1995-03-05: Do You See What I See? Media Images and Manipulation (part 2)

Transcription:

Protection of a free press in America was designed to provide a
safe environment in which to report the news objectively without
fear of harassment from politicians. Thus American citizens
could get "the real story" of how our government is being run.
And although there have been attempts to limit the power of the
press, journalists are by and large free to report the news
without political interference.
Why then has the public confidence in the fairness and accuracy
of the news media plummeted? Public confidence in the media has
declined steadily since the mid-1970's. According to one Gallup
Poll taken as long ago as 1985, 34 percent of the people polled
agreed that "stories and reports are often untrue" and 23 percent
say "news organizations generally hurt democracy." Seen as
liberal partisans, today journalists rate about as much
confidence as members of Congress and labor union
representatives.
Ted Smith says it's partially the media's own fault. Journalists
have deviated from reporting the news to critiquing events and
politics. Ted Smith teaches in the mass communications
department of Virginia Commonwealth University.
INTERVIEW
Smith
The people in the press studies have been running since
1985, and what. they have tracked is a continuing decline in all
public evaluations of the media. Not just in their accuracy, but
in their fairness, the public is very upset about how negative
the media are. And this has been pretty much unrelieved since
1985. If you use other polls you could track back to the late
70s. So in other words, what we have is a situation where
journalists, who look at themselves in fairly idealistic terms as
serving the public are getting rated just a little bit higher
than for example, used car salesmen. And maybe at a third the
ratings of other groups, like pharmacists, or doctors, or people
in the military. And this should be a great concern to
journalists because it simply is not something you would expect
if they were doing their job properly.
Womack
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There is a fundamental communication problem here because
the media says, for example, with negative news -- that's what
the news is. And people who are reading the media or listening
to the media saying that it can't be all there is or it can't be
quite so negative or that you are focusing on the negative.
Who's right?
Smith
Well, I really think that the public is right in this case.
And the reason is fairly simple. The public relies upon the
media for information that it uses to make decisions. In order
to make accurate decisions, you've got to know what's working,
not just what's failing. If you systematically eliminate
positive news, then people that are getting a badly distorted
view of things, and they make bad decisions as a result. I think
the area where this has being most clearly documented is in
coverage of the economy which is just unrelievidly negative.
Almost whatever happens, it is interpreted in negative terms.
And what this has led to, I think in the last 3 or 4 years, is
now a sort of systematically negative view of how the economy is
doing among the general public. It hurt George Bush very badly
in 1992, interestingly it hurt Bill Clinton very badly in 1994.
Womack
That's interesting. I remember right before the election
there wer.e a number of positive news stories on the cover of "The
Washington Post" and yet people didn't believe, that was one of
the new stories at the time, people didn't believe that the
economy was actually improving even though it was right there on
the cover of the "Post".
Smith
Well, of course, and the reason is that people sort of base
their judgements on the cumulative total of information they have
gotten. Now they have been told since the late 70s that the
economy is in very serious shape even though in some periods of
that time, it was doing spectacularly well. And so a few stories
late in the election campaign from a medium that is not generally
seem by a lot of people that as particularly fair -- that's going
to not have very much affect.
Womack
Well, what about the way media covers special interest
groups? There's a disenchantment on the part of some people with
the way that certain minority groups are being covered thinking
that minority groups have used the media to get very positive
coverage to get policy that's favorable to them enacted. Do you
think that that's fair?
Smith
No, I think one of the biggest problems, perhaps the biggest
problem with contemporary journalism is the reliance on special
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interest groups for news. It is now common that if you want to
have an impact on public policy, you don't run for office. What
you do is you go to Washington and you rent a room and you set-up
ah organization that has some marvelous sounding name. And then
you begin generating studies. And the problem is, if the
organizations goals are nice and progressive, the studies they
generate are going to get, for the most part, a free run from
journalist. And as a result, almost every major policy issue
that is under discussion now is suffused with false or at least
distorted information. I think the public is beginning to react
to that. They are beginning to get tired of hearing the same
kinds of claims made on very shaky foundations.
Womack
Well, who's
into the media.
more vigilant?
Smith
fault is that -- that that kind of coverage gets
Is it the media's fault that they are not being
I think the problem is very deep rooted. One difficulty is
this -- Journalists as you know are still trained as generalists.
There is almost an antipathy to specialization in the news. But
yet we live in a society and a culture that is dominated by
extreme specialization.
Womack
Give me an example of what you are talking about, if you
would.
Smith
Sure! One of these staples of news coverage is the claim
that there are millions of children in America who are hungry.
Now you know you might have been able to make that claim with
some viracity in the mid-60s. But really clinical malnutrition
has almost been eliminated in the United States. Just recently
about a year or so ago, Emory University, a Center for the Study
of Poverty there, claimed that there were 12 million hungry
children in the United States. Well, how did they get that data?
They simply took the census data on how many poor children there
were in the United States and assumed all of those children were
hungry.
Womack
Well forgive me for being naive, but what's the goal for
saying that there are more hungry than there are. Just to fund
these special programs at Emory University?
Smith
Well, it does two very good things for the group. First of
all, it allows them the raise a lot more money for their
programs. And one of the things that's disturbing about all of
this is that journalists do not seem to think through the fact
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that all of these interest groups up in Washington are staffed by
people who are making their living from particular issues. And
the more they can convince the media and the public that there is
a huge problem here, the better those people are going to live.
So that's one problem. So that is one reason. The other reason
is simply that very frequently and certainly in the case of
hungry children, the purpose of it all is to get government to
increase expenditures in some areas, for example, increase food
stamps spending which, in fact, has happened in the last few
years.
Womack
What does this mean in terms of our consumption of the
media. It seems that more and more people are turning to sources
that have an obvious bias.
Smith
I think that phenomenon, which is probably one of the most
important changes in American politics this century is pretty
well-grounded. I think it is probably wrong to put it in terms
of political bias in the media, that sort of thing. And one
reason is that perhaps only half of the public is at all
ideologically aware. In other words, most people really aren't
very clear about what it means to say that you are conservative
or liberal or whatever. And most people, I don't think, sit down
and look at the news media and attribute a particular political
position to them. Instead, I think, it's something broader and
more important which is that an awful lot of people out there in
the public watch the news, or read the news and what they see is
that their views and the views of their friends are not well-represented
in the coverage. If they are there at all, they're
presented in very negative terms. A perfect example of that
would be Proposition 187 in California. Now for the average
American citizen, Proposition 187 was a no brainer, I mean all it
said was "We are, the State of California, is no longer going to
provide welfare, education, and free medical care for illegal
aliens."
Womack
People who had not paid into the system.
Smith
Exactly. And for the average person, I don't think this was
a tough choice. But if you look at the media coverage of
Proposition 187, every single story I have seen on it has been
fairly clearly skewed against the proposition. Now people don't
need Rush Limbaugh to tell them what they are seeing there. What
Rush Limbaugh and people like him are doing, is they are tapping
into a very, very large reservoir of anger among a big segment of
the general population because the news media simply are not
reflecting their interest and concerns.
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Womack
Now if a person were to agree with you that this is the
perspective that you are seeing in the mainstream media, the
mainstream media is not doing a good job in representing the
views or wider range of views of their audience, then we grant
you that maybe they will turn to an alternative source, like Rush
Limbaugh. But there is a problem there too, where he is very
inaccurate. I would venture more inaccurate than the mainstream
media.
Smith
Well, I think that would be a close call. The difficulty is
that journalist for the last 70 years or so, have emphasized the
notion of objectivity. Now a lot of journalists have sort of
given up on that and they will tell you at least privately that
they don't think that objectivity is possible. But as part of
that process, its almost gotten to the point where a lot of
journalist and a lot of ordinary people think that there is
something inherently wrong with news or information that comes
from an identifiable perspective. The interesting thing is that
when the first amendment was written in this country, the news
media were very different. All of the media were biased then,
and that is what was presupposed by the first amendment. The
idea is at that time was you had media that presented a
particular point of view and then went on and criticized media
presenting other points of view. And what you got in the press
was a conflict of ideas. And was assumed that people would
listen to the conflict and then as a result of that conflict be
able to decide which view was more nearly right. What we are
doing in a way is we're reformulating news to meet that older
model. So you have arguably the mainstream media, many of which
have identifiable political bias being offset by people like Rush
Limbaugh who also have and revel in their identifiable political
biases.
Womack
When does it come down to for the consumer's of information.
Where do you get good information when you are trying to tell
your representatives how you want them to vote and represent you?
Smith
Frankly, I think the best method of being well-informed is
first of all to use a variety of sources. And what you ought to
do is use a variety of sources where you have chosen sources that
take a very different view point. I think still the journals of
opinion magazines like: National Review on the right, New
Republican on the left, or even The Nation on the left, and
American Spectator on the right. I think if you read a variety
of those and they all have their spin and all quite open about
it, you begin to see what are the things that are not in
contention and what are the things that are. And then you make
up your own mind on who it is that's telling the truth or who it
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is that's got the more accurate perception in this case. So I
think that's that obligation that people have. And I certainly
think that I would be very nervous about picking up the phone and
calling my representative and complaining about something if I
were basing my concerns on information I got from a single
source. I think that's a very dangerous thing to do.
Womack
Any single source, even a source like the newspaper record
like the "New York Times".
Smith
Of course. Any single source whatsoever.
Womack
I wish we had more time, Ted Smith thank you so much for
joining us on With Good Reason.
Smith
Thank you Laura.
OUTRO
Music
Womack
Our guest is Ted Smith. He teaches in the mass communications
department at Virginia Commonwealth University.
On our next show we'll talk about how a building's layout can
affect its occupants psychologically. Some progressive
architects are designing structures with an eye to ergonomics.
This is "With Good Reason."
The Project Coordinator for "With Good Reason" is Michael
McDowell. Carolyn Elliott is the Producer. John Wilkinson is
assistant producer. Kevin Piccini wrote the theme music. I'm
Laura Womack.
This program is produced with the help of WCVE Richmond.
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Announcer
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MUSIC
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