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-Neil Postman |
Is the U.S. Press Really Free?
Although we claim to have a free press in the United States, when I compare what I see on my local TV station with what I've seen in countries like England and Canada, it seems as if a lot is missing....
Yes, the stories that are less apt to interest a general U.S. audience are often missing.
I don't have any experience in England, but I've had many years of experience in U.S. and Canadian news operations. In the latter case I know that (at that time) Canadian news operations were far less ratings conscious. News decisions were carefully insulated from business and sales decisions.
When a U.S. news operation has lower ratings than its competitors, there tends to be a shakeup in both news content and personnel. This tends to give us attractive "news actors" instead of seasoned news reporters, and news that, regardless of its intrinsic importance, grabs and holds viewer attention. Stories that have strong visual elements are preferred over those that might have more important implications, but that are more complex and harder to understand.
Stations and news channels that are trying to increase ratings tend to accommodate the political and social views of viewers, giving them what they want to hear and tending to bypass what they know won't be popular with their viewers. A content analysis of the various news channels seems to rather clearly bear this out.
You are right that while countries like Canada and England go into news events in some depth, TV news in the U.S. tends to consist of short sound bites and snippets of news. It is said that the script of a typical U.S. newscast wouldn't fill one full page of a typical newspaper.
There is criticism that since conglomerates now own the major U.S. news operations that news is slighted that doesn't support the goals of big business.
In this regard two things must be kept in mind. First, many people who sit on the boards of these conglomerates also sit on the board of directors of major U.S. corporations that are not associated with the media. Second, with these large corporations contributing a lion's share of political contributions, business interests now tend to drive political interests and decisions.
Even reporters at esteemed news organizations such as The New York Times and the seemingly independent PBS claim stories have been being "killed" and respected, prize-winning reporters being fired or "reassigned" for delving into stories that would have a negative financial impact on corporate concerns.
In viewing the impact of conglomerates on U.S. culture media critic Mark Crispin Miller wrote:
| The true cause of the enormous ills that now dismay so many American—the universal sleaze and 'dumbing down,' the flood-tide of corporate propaganda, the terminal insanity of United States politics—has risen not form any grand decline in national character...but from the inevitable toxic influence of those few corporations that have monopolized culture. |
At the same time, we must remember that today there are more sources of news available to people than at any time in history. And while it's true that most people—specifically most of the people who vote—get their news from conglomerate-owned news operations, any person who wants to search for other news sources has a cornucopia of choices to choose from.
The problem is that most people don't consult alternative sources of news, don't read a daily newspaper, and pay scant attention even to TV news.
But, possibly more to your point, at least one study has found that the U.S. now ranks 17th in press freedom.
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