BY MICHAEL JOHNSON

part one

            Two rather bizarre diatribes by public figures recently broke through the health care coverage for a brief moment and focused much needed attention on the plight of the news media.

            The first was an emotional outburst by Congressman Patrick Kennedy of Rhode Island against the media for not covering the House of Representatives debate on a resolution on the U.S. role in Afghanistan.  The second was a surprisingly vicious attack on Roger Ailes, president of the Fox News Network by Howell Raines, former executive editor of the New York Times, which ran, oddly enough, on the editorial pages of the Washington Post.

      Kennedy angrily compared the excessive media coverage of the New York congressman who resigned after it was learned he apparently had a penchant for pinching, to the sparse coverage of the Afghanistan resolution (there were only two reporters in the House press gallery).  While he may have picked the wrong example on which to vent, he expressed what a lot of us feel, that the media has lost its way; that it is corrupted by its own financial interests, its political biases and its intellectual arrogance.
 
          Raines, proved Kennedy right, illustrating with disjointed logic, lousy prose, and an archaic liberal prejudice that the establishment or traditional media (what he called the ‘old-school organizations’) is clearly out of touch and in decline. Raines huffed and puffed, demanding to know why his former colleagues had not “blown the whistle” on Ailes for engaging in a propaganda campaign against President Obama.  It was a diatribe by any definition–a spiteful, denunciation that wasn’t educational, inspirational, informative, or thought provoking.  But the Post published it anyway. You have to wonder why.

             The Kennedy outburst and the Raines diatribe remind us, though, that the decline of the establishment media is real and it may be as urgent a critical issue as health care, the national debt or the security of our borders. It is not hyperbole to suggest that our democratic-republic is dependent more than ever on an informed, educated and enlightened public. But the public can’t meet that test without the knowledge that is gained in part from reliable, unbiased, informed and intelligible news. This pillar of our society is crumbling.  And in its place we are getting an internet pipeline that spews a lot of crud—junk information, gossip, and uninformed opinion. Worst of all, the time-honored business model for news delivery is being replaced by one similar to that practiced by Arianna Huffington.  According to Reliable Source anchor Howard Kurtz, the Huffington model, which she used to explain her publication of false rumors about  New York Gov. Paterson, is:   ‘We print whatever information we get as quickly as we can and then just let it “self-correct.’  Self-correcting news?  Oh, my.

           This isn’t about Roger Ailes or the extent to which Fox News is biased. Fox is biased, but so is the New York Times, MSNBC, the Washington Post, the Washington Times and WMAL radio. There isn’t much “objective” news printed, blogged or broadcast anywhere and there hasn’t been probably since Watergate. Bias is a method of doing business and the degrees to which one outlet does it compared to another is just not relevant. 
 

            There are too many angry and slanted voices on all sides, exploiting fears and creating divisions for fun and profit.  Fox has Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly.  MSNBC has Chris Matthews and Rachel Maddow.  CNN has Rick Sanchez and Kyra Phillips.  The New York Times has Paul Krugman and Maureen Dowd.  The Post has Dana Milbank and E.J. Dionne.  The Washington Times has Oliver North and Michelle Malkin.  Feigned anger and righteous indignation is a business and unfortunately, it’s a business that attracts customers. 
          
            And it is too easy to say it’s confined to partisan political bias. It is. That is well documented. But it is more than that.  It runs much deeper and is far more pervasive, some of it driven by the personal, political and social prejudices of writers, editors, executive producers and managers.   Some of it is driven by an insatiable appetite for ratings and readership.  Some of it is driven by the oversized egos of journalists, journalists trying to be celebrities and celebrities turned marketing brands.  Much of the bias is subtle enough, that those who engage in it can, and do, deny it, justify it, or simply dismiss it and the critics who complain about it. 

           
            The tragedy is you can’t decouple the fall of the establishment media from the rancorous, bitter partisanship in government or the don’t-mess-with-me attitude on Wall Street, or the disengaged young people who consider Jon Stewart their Walter Cronkite. You can’t decouple the fall of the media from large swaths of the American population who think every politician is corrupt and every populist, political outsider is a breath of fresh air.

            The tragedy is the establishment media are in a state of complete denial, about the quality and relevance of the product they produce and the negative influence they have.   Except for Howard Kurtz and some in-house ombudsmen, top executives down through part-time reporters and producers are highly fortified against and isolated from legitimate criticism.  Patrick Kennedy’s speech was brushed aside like a pesky gnat.  Institutionally, the media have little meaningful oversight—much less than the people and institutions they criticize– and media professionals spend too much time talking to each other, interviewing each other, socializing with each other, and looking over each other’s shoulder, and they spend entirely too much time looking in the mirror.

            The public needs to be drawn into a serious debate over the future of their sources of news. Only the public can bring about change and help ensure that the quality of their news is preserved and protected. Our institutions of government and politics are too fickle to fight with an industry that still buys ink by the barrel.  Media critics have no outlets for their criticism, so reform must come from the bottom up.   The challenge is making media reform compelling.  

Editors’s Note: Mike Johnson is a former journalist, who worked on the Ford White House staff and served as press secretary and chief of staff to House Republican Leader Bob Michel, prior to entering the private sector.  He is currently a principal with the OB-C Group.