For
more than two decades, SYNERGY/Planning has
documented that human settlement pattern
dysfunctions are caused by, and/or exacerbated
by, the MainStream Media’s ignorance,
misrepresentation and distortion of land use,
transport and conservation issues. (See End
Note One.)
This
ignorance, misrepresentation and distortion is
an indication of a more complex phenomenon than
is summarized by this oft heard observation:
“The Fourth Estate has abdicated its
responsibility.”
As
documented below, concern for the health of
MainStream Media is widespread and so is
condemnation for what is seen as the abandonment
of its responsibility. Here is an example
concerning governance reform:
“Meanwhile,
the Fourth Estate is inert, serving up an
increasing diet of cotton candy in a desperate
bid to retain readers, and abandoning any
pretense of investigative journalism.” (See End
Note Two.)
Such
views are common, not just a theme of blog
postings, online fora and “the alternative
press.” The harshest assessments are by
seasoned journalists with experience in the
MainStream Media. (See End
Note Three.)
What
is going on here? Are things as bleak as the
critics and the financial instability of the
flagships of MainStream Media would lead one to
believe? These are questions worthy of careful
consideration by all citizens, not just
journalists.
Accepting
Full Responsibility
To
this point MainStream Media (aka, The Fourth
Estate) has accepted, embraced, and still
fiercely defends its capacity to identify,
articulate and disseminate “news.” Hardly a
day goes by that a journalist does not
pontificate on Journalism’s (with a Capital
“J”) moral and ethical obligations. The
pages, page views and television screens of
MainStream Media are papered with these
pronouncements. Most observers understand
“news” to mean the information citizens need
to make intelligent decisions in the marketplace
and in the voting booth.
Accurate
“news” -– facts and intelligent
articulation of the full range of perceptions
concerning reality -– is an absolute
necessity for citizens to create and maintain
a democracy with a market economy.
Assuming
responsible for “news” is an enormous burden
in a technology-driven society with educated,
urban citizens and their Organizations competing
for every advantage. It is nice that MainStream
Media has “accepted” responsibility to
provide “news” but most outside observers
agree that they are not delivering on their
promise.
A
Fundamental Conflict
The
reality is that MainStream Media has become
hobbled by a profound conflict in its effort to
provide “news.”
On
the one hand there is the moral obligation to
provide “news,” but on the other hand there
are the contemporary economic facts of life.
The
Enterprises that control MainStream Media have
a legal obligation to maximize profits for
owners and stockholders.
What
is good for stockholders is not necessarily good
for citizens (individuals and Households). The
obligation to maximize profits means MainStream
Media must support, and in fact has become the
major contributor to, maximizing consumer
consumption (aka, Mass OverConsumption).
First,
there is advertising that drives Mass
OverConsumption.
MainStream
Media supports Mass OverConsumption overtly
through dissemination of advertising and
covertly by not questioning the validity or
impact of advertising.
This
is especially true in the case of mobility and
shelter advertising, both of which are critical
to understanding human settlement patterns.
The
MainStream Media conflict-based disability
concerning advertising is compounded by
declining revenue for traditional operations.
Economic necessity causes media Enterprises to
avoid reporting on -– or even acknowledging
-– issues that might upset advertisers or
challenge the “consumption-equals-happiness”
myths that drive Mass OverConsumption.
Both
advertising and “news” coverage have a
dramatic impact on the evolution of
dysfunctional human settlement patterns, making
MainStream Media activities a prime cause of the Mobility and Access
Crisis, the Affordable and Accessible Housing
Crisis and the Helter Skelter Crisis.
MainStream
Media coverage of the Mobility and Access
Crisis, the Affordable and Accessible Housing
Crisis, the Helter Skelter Crisis and other
aspects of economic, social and physical reality
negatively impact not just settlement patterns
but also resource conservation, food, health and
territory security, balance of payments and
international trade, Climate Change and many
other critical issues. These issues are examined
at length in the sources listed in End
Note One.
The
bottom line is that MainStream Media does not
provide the information necessary for citizens
to make intelligent choices in the voting
booth or in the market place.
MainStream
Media coverage of issues that impact governance
and human settlement patterns at best meet only
narrow, technical interpretations of “balanced
journalism” (aka, “He Said, She Said
Journalism” that is explored in Part III of
this Backgrounder). MainStream Media reportage
and editorials do not meet the moral and ethical
challenges of providing citizens with the
information they need to make intelligent
decisions. The reason for this is clear:
The
MainStream Media has morphed to become the
mouthpiece of Business-As-Usual and Mass
OverConsumption. (See End
Note Four.)
Credit
Where Credit Is Due
Before
launching into the bad and the ugly of
contemporary media, let us make sure that
everyone is on the same page: Let us acknowledge
that MainStream Media still plays an important
beneficial role in citizens lives. Award-winning
“journalism” makes significant contributions
to citizens safety and happiness.
There
is general agreement that major Regional daily,
papers which constitute the “flagships” of
MainStream Media, do some things well:
-
They
ferret out evil doers that are the pet
peeves of publishers. A good example is
Donald E. Graham’s (The Washington Post
Co., aka, WaPo.) crusade against
excessive tax deductions for actions
intended to promote “conservation.”
-
They
harp on oft-maligned but Teflon-coated, old-
line subsidies and pork barrels such as
agricultural subsides, Corps of Engineers
waterway projects, union featherbedding,
defense contracting, bridges-to-nowhere,
etc.
What
is not to love about the current WaPo
series “Harvesting Cash” on the gross
excesses and inequities of the federal
agricultural subsidy program – unless you are
ADM, Cargill, ConAgra, et. al.? Who but
the ghost of J. Edgar Hoover is not a winner
when WaPo teams up with CBS’s 60
Minutes to skewer the FBI for its ballistic
lab crimes?
It
is notable that only the most blatant excesses
have been successfully addressed. Many, like
sugar, cotton and corn subsidies, federal facility earmarks for
West Virginia and Corps of Engineers waterway
projects (a veto of the most recent
appropriation bill was recently overridden),
have more lives than a cat despite the best
efforts to terminate unfair and unethical
practices.
While
they win awards in all these categories,
MainStream Media has failed to address the more
fundamental, systemic problems such as:
This
is particularly frustrating because efforts by
individual reporters and editors in business
sections, health sections (and even sports
sections) of MainStream Media unearth the
information necessary to address the root cause
of core problems such as dysfunctional human
settlement patterns. (See "Where
the Jobs Are," 24 May 2004.)
Something deep within the
structure of MainStream Media keeps them from
connecting the dots. As we shall see, the
core problem is that the context of journalism
has changed and the primary interest of the
owners/stockholders of MainStream Media limit
the scope of inquiry, the level of detail and
the thus the function of what was The Fourth
Estate.
These
comments upon the things journalism still does
right applies primarily to the print outlets of
the flagships of Journalism. The electronic
media, including the television and online
outlets owned by print media Enterprises, are
almost completely compromised by their focus on
entertainment and advertising. (This topic is
examined in PART III. For a further exploration
of this issue see the section titled “The
Sources of Information” starting on page 41 of
Chapter 2, The Shape of the Future
and in End Note One. Also
see End
Note Five.)
The
Scope of Mainstream Media Dysfunction
As
the lead for blog postings and columns about yet
another milestone on the path to the demise of
“journalism as we knew it,” Jim Bacon often
asks “Who will gather the news?” That is a
good question: Who will gather the news when
traditional “journalism” disappears? (See End
Note Six.)
However,
is “Who will gather the news?” the right
question to ask? Should the question be: “Who
will provide citizens with the information
(facts about reality) they need to decide what
course of action is in their best interest –
today and in the long term?”
Citizens
need facts -– and, as we document, a
Comprehensive Conceptual Framework and a
functional Vocabulary -- before they can
understand their best interests and make
intelligent decisions in the market place and
in the voting booth. Democracy and free
markets depend on citizens coming to an
intelligent “public judgment” as outlined
in The Shape of the Future.
In
a clear indication of the depth of MainStream
Media’s predicament is this statement on 14
October 2007 by Deborah Howell, the ombudsperson
of The Washington Post (aka, WaPo):
“The
Post, like most big-city newspapers, is
suffering from decreasing revenue and so is
doing less...”
Howell
is correct about the finances but is not correct
about what WaPo is and where it is
located. WaPo is the major daily
newspaper in the fourth largest Region in the US
of A, one of the most important New Urban
Regions on the planet. It is not in a “big
city” and the focus of its news coverage is
not the “city.” This may seem like semantics
but it is much, much more, as any reader of The
Shape of the Future and the columns of
the same title at Bacon’s Rebellion
understands.
The
flagship Regional (they like to promote
themselves as “national”) newspapers that
were the standard bearers of Journalism with a
capital “J,” are on the decline as Ms.
Howell acknowledges. Almost without exception,
the revenue from readership and newspaper
operations is dropping quarter by quarter. There
are entire Institutions set up just to document
and dissect the decent. (See End
Note Seven.)
A
profound change has swept over Journalism in the
past 50 years. Without exception, the major
aggregators of “news” are now Enterprises.
Among the First Families of Journalism – the
Bancrofts, the Chandlers, the Gannetts, the
Grahams, the Knights, the McClatchys, the
McCormicks, the Ochs-Sulzbergers, the Ridders,
the Scripps – those who still control the
Boards of Directors of the media corporations
have lost control of the trajectory of these
corporations and of Journalism. The corporations
that bear the names of the Gannetts, the Scripps
and the McClatchys (or of flagship Regional
newspapers formally controlled by First
Families) have no ability to give more than lip
service to the ideals of Journalism.
It
is time to recognize that Journalism as we knew
it is an artifact of the past. Likewise, it is
important to understand that much of the regret
that is expressed about the demise of
Journalism, such as that noted in End
Note Three, is really angst concerning the
demise of the context in which Journalism
flourished.
The
Fourth Estate was identified in 1837 and peaked
in influence between 1870 and 1950. The context
and what was the Fourth Estate no longer exists.
However, there is a new context and a new
Four Estates that has not yet been recognized.
This is one of the important realities that
emerges from an examination of The Estates
Matrix.
No
Villains Here
In
The Shape of the Future, we note
that the growing dysfunction of human settlement
patterns is not the result of individuals or
groups intent upon making things worse.
Before we examine the context of MainStream
Media, it is important to understand that the
dysfunctions caused by, and contributed to by,
MainStream Media are not deliberate acts
to confound or hobble the process of
Civilization. As we shall see, the actions of
MainStream Media are the result of forces beyond
the control of those who own and manage
MainStream Media. They are far beyond the
control of those trained in Journalism.
There
is no shortage of attacks on MainStream Media
from both the self-styled “right” and from
the “left.”
Many
of the attacks from the “right” –- by
those who like to call themselves
“conservative” –- are focused on the
perception that the MainStream Media has a
“liberal” bias. Reporters, editors and
publishers are said to be mindlessly supporting
“tax and spend” policies. It is more likely
that these MainStream Media employees and owners
believe that government should “do more” and
that doing more will require resources. In fact
they are right. (See “It
Will Take More Than Lint.” 21 August 2007.)
From
the left comes the charge that reporters,
editors and owners are un-caring shills of
“Big Business” and that they support "tax
cuts for the rich.” It is more likely that
these MainStream Media owners and employees,
like their readers and advertisers, that
government is interfering with their right to
make money. They are also right.
Reporters,
editors and publishers are not “bad people.”
They are doing what they believe is the right
thing to do. Those trained as journalists
who work for MainStream Media are getting older.
They are digging in their heels in a fruitless
attempt to delay the departure of a train that
is already long gone. They think that within the
context as they see it, they are doing the best
they can. That is the question:
What
can those concerned with the trajectory of
MainStream Media do within the context they
now find themselves? The first step is to
understand the context.
The
Need for an Overarching Comprehensive Framework
The
central problem with intelligently articulating
“The Problem With MainStream Media” is that
there has been no overarching Conceptual
Framework with which to articulate the complex
set of evolving circumstances in which
MainStream Media/Journalism has recently
evolved. (For examples of Conceptual
Frameworks see End
Note Eight.)
Peter
Galuszka, quoted in End Note
Three, is absolutely right on every point,
except for his “solution.” Without a context
– a Conceptual Framework – his “solution,”
accepting a lower rate of return in order to
meet the historic, glorious goals of
“journalism,” seems plausible.
The
threshold question on a complex topic like
MainStream Media is: Where do you start to
construct such a framework? One
possible starting point is exploring the concept
that Journalism is/was “The Fourth Estate.”
Why
was Journalism (or, rather ,those who practiced
what became Journalism) declared to be the
“Fourth Estate”? What were the other three
“Estates”? What is the current status of
those Estates?
It
turns out these questions can be answered and
the answers provide a key to constructing a
useful Conceptual Framework for considering the
question:
“Who
will provide citizens with the information they
need to make intelligent decisions?” (See End
Note Nine.)
The
Great Bonus
Our
intent in creating The Estate Matrix was to
explore the rise and fall of the MainStream
Media (aka, The Fourth Estate). It turns out
that this two-dimensional array provides much
more than insight into the abandonment of
MainStream Media’s responsibility.
What
started out as an attempt to provide a
Conceptual Framework for consideration of Main
Stream Media evolved into a framework that
appears to be useful for broad explorations of
the past and future trajectory of
civilization.
Over
the time frame examined in The Estates Matrix
there have been profound, society-wide
“Transformations” as well as fundamental
“Conversions” within the Estates. After
sketching out an introduction to The Estates
Matrix in Part II, this Backgrounder will examine:
These
Transformations and Conversions establish the
context – past, present and future – of
MainStream Media first in, and more recently out
of, the Fourth Estate, which is the subject of
Part III. The Transformations and
Conversions also frame a “Big Picture”
rendered intelligible by The Estates Matrix and
explored in PART II and PART IV of this
Backgrounder.
Wait
Just a Minute!
Many
readers facing another 40 pages of a 50-page
Backgrounder plus APPENDICES will be looking for
an escape hatch. Here is one that will be tried
with some frequency:
“This is all speculation!
There may have been three “Estates” until
1775 but then the American Revolution, the
French Revolution, the turmoil in Russia, the
Revolt in Haiti and other events between 1775
and 1815 wiped out those old systems. This is a
New World...”
Sorry,
there is still the generic hardwiring within
every human. If the events between 1775 and 1815
could have wiped out the need for humans to rely
on a multi-legged ordering structure then the
same would have been true when Emperors were in
power between 400 B.C. and 400 A.D. or when
“The Church” achieved control over much of
what is now the European Union from 600 until
1300 A.D.
To survive, humans rely on a
Balance of powers in the Household, in the clan,
in the city state, in the Kingdom and in
nation-states.
Tne-legged
and two-legged stools do not stand for long.
Humans have not evolved to the point that a
single perspective can be trusted to sustain the
species. That is what democracy and a market
economy are all about.
The
more complex civilization becomes, the more a
Balance of perspectives is required to manage
society for the benefit of all citizens.
It was
very appropriate, if tardy, to identify the
Fourth Estate in 1837. The problem is that in
the ensuing years citizens and their leaders did
not recognize and accommodate Conversions within
the Estates as the contemporay urban society emerged.
For
example, Thomas Jefferson’s coining of the
phrase “separation of church and state”
assumed that a third Estate existed and that
this Estate was made up of well-to-do/landed
gentry. It also assumed that “the church”
would remain an Estate that recognized and
represented the interests of all citizens. In
fact, the five Estate Conversions resulted in a
fundamentally different society with Estates
dominated by
Agencies, Enterprises, Institutions and – if
they choose to take advantage of the opportunity
– citizens (individuals and Households). This
issue will be revisited in PART IV.
Oh
yes, if the First, Second and Third Estate
disappeared at some point, why are those who
purport to be the Fourth Estate still getting
away with talking about it?
--
November 26, 2007
End
Notes
(1).
For a summary of this issue see the 30 April
2007 Bacon’s Rebellion column, “Recent
Clippings." Also see columns “A
Second Stroll with Katrina,” 4 Sept 2007;
“How About
Sustainable Logic,” 16 July 2007; “All
Aboard,” 16 April 2007; and “Solving
the Commuter Problem,” 5 Feb 2007. Most of
the 97 columns and Backgrounders prior to 2007
listed on EMR’s profile
page highlight the impact of MainStream
Media on the Crises involving Mobility and
Access, Affordable and Accessible Housing and
the Helter Skelter scatteration of urban land
uses.
In
addition, see Chapter 2 pages 41 to 50 in The
Shape of the Future for a further
exploration of the anatomy of MainStream Media
including the electronic media. For
specific recent examples of malfeasance of
MainStream Media, see Blog postings “0
For 6," 29 August 2007, and “Connecting
the Dots,” 17 September 007. On the other
hand “Credit
Where Credit is Due” 24 October 2007,
points out where MainStream Media gets at least
part of the message.
(2).
“The
Ruling Party” a chapter of Economy 4.0, by
James A. Bacon is being published at Bacon’s
Rebellion .com.
(3).
Mort Rosenblum’s “Escaping Plato’s
Cave: How America’s Blindness to the Rest of
the World Threatens Our Survival,” St
Martian’s Press 2007 was recently reviewed in
a column titled “Plato’s
Cave” by Peter Galuszka.
(4).
In this context we argue that Organizations that
claim to support conservation and functional
human settlement patterns -- both sustainable
Urbansides and functional, viable Countrysides
-- must find ways to express reality without
relying on, much less parroting, MainStream
Media. A recent exchange with the staff of an
Institution that has a stated mission of
conservation and preservation of Countryside
provided the incentive to seek a comprehensive
exploration of the role of MainStream Media.
See Postscript and APPENDIX TWO (an element of
Part IV).
(5).
Katz, Howard, Reality Show: Inside the Last
Great Television New War, Free Press 2007.
McChesney, Robert W., “Rich Media, Poor
Democracy: Communication Politics in
Dubious Times.” University of Illinois Press,
1999 and the volumes cited in Chapter 2 of The
Shape of the Future from End
Note 33 to End Note 39.
(6).
At S/P we have outlined a new strategy for
“gathering the news” but no one wants to
listen, yet. When Jim Bacon asks the question
“Who will gather the news?”, We are tempted
to say: One thing at a time! Right now we have
to focus on other critical issues. The
trajectory of civilization driven by:
However,
it is important to consider “Who will gather
the news?” and thus this Backgrounder. The
results have illuminated far more that was
originally anticipated.
(7).
See “The
State of the News Media 2007,” the Annual
Report on American Journalism by the Project for
Excellence in Journalism, part of the Pew
Charitable Trusts. Google “newspaper
revenue” for an avalanche of evidence of the
financial state of news media. Profiles of the
worst cases – like the San Jose Mercury News
– are the subject of story after story. To add
insult to injury, The Wall Street Journal
is now controlled by the tabloid king who is
dropping the subscription requirement for the
Journal web site.
(8).
What is a Conceptual Framework? Here
are some simple examples:
It
was impossible to intelligently discuss chemical
compounds that make up the natural world until
the Periodic Table of Elements was developed and
refined.
It was impossible to articulate the
parameters of physical matter – mechanics,
electronics, etc. – until there was a clear
articulation of the Natural Laws of Mathematics
and Physics that provide a range of Conceptual
Frameworks upon which scientists rely.
At the
other end of the scale of physical reality, it
was impossible to intelligently discuss
celestial mechanics or solar system navigation
without a diagram of the Solar System depicting
the relationship between the planets and the
Sun. These tools evolved from the Conceptual
Framework sketched out by Nicolaus Copernicus
but first articulated by Greek astronomers.
The
context of the important Conceptual Frameworks
provided by Nicolaus Copernicus, Andreas
Vesalius, Adam Smith and Henry Hess are spelled
out in Chapter 10 Box 2 of The Shape of
the Future.
In
The Shape of the Future, we argue
that at the center of the spectrum of physical
scale – between the subatomic scale and the
multi-galactic scale – one must have a new
Conceptual Framework to discuss human settlement
patterns. The Shape of the Future
articulates the New Urban Region Conceptual
Framework and a Vocabulary with which to discuss
this Framework. The Shape of the Future
provides tools such as Regional Metrics to
analyze settlement patterns. See GLOSSARY
for definitions of all the Capitalized words in
the prior sentence. Taken together, the
Conceptual Framework, the Vocabulary and these
tools have been called a unified field theory of
human settlement patterns.
In
this context, The Estates Matrix attempts to
establish a Conceptual Framework in which to
examine MainStream Media, Journalism and The
Fourth Estate.
(9).
If citizens are to be well informed, it is
necessary to make the facts about reality
available via an “education system.” As
noted in The Shape of the Future
(Chapters 30, 31 and 32), the current education
system is in need of Fundamental Change.
However, until facts and information exist,
changing the education system will be of
marginal value and may even be counter
productive.
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