Journalism's big fail and the erosion of the common good

william greider, speaking in an extended interview on the failure of journalism to present the social security debate with any accuracy or objectivity, in the process offers a startlingly clear perspective on the failure of journalism in general...

Reporters are so embedded in the established way of understanding things. They are distanced from people at large and don’t spend much time trying to see why ordinary people see things differently from the people in power—and why people are often right about things.

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In the last twenty years, as media ownership became highly concentrated, the gulf between the governing elites, both in and out of government, and the broad range of ordinary citizens has gotten much worse. The press chose to side with the governing elites and look down on the citizenry as ignorant or irrational, greedy, or even nutty.

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The press is dangerously over-educated itself, in that reporters have developed different kinds of expertise themselves. And that brings them closer to their sources, more motivated to write for their approval. All this technocratic expertise encourages them to take a condescending view of the people they are writing for, especially in finance and economics.

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The new technological knowledge becomes a tool that blocks old-fashioned street reporting. The polling and focus groups work against old style reporting. Political reporters rely on the pseudo-science to tell them what people think instead of doing what reporters are supposed to do—talking to real people where they live, listening to their perspectives and respecting their views.

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Reporters and editors are disturbed to learn that growing sectors of the public do not trust their reporting. But this is the natural result of one-sided reporting. It reflects the unconscious class bias of the media—looking up to selected expertise that’s in power and looking down on the everyday citizens. In the old days, when I started as a reporter, newspapers were far more diverse and representative in speaking to and for the variety of popular perspectives. Each newspaper might have its bias, left or right or something else, but there were countering opinions and perspectives that tended to keep the other side more honest. That variety is pretty much gone now, so lots of citizens are finding their own ways to inform themselves, putting their faith in the bloggers or other renegade sources. Who can blame them?

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The idea of social solidarity represents the core of our society. The belief that we’re all in this together has been trampled over in the last thirty years by conservative ideology. Good citizens and politicians have been sucked into believing that solidarity is not the issue. Until Americans rediscover the importance of solidarity, we’re going to be screwed up as a society. We will be trapped in brutal class conflicts and arguments over who gets more, who must be thrown over the side in the interest of business efficiency.

i'm pleased to see that greider identifies the erosion of "solidarity," a concept that correlates closely with "common good," as a core issue... i don't think the fundamental truth that "we're all in this together" can be argued, but it's a truth that has been consistently subverted by the social darwinism that our super-rich elites and their lap-dog politicians and journalists shove down our throats daily...

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