or understanding of the press.
posted by Mikhail at 6:23 PM
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