An independent, high-quality media that reaches a wide audience can be a formidable impetus for economic development in a country such as Pakistan
IT is often contended that the values of journalism and the entertainment business are antithetical. While the former is about truth and understanding, the latter is mostly about moving and promoting products.
Paul Weaver, a former Fortune editor and corporate connoisseur, in his book, News and the Culture of Lying, argues that contemporary journalism doesn’t so much report on reality as it creates and markets the product called “news”, that is, reality strained to the breaking point through a distorting lens of crisis and emergency response. This slant has reduced journalism to a handmaiden of such ‘centres of power’ as governments and public relations-minded corporations. The remedy, says Weaver, is for the press to reorient itself towards readers rather than advertisers, and to emphasize deliberative stories over crisis-oriented ones.
Since journalism, which is about bringing news and information in the purest form to the public, and the entertainment industry, which deals more with creating hype to capture human interest, have to survive side-by-side in the media, their co-existence creates a perplexing paradoxical phenomenon that presents myriad challenges for the media merchants. Often giving into these challenges is the easier and the more feasible option in view of monetary, commercial and other concerns. It is also often difficult to draw a line of distinction between news and what experts term as ‘information’.
It is stated by media watch groups the world over that by any reasonable standard, the entertainment-oriented content of TV news programmes cannot be considered news. The Denver-based media watchdog organization, Rocky Mountain Media Watch, bases its argument, in part, on the fact that local TV stations, which use virtually identical advertising tactics round the country, are licensed by the federal government to operate not in pure commercial terms but in “public interest”. A public trustee is charged with a heightened standard of conduct and cannot act exclusively in its own self-interest.
This heightened responsibility mandates that the stations balance the interests of the public against their own commercial interests. RMMW argues that by restricting the use of the word “news” in advertisements by local TV stations, we would not be engaging in censorship but in consumer protection. “The stations have the clear right to broadcast shows solely depicting weather, sports, mayhem and fluff,” states the media watch group. “The stations could offer all-mayhem-all-the-time shows if they want. However, it is false and deceptive to lure news consumers to such shows by advertising them as ‘news’. RMMW called on the FTC to order Denver stations to accurately advertize future programming so as not to mislead the public, possibly replacing the word “news” with “infotainment”. It suggested that the FTC issue guidelines for news programming consistent with journalistic standards set by the Society 0of Professional Journalists or other professional organizations of journalists.
The challenge for TV news departments is to be our eyes and ears on the world, and to filter and edit massive amounts of information into a balanced package. An unbalanced information diet of mayhem and fluff in the news, over time, is unhealthy, even toxic. A cardinal symptom of TV news dysfunction is excess. Journalist Arthur Kent calls it binge journalism, the media feeding frenzy. Over the last few years, as the competition for ratings becomes more feverish and profit motives subsume journalistic values, we have been subjected to more and more media frenzies, each breathlessly presented as earth-shaking news.
“News is news and entertainment is entertainment. We wish that were the case. The infotainment business model is capturing viewers’ attention, with all the tricks and tactic of tabloid journalism,” continues Arthur Kent. Everybody likes to be entertained, but that is not why we watch the news. News is supposed to inform us objectively about issues and events. The soul of news is truth. Entertainment devices such as exaggeration, escape from reality and fantasy are antithetical to the values of journalism and truth. We expect manipulative showbiz techniques such as exploitive violence, sex, hype and celebrity focus in movies and sit-coms. News on the public airwaves is a serious matter and a responsibility requiring commitment and fairness.
Is our local TV news also a disappointing simulation of journalism? While it might not be obsessed with violence and crime, it certainly lacks the elements of quality journalism that seek to orient the audience, not just arouse them or tow the line of those in power. Giving undue exposure to those in authority also creates a kind of hype that is antithetical to the essence of news.
News follows a remarkably consistent formula of mayhem and fluff in a lot of countries of the world. Mayhem consists of war and terrorism, natural or man-made disasters, and TV news shows bring an apparently random college of mayhem and violence. Mayhem is a precious commodity for the news shows’ formula because, according to psychiatrists, it arouses our simplest brain, the reptilian, the brain of fight, flight, blood and territory.
Fluff appeals to the second layer of our tripartite brain. It is the mammalian or limbic brain. It arranges affection, seeking warmth and relationship. Fluff is measured by combining the news promos, the anchor chatter, soft news and celebrity news, which in our particular case constitute the news of the government functionaries and their activities, to create a fluff index.
In news story selection, emotional arousal is often favoured over orienting or informing the audience. And while stories that orient and inform the viewer may sometimes be coincident with arousing content, journalistic orientation should be the over-riding emotion. But, in the daily grind of producing news bulletins, it often is not. Besides, popularity of news shows and bulletins is hinged upon viewership statistics and not upon content credibility. If you can bring more viewers to watch your news telecast, your’s is a popular news show though not necessarily a credible and objective source of news.
News of deprivation, suffering and war in the media is a big subject of debate and can be very confusing. After all, there is also a lot of violence in the great literature of the world. Is there any difference between literature and TV news bulletins?
For one, reading is a private act. It involves the active decoding of abstract symbols. So you’ve got your brain at work to begin with. Literature is also the product of an individual, not corporate committees and teams. It is more likely to have a thorough moral perspective and the kind of complexity that the real world has. Literature explains. With TV, there is little need for the cerebral cortex to be involved at all. In fact, that is part of the appeal of TV. As Jean-Lue Godard has said, “TV is made to forget.” It is fast and replaceable. Literature is not. And television is not private. It pours out into our environments. Television habits that serve adult interests also spill out into the lives of children.
An independent, high-quality media that reaches a wide audience can be a formidable impetus for economic development in a developing country like ours. A free and unbiased media can expose government and corporate corruption, the overtures of an entertainment-driven industry, provide voice for citizens, contribute to public consensus in favour of change and provide reliable economic information to help markets work better.
“To reduce poverty, we must liberate access to information and improve the quality of information,” World Bank President, James Wolfensohn, writes in the foreword of his book, The Right to Tell. The Role of Mass Media in Economic Development. “People with more information are empowered to make better choices. Free media is not a luxury for just rich countries. It is at the heart of equitable development. Institutions such as a free media that support transparency and the empowerment of the disenfranchised are essential.”
Roumeen Islam of the World Bank Institute, one of the book’s editors, says the important question posed by the work is: What types of steps might be taken to establish and maintain a free and independent media that can promote better economic performance? She calls on “all countries, rich and poor” to enhance competition, limit restrictions on new media, set up balanced regulations and seek innovative ways to reach the public.
An independent, high-quality media that reaches a wide audience can be a formidable impetus for economic development in a country such as Pakistan
