The Media’s to blame

The Media’s to blame.

It’s become a catch cry for all of the ills of the world, and you can’t flick through a handful of tweets on #auspol without someone directing all the blame for the state of politics, of the economy, of everyday life… on the media.

It just doesn’t happen to be true. On a bunch of levels.

Firstly, it’s a gross generalisation and gross generalisations are rarely correct. They are the device used by racists, sexists and any other “ists” over the years that seek to clump a whole group in together and say they are somehow all alike and all culpable for something. Gross generalisations allowed Nazis (both OG and Neo) to tell you what the problems were with Jews. They allow Atheists to point out the lack of intelligence of those who believe in a God (and the reverse is true for religious folk against Atheists), In Australia it allowed good honest white folk to tell you why the black fellas were inferior, and also why the white sheilas were inferior too.

So that’s point one… be dubious about any gross generalisation. In the case of the media, this is especially true where the Murdoch media, Sky News, the Fairfax Media and the ABC have very different slants on the news. Ooops, and there I go… generalising… see how easy it is. But for the sake of this argument I just wanted to at least acknowledge a broad perception that some outlets are believed to lean towards one end of the political spectrum, while some lean the other way.

Secondly, there is the label “The media” which has been twisted around more than Nadia Comaneci. There used to be a fairly clear definition… everyone involved in bringing you the news, that’s the media. There were opinion commentators in newspapers and on talkback radio but they were a smaller slice of the pie than journos and news-gatherers.

But then along came cable news and 24 hour news stations. With all of that time to fill, they find a need, or at least a niche, for hours upon hours of commentary. And because it’s packaged up in a news channel, people can make the case that that’s part of the media. And in a way it is. But it’s a bit like if Ambulance workers started to travel around with reps from medical insurance companies… and that rep represented just ONE company and kept pushing you to sign up while life saving heroics were being performed on you by the ambos. Now, the ambos would still be great humans doing indispensable work and it wouldn’t be fair to group them together with the snake oil salesman that was travelling around in the same van with them. But eventually, it would happen.

The biggest shift in the media, aside from the shift of formats such as digital increasing at the expense of print media, is the increase in the numbers of commentators filling media space – both in terms of raw numbers and the hours or page space they fill… at the expense of new gatherers and reporters.

So now we have four or five hours of political commentary shows each night on Sky News (for example)… each with its own unashamed political leaning (mostly to the right) mixed in with news and newsbreaks so that the line between opinion and actual news continues to get more and more blurry. And the ultimate irony within that is when these commentators single out the failings of the media or what the media has done wrong (or some have taken to blaming “the mainstream media” as if that’s a separate body … again a gross generalisation… when they really mean the segments of the media that disagree with them) whilst seemingly unaware of the fact that they too are part of this growing lump we’re calling The Media, and that they too are contributing to the perpetuation of the ongoing analysis and talk-fest cycle.

And that’s a huge part of the issue that people are now blaming The Media for. Analysis overload and the need to dramatise and heighten even minor events to make them newsworthy. And yes, SOME of that is perpetuated by journos (some of them are flawed humans too… guilty, your honour) but MUCH of it is fuelled and exacerbated by the commentariat, who simultaneously dedicate hours or air time, or gallons of ink, or spools of whatever people spool on radio to talking about an issue whilst simultaneously critiquing how often it gets talked about. All the time blaming the media.

So the first point was that the media includes so many diverse players it’s nonsensical to group them all together, the second point was that there is now an overabundance of commentators encroaching what used to be “pure” journalism. But there’s an equally important, or more important, third point.

It’s no longer just about the media. If all sources of news outlets stopped work tomorrow, social media would still beat up, attack, and critique pollies, personalities, perceived threats, foods with too much gluten and foods with not enough gluten unabated. It’s disingenuous to yell “the media’s to blame for saying the sort of stuff that I and everyone else is saying regularly.”

If you spend a good portion of your time arguing the various merits of the Turnbull v Abbott, and newspapers begin to reflect that these debates are happening… is that their fault?

While I believe, from having worked with MANY journalists that the bulk are honest, dedicated and mostly altruistic individuals who speak truth to power, expose injustices and advise on information that we need to know, it is also true that newspapers and other media outlets need to make a buck, and they make a buck by reporting on things that people want to read or hear. So if you are railing against a newspaper reporting on immigration… trust me… they’d stop if their papers stopped selling. If a story is getting a lot of coverage, then there’s a market for it as distasteful as that sometimes is, so do you blame the company that meets that demand and yet absolve all those keen to read it? Blame is rarely unilateral.

A politician cheats on his missus and wants to tell his story to the world… the media’s to blame.

A president abuses people with disabilities (verbally) and young women (physically)… the media’s to blame.

Cricketers rort a result… the media’s to blame.

And that system works if there is no such thing as personal responsibility, or if these topics aren’t already going ballistic on social media. But otherwise…

For sure, argue about the slant journos or media outlets take. Many outlets ARE starting to align themselves with one side of politics or the other and THAT bugs me as much as anyone. So yeah, bag the ones that are biased, but that isn’t all of them. There are still MANY good, ethical, unbiased journos.

Today’s journos are tomorrow’s historians. Those investigating today’s truths provide the facts that we and future generations will read and learn from.

There are journos who just want to make a name for themselves. There are journos that just want to sensationalise. There are biased journos but you can find bad representatives in all careers and industries. There are bad cops, bad pollies, bad dentists, but I don’t believe the bulk of any career type is rubbish. And that includes the media. Without them, the rich and powerful get a free hand to do what they want unnoticed and unreported. Look at the countries without an independent media before you wish ours away.

But if you’re lazy, dopey or like blaming others for your own failings… for sure… continue to say The Media’s to Blame.