Joseph Pulitzer once exclaimed, “Our Republic and its press will rise or fall together.” Just more than a century after the death of the famed newspaper publisher, cracks are slowly beginning to materialize in the foundations of both institutions. The United States suffers from polarized, inept governance, a deep divide on meaningful social issues, and the still-painful economic recovery from the 2008 financial crisis. Legislative reform is long overdue on a plethora of fundamental issues, regardless of political position, yet little gets accomplished and the American population appears to be unwilling to unify to demand enacting change.
Pulitzer’s furious competition with William Randolph Hearst fueled the creation of yellow journalism and its characteristic sensationalism and exaggeration. Yet this seemingly unprofessional or unethical presentation of news underwent a serious revival with the growth of the 24-hour news cycle and the constant, direct access to media now obtainable through the Internet. As Jeff Sorenson wrote in a Huffington Post article, CNN’s live reporting, though initially “fresh and convenient,” established the norm for the industry: more networks sought to highjack CNN’s coverage approach, which, Sorenson theorized, resulted in important stories being “purposefully desensitized” to the average news consumer.
Following his logic, the (d)evolution of journalism is a contributing factor for the U.S. population’s inability to maintain any sort of constructive national discourse about important issues such as race relations or gun control. It does indeed seem remarkable that the tragedy in Newtown, the incidents in Ferguson, Missouri, or the National Football League’s response to the physical assaults committed by its players faded away relatively quickly from the public spotlight. When the stories flooded the news, people demanded justice, yet once the news cycle moved on in search of the next eye-catching topic, the momentum dissipated.
A Sensational Press
In an interview with the HPR, Lehigh University professor Jack Lule explained that certain types of stories have always fascinated human beings. The media spotlight simply reflects humanity’s innate gravitation toward particular archetypal plots, such as heroes, villains, floods, and catastrophes, which elucidates why certain headlines continue to attract attention. For Lule, a good reporter is “a good storyteller,” one who is able to recognize the quality and compelling elements within a story. A talented reporter will not need to rely upon overdramatized depictions or snippets to coerce people into reading the story.
But looking around at the headlines of the major television news channels or online publications, the industry suffers from constantly trying to attract the attention of consumers. Upworthy and BuzzFeed famously created the “clickbait” phenomenon: alluring, enigmatic titles with short, condensed snippets of information or videos. Television news coverage heavily emphasizes stimulating imagery and ominous messaging to attract a higher viewership. In a piece published in The Nation, Tom Engelhardt postulated that the tale of the Malaysia Airlines Flight 370’s disappearance contained “thrilling upsides” to fill airtime, so the cable news outlets gobbled up every possible attention grabbing detail. Jon Stewart has ridiculed CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC time after time for the blatant sensationalism in the mainstream media, from its coverage of MH370 to the Boston bombings and the Ebola scare. Because sensation sells, news outlets of all mediums slant their stories to increase their revenue.
Yet Boston University professor Christopher Daly, the author of Covering America: A Narrative History of a Nation’s Journalism, told the HPR that he believes that various “periods of American journalism have had an abundance of sensationalism,” and that today pales in comparison with the 1890s—when the Pulitzer-Hearst competition was at its height. He does note, however, that the current age of journalism contains a “special, web-enabled version” of sensationalism that strongly influences how news is presented. Technology forced a shift in the relationship between the news consumer and the news industry.
In particular, modern technology revolutionized the pace of journalism. University of North Carolina, Greensboro professor Geoffrey Baym argued in an interview with the HPR that because reporting is intertwined with the technological ability to gather and distribute information, audiences now expect to receive content at such an astoundingly rapid speed that it often becomes difficult “for journalists to do the thoughtful work of reporting” along with their responsibilities to be on air and live-tweet. However, Baym argues that sensationalism is not the byproduct of rapid coverage, but rather of “commercialization” and the demands of attracting an audience. News conglomerates are businesses that heavily rely upon advertising revenues and have financial reasons to “maintain the economic status quo,” which encourage producing sensationalized material to gain viewers and page views. For this reason, Baym believes that news organizations are actually more likely to discuss social issues such as domestic violence, which are more conducive to immediate emotional appeals, than analyze the long-term implications of entrenched economic inequality.
Thousands upon thousands of articles get published every single day as websites continuously update their content. Professor Lule cited the “explosion of stories” as the primary reason for the complete eradication of waiting for the news. Technology creates a “flood of information” that enables citizens to access as much news whenever they want about whatever they want.
Indeed, news consumption has proliferated from the newspaper and magazine to phone applications, blogs, and social media sites. Pew Research Center’s Journalism Project revealed that half of U.S. Facebook users get news on the platform and the 18-to-29-year-old demographic are the highest receivers of news via the website. With the abundance of opportunities to take in news images, texts, and videos, Daly, too, analogizes that “we are drinking from the firehouse.”
Such immense volume can prove to be dangerously enticing for readers. Instead of confronting harrowing and widespread issues such as poverty, climate change, or immigration, consumers can easily get distracted with miscellaneous coverage of volcano explosions, Honey Boo Boo, and contentious interfamilial Palin relationships. Lule laments that “we don’t see balance between the spectacle and other news stories.” Ultimately, the bounty of available newsworthy information may come at some cost, because individuals are “overwhelmed by the news flow”: they become less active information-gatherers, and they more readily accept easily accessible and sensationalist stories instead of their more rigorous counterparts. The ubiquitous news coverage saturates the market such that people reject searching out new news sources and retreat to the comforts of their regular news habits.
The Confirmation Bias
Americans continue to be large consumers of news, yet the polarization of the country is reflected in media preferences. The Pew Research Center’s “Political Polarization and Media Habits” discovered that 47 percent of consistent conservatives cite Fox News as their main source of news and 88 percent of that demographic trust Fox News; in comparison, consistent liberals receive news from an amalgamation of CNN, NPR, and the New York Times, and they trust these sources much more than they do Fox News.
This pattern of news consumption has somewhat disturbing implications because it reinforces the seeming inability of Democrats and Republicans to cooperate and compromise in modern American politics. Instead of selecting a variety of news outlets that offer varying opinions, people apparently drastically prefer to confirm their own points of view. Thus, news audiences will be highly motivated to pursue their preferred causes to the exclusion of others, which manifests in a strong sense of individualism but little collective action. Baym astutely notices that journalists “play into the one side versus the other” paradigm that dominates political news shows.
It is unclear whether there is any significant correlation between the rise of the 24-hour news cycle and political activism. The wealth of news that exists, however, might not translate into a better-informed citizenry. In fact, the statistics and surveys seem to indicate that people are only using news to reaffirm political opinions. Thus, news seeks to corroborate its viewership, which suggests that outlets will drop coverage on an issue once another topic comes around that resonates with their audience. Our current news is in need of a thorough self-examination to address the problematic nature of always producing content. If people accept journalism’s hot-potato coverage—momentarily latching on to a sensational issue before tossing it away for the next—then important stories will continue to fade away. News companies must acknowledge the ethical implications of prioritizing profit over content. If people continue to passively absorb the news stories at hand, then the system will plod along unchanged. Let us not forget Pulitzer’s quote; if we neglect the quality of our journalism, we are only hurting our nation.
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