Yves here. Richard Murphy makes a critical point about the focus of media, that its notion of what amounts to news has become more divorced than ever from the concerns in most people’s daily lives. However, I am surprised at his sense of mystification as to how this came about. Admittedly, the causes in the UK may not be as obvious as in the US.
In no particular order:
The media has long had much of its content consist of purveying propaganda. The father of the public relations industry (and also Sigmund Freud’s nephew), Edward Bernays, wrote in his 1926 book Propaganda that half the stories on the front page of the New York Times were propaganda (he did a count on a representative day). He defined propaganda as “A consistent, enduring effort to create or shape events to influence the relations of the public to an enterprise, idea or group.”
At least in the US, newspapers increased their amount of “lifestyle” content to sell more ads. This of course would tend to be upscale lifestyles, since that’s where the ad dollars are. My impression is that this really got serious uptake in the 1990s, with book and movie review sections then leading to food (as in upscale cooking), health, real estate (shelter porn, as opposed to listings) and other advertiser-pleasing sections.
The increased effectiveness of businesses and governments in messaging has made it legitimately harder to do bona fide reporting. In 1999, I met then then New York Times reporter who had opened the Shanghai office for the Wall Street Journal in 1993 and returned to the US in 1999 shortly before jumping ship to the Times. He said he was stunned at how much the practice of journalism in the US had changed during his six year absence. When he left, it was possible to get to the bottom of most developments in the then-normal 24 hour news cycle. When he returned, not only had various spin-meisters gotten much better at telling their tales and deflecting inquiries, but also news cycles had shortened, thanks to the Internet.
The end of the ban on local media cross ownership. The FCC had banned the cross-ownership of local newspapers and local broadcasters in the same market in 1975. The explicit point of that rule was to foster a diversity of viewpoints. It was effectively ended with the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Touted as a way to increase competition, it instead resulted in considerable consolidation.
The Internet-induced end of classified ads gutted news budgets and over time reduced subscription revenues. Classified ads had accounted for roughly half of newspaper ad revenues. Not only was that stead income, but by coming from many small customers, it meant the publication did not have to worry about catering to business interests. The same was true of subscription income. As both eroded, newspapers, which had traditionally done the heavy lifting of news reporting, found themselves income-starved and more dependent on corporate display ads. The latter meant that content deemed offensive to them meant less ad revenues.
The resulting collapse in funding for reporting had further knock on effects, all detrimental to covering topics of interest to ordinary citizens. The first was industry consolidation, as many small and medium-sized city papers failed or were acquired by chains, resulting in a big reduction in local news coverage. Second over time was a class shift in newsroom staffing. I am not sure how this came about, but traditionally, local reporters and columnists typically came from blue collar backgrounds. That contributed to scrappy tenacity and limited willingness to accept things on the mere say-so of important people. Increasingly, at now-bigger-on-average news outlets, the writing positions are filled by grads of Ivies or other pretty status-y schools. They want to be welcome at parties with their peers. The great Michael M. Thomas pointed out how those incentives were backwards: “They were dining with people they should be dining on.”1
Readers may have additional factors to add. I would be curious to learn what the forces at work were in the UK.
By Richard Murphy, part-time Professor of Accounting Practice at Sheffield University Management School, director of the Corporate Accountability Network, member of Finance for the Future LLP, and director of Tax Research LLP. Originally published at Fund the Future
The world of politics remains in apparent lockdown.
The UK news media has almost nothing to say for itself, based on the morning’s newsletters from them, to which I subscribe.
Overnight, we learned, as if it were a surprise, that Elon Musk is a fan of the so-called Tommy Robinson. That makes it very clear precisely where on the political spectrum he, the incoming US administration, and, for that matter, Farage stand when it comes to politics. Robinson is, of course, currently serving time and was a very obvious aggravator in last summer’s race riots.
That apart, the feeling that much of the news is generated to feed the demands of the media rather than relating to matters that might be of real concern is strong as a result. Do we really need anything like the coverage that we actually get to know what is really going on in the world? In fact, is much of what passes as news really put out as cover for what is really happening? Does it simply provide dopamine hits for journalists, and maybe politicians, whilst actually ignoring the real issues of concern?
We get a great deal of tittle-tattle.
We receive endless reports of the day’s supposed political events, most of which are artificially generated for this purpose.
We have the endless regurgitating of press releases.
But do we get news stories on what really matters? Where is the coverage or poverty, the loss of hope, the endless grind of trying to make ends meet, and the crises for families who cannot get the education their child needs, the social care a family member needs, or the medical appointment that they have been told is required?
Where come to that, when it comes to economics, are the stories on the debt burdens of households for whom high interest rates continue to mean massive familial stress and so much more? And where are the stories about people whose lives are made miserable by the relentless demands of work, with the risk of burnout that they create, often on minimum wage?
These are real stories. They go unreported, and yet they are the lived experience of many, whilst the media is intent on telling them tales of lives so remote from the reality of most of us that they have almost no meaning at all.
Is it a surprise that so many do not pay any attention to the news?
And could that almost be deliberate? Is it better, in the eyes of the politician, that we do not notice what is going on around us so that we do not critically appraise the performance (or lack thereof) of those self-same politicians?
But might it be that this is also the reason why the far-right can recruit – because detachment from reality is already hard-baked into our society, and so believing the tales that the far-right has to tell becomes so much easier?
I stress these are musings written off the cuff in reaction to the absence of news. However, as a wise person once told me, always look at what is not reported when you want to find out what is going on. Even in the absence of many of the so-called normal news stories that generally populate the press and broadcast media, the real issues in life are not getting a look in. And might it be that this is the issue? Are we living in a world where politicians and the media are so used to playing a game that revolves around each other that they cannot, will not, or do not want to face up to the reality of life as it is, which is why the right-wing fantasists get their chance?
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1 In fairness, Thomas made that observation apropos what he regarded as the beginning of the end of the New York Times, when Punch Sulzberger joined the board of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. But IMHO Thomas’ point is generally applicable.
British media have long since been pure propaganda outfits, especially when it comes to issues such as Ukraine. Generally speaking, such output is uncritically and unchallengely accepted. Richard Murphy is a classic case in point, clearly unreflectively pro Ukraine and anti Putin in certain asides he includes in his posts. That goes for most commentators of his ilk. One notable exception is Craig Murray, of which Murphy has been dismissive.
So, here is where I get to be a little contrarian. Everyone likes to quote the adage that “sunshine disinfects” and if we have ‘reporting’ on the political process we will get a result that better serves the public. The pressure for supposed leaders, at all levels, to feed the beast with daily soundbites actually makes the hard job of governing much more complex. Working out deals to me seems easier if you don’t have to go out in from of cameras every fifteen minutes.
I also think that the media, for financial reasons, has become so focused on short term ratings and clicks that they focus on the spectacular and meaningless. For example, when the Amtrak train crashed between Philly and NYC the news readers were speechless about how terrible this was and the need to do something about it — implement auto speed controls on trains. Yet, deaths from passenger rail travel is almost not statistically different than zero. You would think from all the time helicopters spend hovering over the wreckage that this is a massive crisis? It made for good TV, as do so many other things. Its easier to do, it feeds short-termism and is distracting.
Well, as a journalist, you can still try to put events into perspective, as you just did. Actually, that is part of the job description. Missing out on it regularly by instead calling for exaggerated measures is a clear failure. Facts vs. opinion.
And yet, can a democracy function without a journalistic fourth estate? I would say no because without transparency in governance, “democracy” is just another flavor of totalitarianism. Without a fourth estate to continually challenge it, government will always strive to be as opaque as possible. The public ceases to be the legitimate protagonist of democracy when it is not allowed to observe what its government is doing.
The author correctly mentions that news is omitted. He does not mention, though, that it is usually omitted intentionally in order to fit to the official narrative as part of an overall propaganda endeavor.
In that case, should real news of the fourth estate type which is intended to hold government and powerful entities to account be a commercial enterprise at all? It does not seem possible to me for a fourth estate enterprise to be a for-profit/profit-above-all industry. The real quest, IMO, should be on how to have and maintain a vibrant journalistic fourth estate media.
In the meantime, mainstream media in general should be forced to run huge disclaimers in all its media that stress that their product is not news or journalism but simply fantasy for entertainment value or straight government propaganda.
Disclaimer not needed. Those who’ve studied the function of propaganda (Jacques Ellul, Michael Parenti, Chomsky/Herman, etc..) know that that “function” is control, one aspect of it, by minority over majority. Democracy? Not possible in mass society. Techno-feudalism is what have and what will continue to evolve pari passu as technology becomes ever more advanced (Varoufakis, Guido Preparata, Michael Hudson).
Amen, Amen, Amen. Those of us who know something of politics through direct experience and have read the authors you mentioned and have know, socially, media dudes and dudettes know the score. Let me put it this way, it closely mirrors Hollywood or software development meetings even. Anyway, I used to read the Soviet press in the 70s and 80s occasionally and what struck me then was that the stories, at that time, in contrast to Stalinist times, were quite erudite and well-written but also with contained a good deal of fantasy and anti-West propaganda as is today’s news in the Empire (US and its minions).
I remember a truism from years ago, essentially the USSR citizenry understood the news was propaganda but their counterparts in the USA didn’t grasp this. Before the term “woke” was co-opted and many americans proudly considered themselves the Silent Majority, those who weren’t silent read and exchanged books and streetcorner newspapers sold for donations. Ramparts a glossy exception.
Fully agree. In the absence of a “vibrant journalistic fourth estate media” can we at least get people to understand that they are dealing with propaganda, and process the information accordingly? For those fully embedded in the matrix the only way I see that this can happen is if inconsistency in reporting is noticed, and followed up on with alternative sources. A good example here would be differential treatment in the UK media of Israeli actions (genocide as “self defence”) vs Russian actions (self defence as “unprovoked invasion”). But many people – particularly those from the PMC in my experience – seem incapable of noticing that which once seen becomes totally cringeworthy.
Over the weekend there was a link to a Wapo article about the ending Biden administration, and poor Joe’s lonely world of “no friends in high places”. This column highlighted what I will illustrate in my next paragraph, that a leading or headline narrative can be “truthful enough” to be a sufficient mistelling of facts on the ground….aka the truth of Bidenomics is that the results are a mixed bag.
As in the last 4 to 6 quarters of reported GDP and US economic activity would naturally suggest a robust growth environment across most sectors. However the reality is wage growth had struggled to keep apace once inflation was roaring about 2022 onward. And then inflation has trended lower yes, but we’re still at a cost index approximately 25% to 40% above levels circa late 2019 depending on what you measure and how the consumer goods are measured. In real terms that effing stings.
Services… Insurance….just two easy examples and that is before we get into owners equivalent rent and new realities of home ownership costs and lesser demand as mortgage rates increased. And going back to the aforementioned Wapo column, that column showed historians ranking Biden as the “14th best president” as compared to Trump 45th administration ranking last….FFS.
Should it be pointed out that homelessness in the US has increased 33% since Biden came into office – not that the media would tell you. As one guy said in X, ‘People only care about you if you have a Rolex’. I’ve said before that I no longer watch the TV news for actual news. I watch it to see what the latest narratives are and sometimes they are one after another. Now that the main stream media completely discredited themselves last year, there is a frantic push to bring under western control any social media which is not based in the US such as Tik Tok and Telegraph. Issues like homelessness must be expunged and you can’t do that unless you control every social media organization in the world-
https://xcancel.com/PushBidenLeft/status/1874863227227816242#m
It should also be pointed out that in the USA the lifespans continue to go down year-in-year-out. We have the worst health-care system in the world (by a country mile as we used to say). Our society has its positive aspects, also unreported and misreported by the MSM which focuses only on the concerns of the PMC who are the audience they aim at. The also refuse to report on the nature of the Empire and how it works politically and economically–they even insist we are a “democracy” which we are not in practical terms and cannot be considering the structure of our society, i.e., which is profoundly and ideologically anti-community both in law and tradition. The MSM is gloriously anti-itellectual and ignorant of history, philosophy, sociology, and psychology–science fares no better.
Let’s face it. The poor are so boring. They need to get over it, stop the self-pity and move on. Like to that new workhouse. They also make the well-off feel guilty and that’s not fun. Why should people have to read about them or listen to their dull stories?
I need more brunch ideas, okay? I read about a new place that just opened. It sounds fabulous. Then maybe hot yoga later or reiki? So many decisions, so little time.
The poor should eat cake.
They should eat the rich.
I’ve been thinking for some time that the other aspect is the splintering of the production and reporting functions at the newspapers. We tend to emphasize the importance of the reporters, but newspapers needed to employ large numbers of blue collar workers to print and deliver the newspapers everyday. But over the past few decades, newspapers have moved the printing further and further away, often contracting to third parties.
For example, The Boston Globe used to have its operations consolidated at a large facility in South Boston. About ten years ago, it sold the headquarters and moved the news operations to a Class A building in downtown Boston, the printing press was moved to Taunton, which is more than an hour from the city. In addition, the paper also sold its operation that distributed newspapers years earlier.
Combined with the increased education levels mentioned by Yves, it seems to have contributed to a loss of solidarity amongst newspaper employees (also helped by the fact that the “no news organization layoffs” statements result in more of these employees are let go). I’ve said that the Globe reporters would learn more about America and the elections from spending a week exploring and talking to people in Taunton than by conversations with the elites on Beacon Hill and Washington.
I used to sit in a coffee shop during the first invasion of Iraq, arguing with my friends that North American news was slop, and pointed to the Guardian as what news should be, compared the text with various American newspapers. I would hold the papers side by side. Observe the greater number and density of words in the Guardian, I would say, and the smaller fonts which allows more wordage per space. Observe how sentences and paragraphs are constructed, I would say. See how the British media is neutral and critical whereas American media is not. See how the Guardian asks this, that and the other question, whereas American media does not. See how with the Guardian piece we learn XYZ, come away informed or with thought provoking conundrums, whereas with American media we do not. See how Guardian readers must read, but American readers spend as little time as possible reading.
Nowadays, even the Guardian has become American media.
There’s the matter of reading levels. I think American media at the time was grade 9 or lower (in US terms), but UK media was at university level.
In the Iraq war run up one USA newspaper chain, Knight-Ridder, was skeptical.
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/knight-ridder-small-team-US-journalists-Iraq-war
The New York Times got the war it wanted and later had a retrospective to show its concern.
One of the main issues is that paper newspapers and TV news are no longer central in getting stories to people and in people’s perceptions of what is happening / who is a reliable source of news.
These images in films simply no longer make sense to Americans: Newspapers rolling off presses with major announcements (often to reinforce plot points). The whole plot of Network. The scene in All about Eve in which the characters are waiting for the theater reviews to come out in the late editions of the newspapers…
I will stress Yves Smith’s point about the classifieds and other small advertisements and how decline in those revenues killed off newspapers. The story of the Chicago Reader, which has been wandering around for several years in the wilderness, is illustrative. Before about 2005, it was the main alternative weekly on paper in Chicago. It mattered. It had a classified section for apartments that was the go-to rentals listing in Chicago. The personal ads were so interesting and varied that people read it for entertainment. There was an important “matchbox” category in those days before Tinder, Grindr, and Okay Cupid. Again, these convenient and central sources of information no longer exist.
Other important class indicators: The end of labor beats. News no longer includes coverage of labor unions. Here in Italy, where unions still matter, news regularly includes coverage of workers’ issues and of unions. In short, no reporters covering the bottom 80 percent.
Another: End of advice columns with mass appeal like Ann Landers and Dear Abby. They may have come across as middlebrow busybodies, but they also knew what was bothering average citizens. Dan Savage has hung on for a while, but who else is out there?
Another: The end of the religion beat. At one time, religion was covered in the news — and not just scandals of the clergy with their noses in the parishioners’ underpants (in fact, those sorts of scandals weren’t covered at all). If Americans supposedly are such a religious people (a dubious proposition but an enduring cliché), where’s the coverage?
Another: The old-style “home economics” sections, which were pitched to women. They had recipes. Yet they also discussed the price of seasonal foods, the price of yard goods, and many other issues related to maintaining a middle-class family.
The Chicago Reader sounds a lot like The Stranger in Seattle, which is the local weekly where I believe Dan Savage got his start (and I waited on him once back in the Salad Days!). They would distribute it to all the local watering holes and people were on the lookout for it every week. Savage’s column and the classifieds were also a top draw in the Stranger too, especially the “I Saw You” section, which people read religiously to see if they’d been seen. They also did some decent local reporting too from time to time.
Last I knew I think they had gone to digital only. Anybody still in Seattle who might know if there is still a dead tree version?
Also the death of local small town newspapers has meant zero information about local politics, like school boards and municipal councils and mayors — it’s a serious problem.
Re: Home economics
In preparation for the Christmas cooking, and for nostalgia and expat longing reasons i watched A few episodes of Fanny Craddocks cookery show from the mid 70s on BBC iPlayer. There were continual references to how tight money was and of being economical.
It stood out since I watched modern day The Hair Bikers and Mary Berry at around the same time and they didn’t talk about that angle to food ingredient prices at all.
And I would say money is still tight in the UK today .
The ‘70s in the UK were particularly bleak in comparison to the ‘00s and beyond, but no worries … Labour is on it.
I’ve been wondering if local papers with boring old beat reporters would have noticed that one of their reps was in a care home a but sooner They wouldn’t need a Washington desk.
(The original local story reads as though the reporter’s source was Twitter and TicTok. She dropped off the map (last vote) mid summer. No actual reporting to confirm she was not ar her job until after Thanksgiving. The reporter’s history sounds like reports from people’s staffers following meetings or based on constient complaints. But who knows what pressures the guy was under.)
I recall a bit of scolding when people wanted to talk about Hillary Clinton being MIA for weeks on the campaign trail.
Under neoliberalism, all businesses deteriorate. The news media is no exception. Real journalism costs money, time and risk-taking. Shareholders don’t like it. The only ideal media for them is AI-generated clickbait that generates advertising revenue.
The media produces a lot of content. It’s not really a monolith. What matters more is the choice of consumers to view, listen or read, and where they choose to cluster, leaving a lot of good content ignored. The cost for high quality information is one contributing problem. Whereas lies and propaganda are free.
The website for the biggest city newspaper in my part of the state regularly has the latest about sports teams at the top of the page, maybe a sidebar about a city council session or the governor’s latest photo op, and halfway down you get several stories about, e.g., Popeye’s new sandwich or the latest donut flavor from Dunkin’. Then at the bottom are heart-rending stories about the terminal illness of some “iconic” (washed up long ago, in other words) frontman for a 1970s or 1980s rock band. I mean, what is this crap? But I’m sure when AI is writing all the news stories we’ll see a yuge improvement. Unless maybe it already is?
It might as well be; the intelligence is increasingly artificial, whether analog or digital.
Are there still actual newspapers any more? Ya know, the paper & ink kind.
I subscribed to the KC Star for decades, but dropped that several years ago. It just kept getting thinner & thinner and the price kept going up. I don’t remember the last time I saw a rolled up paper in the front yard of any house in my neighborhood…
There is still one delivered twice weekly in Southern Pines NC. It is a decent paper which covers local news, local govt, and sports. They also publish other things to help out the financial side of things. But yes, classifieds are mostly gone. A fair amount of legal stuff is published in the back which brings good money I suspect.
I’ve got family in Greensboro, and reports are that a Sunday only delivery had recently skyrocketed up to maybe $500 per year…a wise decision was made to not renew. Anecdotally for myself I used to pick up the voluminous Sunday issue by the Dallas Morning News and the last time I did so was in 2015…the stand price ( at a 7-11 usually ) was probably $5…but I left in 2015…
Funny enough I made small time scratch before I was 16 by selling a small town version that ran two days per week, growing up in eastern NC….now that I’m still “starting into” my 50s that memory is from long ago. A memory nonetheless…Like hearing an old track by Poison or Def Leppard!
I check in with the NYT every morning, to see what the establishment wants us to believe. And, the food porn. New Year’s Day, an article appeared, top right column: Passengers Say Turkish Airlines Flights Have Bedbugs.
My immediate reaction …. ohhhhh, that was planted, and is it the kickoff for moving Türkiye over into the ‘enemies’ column?
A brief internet search brought up the information that, yes, bedbugs do exist on airplanes, according to cleaning services. So, some truth, apparently. And, ‘passengers say,’ so that clinches it!
My digital subscription is paused and I may cancel it. I’m fed up.
I don’t have a subscription to NYT, Alice X. That ended at least 10 years ago.
When they talk about things that matter, for instance house pricing, they do it always from the point of view of business. If house prices climb is good news, sign of strength. As if everyone was impacted equally by that. Their objective public is not the populace.
Twitter has a Zionist NY post reporter, blithely wandering through the NO kiiler’s house, No crime scene tape, she’s not wearing gloves or a suit, touching stuff.
Absolutely corrupting the “crime scene”. So I guess that part of it is all fake.
There’s “News” for you.
The world’s most trusted media are China’s, followed by Singapore’s.
Both have similar press codes: no hyping, no sexualization, sensationalizing.
1. No infringing, fake accounts, libel, disclosing trade secrets, or invading privacy;
2. No sending porn to attract users;
3. No torture, violence, killing of people or animals;
4. No selling lethal weapons, gambling, phishing, scamming, or spreading viruses;
5. No organizing crime, counterfeiting, false advertising, empty promises or bullying;
6. No lotteries, rumor-mongering, promoting superstitions;
7. No content opposing the basic principles of the Constitution, national unity, sovereignty, or territorial integrity;
8. No divulging State secrets or endangering national security.
In our rules-based media regime they won’t tell us what the rules are.
I gave up my NY Times some months ago, and look at the Guardian, LA Times, and Sacramento Bee online. Pictures and clickbait everywhere, and as you scroll through half the stories are old and stuck to the page, The Bee (A Chicago Tribune property now I think) has half their article headers posed as questions, they hate to give away anything, so click thru and behold the filler. They never asked half the questions they should have asked themselves before publishing.
In U.K. once Eddie Shah took on SOGAT and NGA at Wapping and Rupert Murdoch saw his chance the money in print shifted from operatives to newsroom which rewarded opinion writers.
This was more pronounced after Thatcher gave Murdoch The Times and BSkyB to create an empire supporting her. She then used Broadcasting Act to destroy World in Action and Panorama and investigating journalism just as Murdoch scrapped the Sunday Times Insight Team
I think Herman and Chomsky’s Propaganda Model (Manufacturing Consent, 1988) is still highly relevant and presents a great way to interpret what we see in the media. The book could do with an update to account for the social media age – perhaps along the lines of Yves’ fantastic intro here – but remains essential reading. The authors advocated for ‘intellectual self defence’ teaching, which of course never happened, perhaps explaining the widespread intellectual disablement we see now.
Another front in the assault on the citizenry’s capacity to inform themselves is taking place with the enclosure of the results generated by search engines. I’m interested to hear others’ thoughts/strategies on this. It has become very difficult to get a not-completely-biased view when it comes to ‘sensitive’ topics.
We are in the early stages of the metamorphosis of information media. Intelligent people assemble their own news from sites like NC, rather like early audiophiles assembled their own sound systems from components. This takes more skill and effort than most people are able to apply. However, the packaging of useful news by trusted intermediaries is an unmet need, and it will be filled by clever aggregators, probably AI-assisted. People will look back on corrupt mass media as an historic oddity. The world will be a better place when trusted information is abundant and propaganda is obsolete.