News Media Aren’t Sacred Cows. Stop Treating Them So.
By: Sethuraj Nair
Tags: Media Business, Culture, Media Criticism, Big Tech, Social

Why unchecked media is more sinister than we think?

They influence lives directly, methodically

They know what they are doing. Media are fully cognizant of their power, their impact on society, their potential for overt manipulation at all levels. They know how they can maneuver public opinion for or against certain groups or individuals, how to make and mar political careers and how, in spite of social media, they still offer the only true platform where it is feasible to employ a systematic approach to the dissemination of information/misinformation. Those who are so organized and deliberate in their acts shouldn’t go unaccountable.

Their moral compass is imaginary

As we saw, the very concept of messenger has noble roots. Even now, there hasn’t been much changed in our expectations from the media but as expectations they remain. We hope media to be this righteous, fearless, objective guardians of truth, refiners of ideals and values, active catalysts of social change, the voice of the voiceless. We wish the Big News to be this self-organizing fairground of democratic ideas, where morality comes a priori. We grant the abstraction called ‘media’ a certain inherent ethical high-ground for which they have no real claim. We’ve grown so used to call a clutch of mucky spades diamonds.

Their role in a democracy is practically eternal

Democracy might evolve or devolve but its core values stay. Cultures come and go but the essential human nature holds out. Technology, even at its finest, will keep failing to rectify our basic cognitive fallacies, faulty choice-making, our vulnerabilities. This means that a correction may never come from the society and media might forever enjoy their ‘independence’’. But is it any good? Nature stipulates that if a system refuses to strive for improvement, it will degenerate into chaos. If there isn’t an external compulsion to improve, the madiascape will never transmute or evolve, and we wouldn’t even notice. You know, even a suicide vest can keep you warm and comfy.

Self regulation almost never works

Unchecked power breeds irresponsibility. History has shown us that self-regulation is too idealistic to be of much use; it’s a wistful arrangement as absurd as pushing the car from within to speed it up. Worse still, whatever nominal regulations there are keep getting lifted in deference to freedom of speech. Consider the now annulled “fairness doctrine” of the FCC — Federal Communication Commission, a news regulation agency under the US government. Fairness doctrine mandated the media to treat controversial and sensitive topics with honesty, equitability , and balance. Who would find fault with such a decree, evidently a formalization of basic civility, empathy and human dignity? And what does it tell us about the startling power of ‘press freedom’ that the doctrine had suffered so vehement a push-back as to be dispensed with?

They by design own the best propaganda framework out there

The autonomy of media is this strange instance of means masquerading end, the form roleplaying the content. The term ‘medium’ has long lost its original essence, ceasing to mean an observer, a chronicler, a herald, a mirror, all of which now confine to the names of veteran news houses. It’s one thing that the ruling elite misusing media to smuggle in their agenda, what looks far worse is that the whole news industry regressing into a collection of self-serving bands, each flaunting swaths of snooping networks and a well-oiled, tried and true propaganda machinery. Like the hundred-armed Hecatoncheires of the legend, any one of their tentacles can seize the right tool at the right time, dial it round to the aptest mode, and get to work to further their interest. If a shouting march on the television won’t make the cut, the next morning’s paper can contrive the desired narrative with a solemn- sounding five-column piece dashed off by a paid conniver with enough repute. It’s a game of endless possibilities, sly symbiosis, and incessant rhetorical enrichment.

Their reach and accessibility can’t be matched

In a world getting increasingly paranoid of privacy, there’s this quite paradoxical prevalence, even a progressive exaltation, of media’s right to spy, snoop and gatecrash. Often they have a blanket entry into places where even the law-enforcement doesn’t. In once sense, so it must be. Nobody is forgetting here the brave, selfless, resolute reporters at tragic sites through minefields. But we shouldn’t fall for the fallacy of slothful generatlization here. Paparazzi and Goebbelsian cronies don’t deserve the same honor and credit as the most value-driven of the lot simply because they all belong to the same broad category, carry similar-seeming cameras and notepads and mics. A money-minded and morally reprehensible pressman is no more sacred than a money-minded and morally reprehensible lawyer or doctor or cop. Is it hard to see?

Society should shed its duplicity also on matters of privacy. Medical researchers scramble in vain for enough data to tame a pandemic while the paparazzo prowls with a free-ticket to the life of the person she has sworn to destroy.

Their affiliations are flexible

Perhaps here’s where we should start: Learn to distinguish between independence and alliances of convenience. Like any business, a news house thrives on getting the system work for them. Of late, one could even discern definite patterns in forging such affiliations. If you happen to be in an autocracy or the regime is totalitarian, you suck up to the state (Also goes for democracies where the ruling party enjoying a disproportionately massive mandate). In an even democracy, you almost always ally with the government’s critics, not exactly to put its policies to rights but to ensure the political atmosphere to be tumultuous enough to ceaselessly generate engrossing news and controversies.

That’s not to say every news medium is unprincipled. Only, the bad players are let off at all times. They escape any action whatsoever,flaunting their messenger tags and blazoning their right to freedom of speech and independence.