Two hundred and thirty years ago the
First Amendment of the Bill of Rights was adopted guaranteeing freedom of the
press. Ironically, since that date the
US Supreme Court has avoided all attempts to define exactly what “the press”
means.
I leave the definition to the scholars
and the courts and apply a common-sense conclusion for use in this story. “The press” as intended by our founding
fathers, applies to newspapers, magazines, and other businesses that
communicate news to the public by print, television or radio, or the people who
work to prepare and present the news. At
a minimum, “the press” must include those originators of news stories.
Writers of the stories are the originators,
those reporters out on the beat.
The news media are considered
America’s Fourth Estate, along with the first three, the Legislative branch of
Congress, the Executive branch of the President, and the Supreme Court. The primary obligation of the press is that of veritas. To serve the
Truth. If journalism fails to live up to
its intrinsic duty as the guardian of veritas, reporter of facts, we will be
overcome by fake news.
I had a firsthand seat
in the rise and fall of journalism and the news media for over six decades, as
a reporter, communicator, and seeker of Truth spanning newspaper, radio and
television more recently with an online newspaper (the Coltons Point Times) and
as a contributor to the Huffington Post.
So where do we find
ourselves today?
The news media has
transformed from one of the most respected and trusted of American institutions
fifty years ago to a joke today, now having less credibility than Congress,
whose polarization and paralysis has transformed it into, a joke as well.
I do not say this
lightly because one of the many hats I have worn is as a journalist and nothing
makes me more upset than to see and hear the sorry state of journalism of
today.
Truth in the present news media is bought and
sold just like the politicians. The
Truth in news coverage has nothing to do with reporting what the people want or
need to know. It is more focused on
taking a side and promoting whomever might advocate the cause.
Study after study shows the vast
majority of news media hate President Trump which is in total violation of the
Code of Ethics for Professional Journalists adopted by the Society for
Professional Journalists, which require objective reporting without bias. Most major news outlets are signatories to
the Code.
Never in our history has the news
media advocated bias on such a massive scale as today. Never has our news media viewed themselves as
news makers rather than reporters of the news.
And never has the credibility of the news been so ignored and scorned by
the general public.
According to recent polls the
news media has less credibility that Congress and that is about as low as you can
go. Yet the politicians and especially
the neophytes recently elected let themselves be compromised by the media
attention if they oppose Trump, often for the dumbest of reasons and more often
than not the source was fake news in the so-called news media.
There is no fairness in news
coverage of the politicians because the news media are biased and today’s twenty-first
century news media includes a whole new array of Internet news sources such as
news aggregators like Yahoo, Facebook, Google, and others.
These aggregators are dependent
on advertising revenue through Internet hits for their owners. What is to keep them from using unethical,
immoral and underhanded tactics to get attention for their stories to increase
the hits and revenues?
By their own acknowledgement they
have made mistakes, and continue to do so in the case of biased news.
There have been two major changes
to the media business in recent years that have fueled the media chaos, the collapse
of values and principles, and created the opportunity for an avalanche of fake
news.
First, virtually all forms of media
from newspapers to radio to television began to be acquired by huge corporate conglomerates
that wanted to have greater influence over the news.
Here is what the Center for Media
Literacy had to say about the situation.
Today, despite 25,000
media outlets in the United States, 29 corporations’ control most of the
business in daily newspapers, magazines, television, books and motion pictures.
During most of this
century the process of media consolidation remained quiescent, but beginning in
the mid-1960s large corporations suddenly began buying media companies. The
financial trigger was Wall Street's discovery of the best kept secret in the
business of American newspapers.
Twenty-two
years ago, President Bill Clinton signed the Telecommunications Act of
1996. The act, signed into law on February 8, 1996, was “essentially bought and
paid for by corporate media lobbies,” as Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR)
described it, and radically “opened the floodgates on mergers.”
The
negative impact of the law cannot be overstated. The law, which was the first
major reform of telecommunications policy since 1934, according to media
scholar Robert McChesney, “is widely considered to be one of the three or four
most important federal laws of this generation.” The act dramatically reduced
important Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations on cross
ownership, and allowed giant corporations to buy up thousands of media outlets
across the country, increasing their monopoly on the flow of information in the
United States and around the world.
Twenty-two
years later the devastating impact of the legislation is undeniable: About 90
percent of the country’s major media companies are owned by six corporations.
At the same time the massive increase in mergers was taking
place the pace of technological change was becoming greatly accelerated which
substantially increased the cost of maintaining a prominent position in the
media market.
It may seem hard to believe, but when President Kennedy was
assassinated in 1963 there was no such thing as live television feeds from remote
locations like Dallas. By the time Neil
Armstrong landed on the moon just six years later field reporters and remote
production crews were hastily dispatched to cover the live and breaking news.
Video technology was changing every year and huge investments
were required to keep pace with the innovations. To the huge conglomerates,
who considered their media acquisitions an investment, not a public service,
profits were everything and slowly the corporate bean counters took control.
In order to be successful a media
outlet had to be profitable which meant a substantial increase in advertisers
and ad revenue. To generate income advertising prices increased while news
services were cutback. Media market
share enticed Wall Street to invest in the corporate giants, not the quality or
honesty of the news operations, and profits soon became the guiding light to
success.
Suddenly the evening news morphed
into a series of news shows and specials like 60 Minutes and 20/20, shows with
the time and financial resources to do in depth investigative reporting in
prime time where the battle for market share raged. New morning news shows joined the Today Show in
the quest for creating even more revenue and soon they shifted from being news
driven to entertainment driven.
The anchors for all these
variations of news shows were the key to ratings success in terms of public
perception so the faces and personalities of the television hosts made them the
celebrities of TV news and news spinoffs.
It was only a matter of time before
the on-air reporters joined the celebrity parade and soon the ratings began to
reflect the star power of the anchor with little regard for the news content.
Ted Turner, the pioneer of cable
television and twenty-four-hour news coverage. through his radical experiment
with CNN shocked the financial analysts and experts with his CNN success and
suddenly Wall Street opened the floodgates to expansion of cable TV, another nail
in the coffin of traditional media.
Quietly, while the broadcast news
media fought off the bean counters and the vicious competition from cable news,
another technology was being launched that would soon become the dominant force
in worldwide communications.
Technology continued to find new
ways to process information and a quantum leap came in 1975 when Bill Gates and
Paul Allen started Microsoft, and 1976 when Steve Jobs started Apple. The digital processors were now in place,
only some form of network needed to be established.
A largely
unknown government agency called ARPANET adopted TCP/IP on January 1, 1983, and from there
researchers began to assemble the “network of networks” that became the modern
Internet. The online world then took on a more recognizable form in 1990, when computer scientist Tim
Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web.
The world would never be the same
again.
The access to
information and transfer of information reached throughout the globe almost
overnight. People could communicate
within the United States and with every country in the world without phones. Libraries throughout the world shared their
collections, and the gateway to culture, history and language barriers between people
were shattered.
It was a noble purpose
that was embraced by an unlikely group of allies, each with their own agenda. Agencies involved in education,
communications, history, science and culture became bedfellows with much more
secretive and often sinister agencies involved in national defense, national
security, and intelligence, all classified and top-secret functions.
However, the participation of the secret
agencies was paramount to success as they had the billions of dollars needed to
invest in building the worldwide web to bring together the people of Earth.
Somewhere along the way
key decisions were made to keep this exploding technology free of government
regulation as it recognized no geographic boundaries. With the backing of the defense and
intelligence agencies and the commitment to keep it from government regulation
Wall Street jumped on any new venture willing to find a way to profit from the
Internet.
As the skies were being
filled with thousands of communications satellites bringing the world closer
and closer together and the Geek generation was figuring out endless ways to
create a dependence on the Internet through Artificial Intelligence and apps,
and an addiction to the social media side, the news media were losing control
of everything they spent hundreds of years to develop.
Internet innovations
came at lightning speed as new apps and programs were becoming obsolete in less
than a year. Among the unrestricted,
unlicensed new applications emerged social media, when Facebook was founded in
2004 by yet another group of Harvard dropouts.
With no threat of government
regulation, no taxation for services, and no moral or ethical code to follow,
social media became the rage and laid the groundwork to undermine the traditional
news media and quash any need to search for the truth.
Now those pushing the
scope of the Internet had the most unfair market advantage in modern history and
led to the greatest disruption in the economy, invasion of privacy, identity
theft, promotion of illicit activities like drug dealing, prostitution, sex
trafficking, human bondage and trafficking, drug distribution, illegal international
drug shipments, and piracy of intellectual property including DVDs and CD in
world history.
Every year billions and
billions of dollars are lost to such activities through hacking, scams, cell
phone and credit card theft, hacking bank accounts, and who knows what else. Tragically, what was once a sacred right of
people, privacy and protection, are becoming an acceptable risk of doing
business.
As programming and crime
grew and became more sophisticated the ambitions of crooks and conmen became
bolder. Not content with stealing
things, they wanted to destroy existing institutions like movie studios, record
companies, and yes, control of the news since the Internet was the new delivery
vehicle for the globe.
Internet innovators
walked a fine line between right and wrong, legal and illegal, and often the potential
for fabulous wealth tilted the action toward illegal. Existing industries and institutions were sitting
ducks for the profit-driven Internet gunslingers.
It was only a matter of
time before the gunslingers set their sights on taking control of the
distribution of news in order to influence the billions of Internet users. Free of the threat of prosecution,
independent of government regulation, and generating billions and billions of
dollars profit from the Internet activities, they gobbled up company after
company with reckless abandon.
When you are free of
liability and accountability for your actions, the sky is the limit. When you function in a virtual world owned by
nobody, the unsuspecting citizens of sovereign nations become targets.
Eventually the greed
mongers, whose profits were dependent on how many website hits could be
generated to justify higher and higher advertising rates, saw being a news
provider as a new way to penetrate and profit from their users.
Instead of trying to
duplicate the expensive infrastructure of news organizations and compete fairly,
they simply offered to provide news access to their powerful user base to media
who were never exposed to such astounding numbers of viewers or readers. Thus, the news aggregators of the Internet
were born promising a fair processing of the news.
Of course, with the
ability to hide behind complicated algorithms there was no way to ascertain the
real intended use of the news information or how the news content was sorted
and made available.
Political parties,
foreign countries, and who knows who else were enticed to spend billions
through social media advertising though they were doing things illegal,
unethical, and immoral like trying to influence presidential elections.
When the real news did
not provide enough controversy to stimulate conversation and arguments between
users, fake news was substituted. The
more bitter and hateful the arguments the more comments came piling on bringing
untold wealth by increasing the hits. Not
even the users seemed to care about truth, facts, or outcome, they just wanted
to vent hatred.
Think about the
impact. A major television network
nightly news show might draw six to eight million viewers nationwide. The best newspapers reach several hundred
thousand readers. But the Internet news aggregators,
they could reach hundreds of million, even billions of people with each news
update, regardless if it was true or not.
Traditional media tried
making their broadcast anchors and reporters Internet celebrities as well but
the familiar faces only reminded the Internet users of the proliferation of
advertising on television, which drove them to seek alternative news sources in
the first place.
The reporters and news
personalities became more editorial or opinionated to try and appeal
to the
Internet radical fringe while the algorithm got more and more efficient at
censoring media that did not boost hits, and promoting fake news that generated
controversy.
With no regulations, no
requirement to validate facts, and no liability for fake or false news, the
Internet and social media forums became money machines using social media
preferences for determining news, not truth in reporting.
That is where we are today,
trapped in a malaise of our own making.
Honesty, facts, truth
and honor have been cast aside in news
operations. Biased reporting is
prevalent in spite of the failure to met journalism ethical standards. Fake news purveyors, like Russia and China or
the Democrats and Republicans, flooded the Internet with fake news and the
social media suppliers with millions and billions of dollars of blood money.
All the while we keep
moving farther and farther away from the truth.
If you are seeking the truth in news, look to the small towns and
populations where greed does not rule and laws are made to be followed, not
ignored. It is still there but you have
to look hard to find it.
Who is to blame for our
quagmire? First Congress and the four
most recent presidents for underestimating the potential damage such an
unregulated behemoth could cause.
Politicians had their own selfish purposes for ignoring the regulation because
of what they wanted from the Internet or the millions in campaign contributions
from the virtual companies.
Blame also must be
shared with the Main Street media who felt attacking Trump was a much more
profitable endeavor than trying to harness the lawless digital empire builders
behind the collapse in media credibility.
Long ago the media should have been investigating, reporting and screaming
about the reckless and abusive actions of the Internet darlings.
There is no freedom of
the press today. It is all bought and
paid for by some unregulated special interest intent on destroying whoever might
oppose it. The same special interests arguing for freedom of speech and press are using the Internet to manipulate
their causes.
While most traditional
media were signers of the Code of Ethics for Professional Journalists, none
comply with the code. If it were
enforced, none would be left working. So,
who is it that represents “the press” and deserves the Constitutional
protection of our government?
The unbiased, fair,
honest, balanced, ethical, moral and transparent deserve it. Good luck in your search for them.
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About the author Jim
Putnam
My journalism career
started very early, in high school, thanks to some intense nudging and guidance
from a nun who taught creative writing, English and literature to me in sixth
grade and then in high school. Sister
Louis Marie, one of just a handful of teachers who had a positive impact on
me. We grew to become close friends for
life, and hers ended in 2013.
Thanks to her ruthless
prodding and inspiration I became a regular contributor to the prestigious Des
Moines Register newspaper whose stellar reputation remains intact today. She also convinced me to be editor of the
year book and writer for the school newspaper.
But that was just the beginning of her
contributions. Years later after she
parted from the world of nuns and was called Pat McGuire Rock, she taught
graduate school at the prestigious NYU Gallatin
School of Individualized Study where this inspirational soul was one of the
first recipients of the School's Excellence in Teaching Awards.
NYU was the dominant supplier of talent to America’s television
industry based in New York, while UCLA and USC played a similar role in the movie
industry of Hollywood out west.
Pat created many unique and stimulating
classes on Shakespeare and other literary giants and her classes included many
aspiring actors, actresses, directors, producers and writers for television
movies and prime time series, and even Broadway plays. She loved to help people find their talent
and niche in life.
I was one student she never gave up on. When politics took me to our nation’s capital
and eventually to the governor’s office in New Jersey and Madison Avenue in NYC
I was able to see Pat often.
It was because of her I wrote two books
of poetry, became a speech writer for political and corporate leaders, and
became a reporter for the Omaha World Herald in the heyday of journalism, the
Watergate era. In fact, my career has spanned
the service of twelve US presidents from Eisenhower to Trump.
She convinced me to keep journals of
everything I did, and to always be searching for new creative outlets. Best of all for me, I was one of few of her
students to get her to be my editor on several books I authored, fiction and non-fiction,
and screenplays for television like Jim Henson’s Muppet Babies among other
shows.
From the time I was ten years old
Pat Rock was my mentor, taking a stubborn and self-confident kid and awakening
me to the worlds of creativity, magic, imagination and fantasy along with a search for
truth with no limits, no barriers, and an in depth understanding of the power
of words.
Thanks to her words became my
best friends and my imagination my “upstairs playground.” Of course, she also recruited me to help her
create on of the most pioneering teaching games to teach people proper Grammar,
called The Great Grammarian used by The New York Times and many Fortune 500
corporations to help reporters and executives communicate better.
In summary, I have been a
journalist all of my life from newspaper reporter to poet, author of books,
composer of songs (words and music), speechwriter for politicians and corporate
executives, policy developer, script writer, creative consultant to National
Geographic Television, and member of two Emmy winning creative teams among
other things. Even today I publish an
online newspaper, since 2006, and was a contributor to the Huffington Post.
