The European Socialized Media Scene and the Lessons It Can Teach America

In Europe, I made frequent jabs at the strategic communications majors for learning the arts of manipulation and deception for profit, a theme that followed me over here from America.  I, the journalism major with my integrity and honesty and lack of bias, held a vast moral superiority to their drive and ambition for naught but a full wallet and a stuffed bank account.  I wanted to do work for the populace, while they viewed their household as the only possible benefactor of their talents.  How pedantic, how greedy, how insipid . . .

Strategic communications majors are taught that this (Academie Nationale de Musique, Paris) is a modest early goal in terms of a residence.

            And then I came crashing back down to Earth after remembering that most news organizations do the exact same thing.

            Before we talk about the berets and baguettes of Europe, let’s examine the homefront.  After all, it’s important to know the problem at home before one offers a solution from abroad.

And where better to begin than with perhaps the hyperbolic example of bias and slanted reporting that is FOX News, the highest rated cable news channel in the United States, (a point they love to bring up repeatedly, when people question their veracity, you know, because if a lot of people are listening to you, then you can’t be lying).  The network appeals to a right-wing audience by begging for attention like a toddler that wants to show his mother the booger he just found in his nose.  Sean Hannity villainizes the left to such an extent, you’d think the pillars of liberal philosophy would be to eradicate every kitty and puppy on Earth, demand churches replace their crosses with swastikas and pentagrams, and execute anyone with skin lighter than the color of chocolate milk.  Beck draws on a chalkboard to appeal to old people that don’t understand whiteboards, and he uses it for such purposes as proving the evil relationship between Michelle Obama’s anti-obesity campaign and the Holocaust or the Egyptian revolution and the end times, describing scenes right out of the Book of Revelations.  Why?  They want the attention, and, as the saying goes, “Never let facts get in the way of a good story.”

            On the other side of the political spectrum, you have MSNBC, who loves to call FOX News out on its hogwash, while sometimes making a bit of its own.  I have a lot of respect for Rachel Maddow, as I’ve never seen her actually go after anyone unfairly.  On the other hand, even though he’s not there anymore, I can’t say the same for Keith Olbermann.  I remember one particularly stark example during the senate race in Massachusetts between Republican Scott Brown and Democrat Martha Coakley to take over the seat of the late Ted Kennedy.  A few nights before the election, Olbermann started “Countdown” by stating that Brown had called for the anal rape of Coakley.  I thought two things right then: 1) That’s a pretty damning accusation, and I wonder what proof he’s got to back that up, and 2) Scott Brown has officially replaced Joe Biden as the new “King of Gaffes.”  I stayed tuned to the segment where Brown gave one of his trademark impassioned and admirable stump speeches that he gave during that campaign, while some bozo in the audience, over the din of the crowd, yelled something to the extent of “We’ll shove a boot up her ass!” to which Brown “replied,” “We can do this.”  It was clear that Olbermann had played up this innocent "answer" to a pretty colloquial insult (I doubt Brown even heard it) as an egregious point of misinformation to please his base, although I sure hope no one fell for it.  In fighting the monster that was FOX News for so long, Olbermann became what he hated most, trying to defeat his opponent with its own tricks.  I never watched “Countdown” again.

            CNN, takes a bit of a different approach, not so much supporting a specific political bias, but instead a bias towards people who have ADHD.  In their 2008 presidential election coverage, they unveiled what every connoisseur of science fiction has known would one day come to the planet: the hologram.  Kind of.  It was actually just a bunch of cameras making a 3D image and projecting it on green screen.  It’s widely regarded as one of the stupidest things about the 2008 elections (barring that god-awful bulldog with lipstick “joke” the media latched onto like.  . . well, a bulldog).  They also have their special touch screen technology.  It’s a bit cooler and more realistic, but it doesn’t really do much more than my MacBook could with appropriate preparation (and, yes, I did just compliment a MacBook in a way, so, mark this day as “historic” on your calendars, folks).

Well, not THAT historic.  (Pictured: Venus de Milo, Louvre Museum, Paris)

            All of their websites aren’t much better.  FOX News’s has actually gotten substantially better in the last few months.  Underneath the more important headlines, they used to have a gossip and celebrities section and that was about it.  It was embarrassing, to say the least.  Now, it’s at least a fairly respectable looking news website.  MSNBC’s is probably the best; it doesn’t even seem that left wing most of the time.  CNN’s, however, usually baffles me with its story and headline choices, although the coverage they do offer, when it’s good, is really good.  But when I log on to CNN.com one day in the month of November and see three separate major headlines that include Justin Beiber, I have to shake my head a bit, possibly because of the brain damage suffered from slamming my face into my laptop screen.  I don’t care if your news day is running slower than a 600-pound man drowning in molasses; you can do better than that.  Even better are some of the misleading headlines that use stupid little plays on words, enticing people to read them and then reveling in their gullibility when the story clicked upon turns out to be nothing special.  And if I see one more headline that says Sarah Palin “blasts” one of the Obama’s policies or ideas or sentences, I’m going to quit the Internet.  I don’t care about the content, just change the verb in that headline, for once. 

            So, cable news organizations are failing miserably in the ideal quest for both objectivity and relevance.   While MSNBC and FOX News both shun impartiality like the plague in their opinions programs, and with a bit more subtlety in their actual reporting, you can’t fault them too much for not being relevant.  On the other hand, CNN doesn’t seem to be too slanted to the right or the left, but sometimes, it’s not the most pertinent reporting in the world either, relying on gimmicks and tricks to entice audiences.  The question, though, is why?  Why not tell the truth?  Why pump your budgets into graphics and attention grabbing techniques instead of true reporting?  Why not adhere to ethical journalism?

            Probably because they can get more money by being more inflammatory.  The ratings support this notion, as well.  This graph illustrates that “The O’Reilly Factor” got a vastly larger number of viewers than “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” which got more than “Nancy Grace” which got more than “Campbell Brown.”  This figure indicates a positive correlation between more sensationalist reporting and ratings.  And the more people watch these channels, the more networks can demand from advertisers . . .

Courtesy of TV by the Numbers

            Plus, these audiences are probably going to be viewers for life.  It’s a way to preach to the choir and incite or excite people.  I was amazed that Vatican Radio in Rome called itself a journalistic enterprise when, in reality, it was more of a PR firm for the Pope.  While Pope Benedict XVI doesn’t call for Catholics to quench upon the blood of the infidels and heretics, unlike some past popes (I’m looking at you Pope Urban II) and is, by most definitions and preconceptions, an honorable man, it’s a bit shocking that he simply isn’t questioned by the press that is in closest relation to him.  But it’s a great way for the station to make money by promoting a cause instead of just giving people facts and figures with which they would have to draw their own conclusions.  I mean, can you imagine a society of people thinking for themselves?  The horror . . .

            In a way, cable news organizations have become more of a public relations firm, assuring the American people of whatever news they want to hear while simultaneously, making money by pumping misinformation, half-truths and sub-standard reporting over the airwaves.  Yes, there are some great reporters out there, such as, Anderson Cooper, Shepherd Smith, Brian Williams (along with all of the NBC Nightly News team) and Rachel Maddow, one of the few opinion reporters to not be mired by gaudiness or rampant deception to achieve her own ends, but the country is really speaking out when the most trusted reporter in the country (according to a TIME Online poll taken after Walter Kronkite's death in 2009) is Jon Stewart, a man who rejects that title with all of his being.

            But how can we remove commercial bias, which is perhaps the only bias more dangerous to this country’s journalistic integrity than political bias?  We have to look overseas to find the answer to that question.  But I didn’t necessarily find it in one of our briefings or meetings with some of the finest journalism establishments in the world.  Instead, it was in my hotel room every morning . . . no, not my roommate.

Unfortunately, the answer to our media's woes is not Nicholas Jain, as much as I would like it to be that simple (and stylish).

            The BBC.  The British Broadcasting Corporation.  One of those incredible public institutions that really is the prime example of its kind around the world.  When you want a military, you go to America.  When you want the best health care system, it’s hard to beat the French method, in terms of freedom and fairness.  When you want a system of media that is independent from commercial bias, look no further than the BBC.  The beauty of the BBC comes mostly from its public funding (a tax which costs around £150 (about $250) a year per household), but it distinctly lacks the catering to the government that defines a controlled press in countries where the news is restricted, like a totalitarian society.  It still performs the essential watchdog functions of the press and contributes to the marketplace of ideas.  But the most important thing is, unlike its American counterparts, it doesn’t force this information down people’s throats or make decisions for them (although, shoving things down a goose’s throat is quite alright judging by the foie gras I had in Paris).  The BBC treats its viewers with respect and intelligence, something that many cable news organizations here should begin to strive for.

            All across Europe, and even in the United States, public broadcasting is an essential part of the media.

            Take the Czech Republic, for example.  Until the Iron Curtain fell, the nation had little to go off of, in terms of a free press.  But after some practice, the country got a grasp on forming media.  While some of the state-run systems under communism became privatized, the Czech Republic has a balance of both public and private broadcasting.  The public media was founded by law, and it’s indirectly controlled by the Czech Parliament.  According to Jan Kirak, a journalist in Prague, a public media is considered a point of dignity in Europe, like a cultural institution to display national pride.  He also said that was the reason the United States doesn’t see a need for such a large emphasis in public broadcasting.  We just don’t have to impress anyone that much, but I disagree with that to an extent.  It feels like an explanation for why the US doesn’t have a good public media outlet, not a reason for why we shouldn’t have a good public broadcasting sector.

            Experience from Paris, however, introduces another roadblock on the way to powerful public media in the United States: money.  Bernard Volker, Vice Dean of Journalism at the École de Journalisme de Sciences Po in Paris, stated that public media is very costly to the government and, therefore, the taxpayers.  Because of this, he says, good, in-depth, analytical reporting is hard to come by.  With less money, the stations don’t get to investigate stories with the same level of detail and examination that American outlets achieve.  In an op-ed by Steve Coll, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and former managing editor of the Washington Post, it states that Britain spends about $87 per capita on public broadcasting (about the same as the French total after a little personal research).  Canada pays $27 per capita.  The United States?  $1.40 per capita.  And interestingly enough, Coll says that NPR does extremely well given its funding.  Imagine if we doubled it.  Spending almost a whole three dollars per person could change everything.  We currently spend less than half a billion dollars on public broadcasting.  Honestly, even in the hard economic times we’re in, broadcasting is an institution that needs to be cherished, no matter the price.  And if the private options are failing the American viewer, then a public option is necessary (like health care, but that’s another debate).

Much like my public option to buy the cutest bear in all of existence.  (I just wanted to show a picture of Barlteby . . .)

            Although I’ve only briefly outlined my experiences in Europe, I truly feel that this is what I took away from my time there.  Their systematized state-funded media, even with its problems, which are mainly monetary anyway, has qualities that Americans should latch on to.  Now, I’m not saying that Europe is better in every respect when it comes to news.  The United States focuses on ethics and comes down hard on those who cross the fine line reporters walk with every story.  For example, if NBC hired Bill Clinton to report on the actions of the Secretary of State (you know, his wife), everyone would be screaming for his resignation.  Oh, and that is the case in France, but they don’t really bother with it.  It just seems to fit that the stricter, more controlled and, in my opinion, more intelligent ideals of journalism that Americans have would mesh extremely well with a news organization that was impartial to profit and party. 

            I’m going to get a major impediment to my argument out of the way early because I bet you, the reader, is asking yourself, “But Travis, what about NPR and PBS?  Aren’t they public broadcasts?  In fact, doesn’t PBS actually stand for Public Broadcasting Service?”  It does, that’s true, but oddly enough, PBS gets no direct funding from the federal government.  And the states give it very little.  And the content of the channel is actually created by various member stations all across the United States, not a dedicated team in a single place with one set goal of broadcasting in mind like the BBC.  Additionally, they don’t have a 24-hour news team to compete with the cable news organizations.  NPR, on the other hand, has tons of great news reporters and readers, with great reporting abroad, remarkable human-interest pieces and smart, fair coverage of current events.  But it’s primarily a radio station and a website.  To truly compete, you can’t just target the demographic that’s driving to work in the morning.  Television is a powerful medium, and its almost no contest.  According to a PEW survey in 2010, television attracts almost 150% the audience that radio does.

            But it doesn’t have to be this way.  Imagine a televised NPR with the same solid reporting that it has on the radio.  It’s a powerful idea, and one that this country should invest in.

            Of course, as I write this, the House of Representatives is signaling a desire to cut off funding for public media, like NPR and PBS.  Critics have largely called it a political maneuver, since conservatives tend to believe that NPR and PBS lean to the left on the political spectrum.  Either way, it’s a pretty disgraceful move by Republicans to take away important segments of America’s media scene, especially since commercial, privatized media systems don’t seem to be working.

            Really, we, as Americans, don’t have another option.  Either we keep listening to a press corrupted by the dollar sign, or we start relying on the stations that rely on us.

Travis Zimpfer
University of Missouri Undergraduate
Journalism/English Dual Major