Brain Fertilizer

Great minds think alike, or so they say. I'd say I happened to be musing on a subject that a truly great mind was also considering. But he was considering it a day or so earlier, to be able to produce this, today.

The question is: Whom do the journalists* serve?

The military serves the US Constitution first and foremost. Politicians ostensibly serve their constituents. McDonald's serves hamburgers. But whom do the journalists serve?

The question first struck me as I was working out this morning and watching CNN. A quote from a print journalist regarding the tsunami hitting SE Asia/SW Pacific was on the screen, "Where the wave hit, there was total and complete devastation." But in the pictures they showed, while there certainly was extreme damage, the devastation was neither complete, nor total. Another quote was given, "All the earth is vibrating..." (which can also be seen currently over at the Drudge Report as of this writing). Well, duh. That happens with any quake large enough for the shocks to hit the earth's molten core. From what I understand quakes as small as 4.9 (considered "small") can be felt by sensitive instruments around the whole world.

So why are these dramatic quotes being broadcast around the world?

It occurred to me: most journalists want to be the one to memorialize a disaster in a single line. Most journalists want to be the guy who said, "Oh, the humanity!" in the same way that most athletes want to make the last-second, miracle, game-winning score, the way most businessmen want to make the sale of the century, the way doctors want to find the miracle cure. It's beyond garnering of recognition, it's immortality.

So why don't they break out the dramatic and poetic language for our success in Iraq? Or for the successful election in Afghanistan? Why do they reserve their best efforts for the horrible news, the tragic, the sad?

Whom do they serve?

Not the government, of course. They want to be a check on government, and I can't disagree with that sentiment. The power of sunlight on corruption is an amazing thing.

But not the people, either, really. If they served the people, they wouldn't by hyping junk-science global warming, or pushing the Kyoto treaty. They wouldn't have endlessly returned to rumors of President Bush's possible AWOL while all-but-ignoring Kerry's service record, credulously accepting as gospel truth whatever Kerry chose to say about himself.
No, they don't really labor to serve the people, because they actively work to deny the people full access to some information streams.

They serve their employers, to an extent. Except that does anyone think Dan Rather's actions with the forged memos were in the best interest of the CBS corporation? Or even that he deliberately ruthlessly removed anyone who might have the skills and charisma to replace him? No. There is a symbiosis between journalists and their employers, in that greater circulation meets both their goals, but when push comes to shove, journalists serve themselves.

Sure. That's no big surprise. Cynics would say we all are selfish and looking out for our own good, that we all serve ourselves first and foremost.

Except that it seems to be different in journalism. Every profession has "ethics". One way to define ethics is they are a guideline for what you should do so that you don't merely rely on self-interest. Journalistic ethics seem to place a high value on the Truth. That becomes problematic, however, when Truth stops being a collection of facts and starts being an ideology that can be supported or denied depending on how you group or what order you present the facts.

So, yeah, I think even journalistic ethics tend to focus journalists on burnishing their own reputations, rather than serving the people.

Could you say that journalists serve the nation, perhaps?

No. In fact, I wish we had a news media/journalism profession that did serve the nation. The nation is served by protecting it from harm. Harm can come from the government itself, and from dangerous ideas arising from among the people. The news media/journalists are fine at exposing (and hopefully disarming) those threats. But our current news media only helps our enemies in attacking the US.

Some of the methods are obvious: semantic shifts in which terrorists in Iraq and Palestine are "militants" or "freedom fighters". Negative reporting from Iraq that implies the whole country is in chaos instead of showing all the progress that reveals the instability is contained and shrinking. Calling Afghanistan a "quagmire" beforehand, but eliding over the progress the nation has made in the last 3 years and never admitting a mistaken prediction.

But some methods aren't so obvious. I think most people would agree that one of the ways journalists help protect against a tyrannical or corrupt government is by exposing lies and shady aspects. I, at least, am convinced this is so. But the way they go about this is by encouraging leaks "off the record", then pleading immunity from disclosing their sources. This has led to all sorts of journalistic improprieties, including making up quotes just to score political points.

But the real effect of this is to cause the government and all its organs and branches to clam up even tighter, to be even more careful about classifying information and closing potential leaks.

It's roughly analogous to killing the goose that lays the golden egg.

One of the main reasons information is classified in the US security system is to protect the source of the information and the means of collection. If information is in the open (unclassified and non-governmental) news streams, it can be discussed openly. If our news media would spend its resources investigating what our enemies were up to, it would provide plausible sources for otherwise classified information. That makes it easier to disseminate the information not only among government bureaus to the people that need the information, but also to the people of the United States.** For instance, how much would it help the security situation of the United States today if our news media had sniffed out that North Korea wasn't holding to their agreement over nuclear weapon technology? But our news media unfortunately was too busy trying to find something to cover besides Bill Clinton scandals, and so it took until US Intelligence agencies discovered the problem several years later.

Our news media thought a drunk driving arrest from 30 years ago*** was more important than investigating the extent of Chinese attempts to influence our Presidential election process.

Can we get a news media that cares more about the good of the nation than its own agenda? Is that too much to ask?

*news media, anchors, reporters, talking heads...the terminology is necessarily imprecise, but you know what I mean.

**I'm convinced that is the whole purpose for the existence of Jane's military information: to provide the British with plausible cover so they can lower classification or even declassify large chunks of information that is most useful when in the open.

***"We found this spoon, sir."