Honesty in Media
Is it time to demand honesty from our public officials and further demand that the media start fact checking accusations. It is no secret that I have no great love for the Bush administration. So I will start with the admittedly controversial stand that throughout the Bush administration and continuing to the anti-Obama effort, clarity and honesty have taken a back seat to getting people emotionally involved. At the same time, traditional news media have lost ground to outlet that offer a strong stream of “commentary” with their news product. In effect, we seem to be in the waning days of honesty from political organizations and unbiased reporting.
The question from a business perspective is, “why?” or even “Is this good business?” For years, the major media outlets have lived on the concept that they offered clear, unbiased report of the days activites. There have always been accusations but as long as everyone was a little unhappy with the media, the reputation survived. Now, it has almost become cliche to talk about the bias of mainstream media — even by the mainstream media. What has changed?
Well, clearly competition and instant communication makes for a new business environment. Once your know a fact, the value of that fact drops significantly. Therefore, how do you get continued viewership, and continued revenue in an environment where your audience is getting most of its basic information elsewhere? How do you motivate the audience to continue to watch/read/consume your product?
It seems clear that the media — particularly the highly competitive cable, and online media — have gotten the first part down. Opinion and commentary have become the value added to keep an audience that can turn away? It is infact good business to stir public opinion to keep the public interested.
I was listening to a podcast a few weeks ago between an editor, a professor, and a working reporter. After the attempt to debunk “death panels.” The media outlets were accused of bias. In effect, the people would rather learn more about the lie than learn the truth.
When are we going to hold everyone accountable for the truth? When can the media return to the days when the truth was their value-added?
