Media reform should be a non-partisan issue. The media has been called the “fourth estate” since the mid 1700s, and is another check on government activities. The media needs to be reformed because it has lost much of its ability to function as a check for the government. Media reform should not be controlled along party lines because there could be agenda setting, and that may be disastrous for media in the future. If there were partisan control that could lead to agenda setting and censorship of the media, and it would continue to be unable to perform its function. Media reform is too important of an issue to be lost in party politics.
Firstly, what is media reform and why is it important? Media reform is important because the news has a democratic function not just an entertainment value. The democratic function of media has been lost, and it is not performing its role as the fourth estate of government. The term fourth estate is attributed to the nineteenth century historian Carlyle, but he attributed it to Edmund Burke:
Burke said there were Three Estates in Parliament; but, in the Reporters' Gallery yonder, there sat a Fourth Estate more important than they all. It is not a figure of speech, or a witty saying; it is a literal fact, .... Printing, which comes necessarily out of Writing, I say often, is equivalent to Democracy: invent writing, Democracy is inevitable. ..... Whoever can speak, speaking now to the whole nation, becomes a power, a branch of government, with inalienable weight in law-making, in all acts of authority. It matters not what rank he has, what revenues or garnitures: the requisite thing is that he have a tongue which others will listen to; this and nothing more is requisite.
This function of media is arguably its most important purpose. Since modern media has started reporting less, and entertaining and trying to make higher profit margins it has lost its democratic function. Media reform movements are making an attempt to bring modern media back to its roots of being another check on government activity. Media should be the check that represents the citizenry and aids them in getting the information they need to be active participants in governmental activities. Media reform groups are trying to inform the public on how they can be involved in the movement for reform, and they are trying to inform people how the media is wrong. When citizens are well informed they are more able to start making changes.
Media reform efforts have been around since the 1960’s in the United States. Past media reform efforts have included the citizen journalism movement in the 1990’s, the 2003 media ownership ‘battle’ and activism in the 1960’s against big corporations. Citizen journalism was a movement for the involvement in the citizenry in what was broadcasted on the news. It wanted to start with local media and then continue to grow into the larger scheme of things. It failed, in part, because it cut out the major players in media: the owners and the journalists. Journalists felt that “keeping the focus on a set of issues that may not be the ones government is currently addressing risks crossing the line from objective reporting to issue advocacy.” Going about media reform by cutting out the key actors cannot be affective. The reporters and media owners have too much at stake to just let themselves be cut out of the equation. The 2003 media ownership struggle was a successful step to media reform when “nearly 3 million Americans when nearly 3 million Americans protested the plans to allow increased media concentration.” When large groups of people become active the government is obliged to listen, and they did. The strategy of mass activism can work for media reform if one can get people behind the movement. The 1960’s activism was less about reforming what is wrong with the media and more about struggling against big corporations.
Past media reform efforts have failed because they have become liberal agendas. That cuts roughly half of the government from wanting to be involved in reform. Media reform isn’t a liberal concept it is a non-partisan idea. It must step up to become an issue for citizens of all political ideologies and to have reform happen. If half of the people are alienated because they do not want to be part of the liberal agenda then make media reform not part of the liberal agenda, but the human agenda. Wanting media reform does not require a certain set of party values, it requires wanting to be informed about what is happening in government to be more involved in one’s country.
Media reform requires citizens interested in getting reliable information about government activities, from media, to work together, if they refuse because of partisanship then the media reform fight is already two steps behind. This movement has to include people from both political parties, independents, women, minorities, etcetera. If people cannot stand together for media reform despite differences in other places then the movement will not be able to hold its own against the big media corporations and their lobbyists.
Media reform needs to be a non-partisan issue. If partisanship takes hold of media reform then agenda setting, voting along party lines and censorship could become problems. If the Democrats headed the media reform effort there could be less representation of large corporate interest, which may or may not be a good thing, but they still deserve a voice. If the Republicans were heading the movement then they might over represent corporate interests. Media reform would be better off without aligning itself with parties because partisan association can polarize people, and media reform needs broad support. Partisanship could promote censorship of certain types of media reform messages. Above all else it would not help the reform effort to cut itself off from part of the citizenry.
The media reform movement has broadened its horizons and ability to reach out to more people with the rise of the internet. There are hundreds of websites dedicated to informing people about the media reform movement. Freepress.net, The Alliance for Media Literate America (AMLA), and the Austin Media Revolution (AMR) are just a few of the media reform groups that can be found on the internet without much effort. The internet makes it nearly effortless for people to become informed on the issues of media reform. For most people media reform is not something that they think about actively. They know that there is a problem with the media, but they are unaware of the large movement of people that want to change things. When media, especially television news, is brought up in casual conversation most people know that they are unhappy with how they get their information, but are unsure why the information is not appropriate for them to gather information to form opinions about local, and world events. They want the news to change but they need a direction.
The internet provides these people that want change with direction, and reasons their media outlets are unsatisfactory. If media reform is going to happen in the near future then it will be because of the internet’s ability to connect people with similar agendas. At this point and time I believe that the American system of government, including the fourth estate, is on the cusp of immense change. The wide spread acknowledgment of the Bush Administration’s media blunder with the Iraq War and the weapons of mass destruction frenzy; more people are open to the idea that media needs to change and drastically. They just need to be directed to the right groups to find the information they need to take a stand and start changing, how news is fed to them. The American people have to decide if they want bland, easy to swallow baby food, or a piece of beef jerky that they have to chew on to really enjoy and digest. With shows like Crossfire and Tucker are being removed from the air, it is clear that America’s media appetite is changing and certain ways of behaving on air are no longer acceptable. Reform leaders need to continue to speak out and hope that they will be heard. The public is becoming more and more active in government, as this election cycle has show, and for them to be more affective as citizens they need better news sources.
Even if the mainstream media fails to adapt to the public’s growing need for superior quality media, there is always an underground waiting to take in the stragglers and help them find the information they crave; right now that underground is the blogosphere. The blogosphere is a diverse outlet for citizens to find news stories and new information about subjects lightly touched upon in mainstream media. Resources like Themonkeycage.org, or factcheck.org, are just waiting for people to come and read the information that they publish for anyone who cares to search. These resources are available for free and are usually more accessible in the age of the internet than newspapers or television programs. One can simply search for a topic and find articles at every level of analysis from the “I hates this so bad…” style to information that is clearly back by the latest research in that field of study. If the public is ready for change then the internet and media reform groups are waiting for them, prepared to inform and enlighten.
Media reform is a non-partisan issue because if it were anything else it would not be effective reform. Partisan reform would poison the media’s function as the fourth estate of government. Government and the citizenry need the media to check political activity with accurate and informative news coverage for a democracy to function properly, and with enough public involvement. As the media stands now it needs to evolve to meet the demands that being a check on government requires. If the current large corporate media is not up to the task then internet bloggers and media reform groups are prepared to help the public learn how to take action and change the media so that it works for them rather than using them for profits. Media reform is the most important issue for the success of democracy in the United States, and more of the US population needs to realize it and step up to the challenge presented by reform groups.
Works Cited:
“A blow to cable news-Tucker Cancelled.” New School Politics. March 2008. 28 April 2008.
Bennett, Lance W. News: The Politics of Illusion. Pearson Longman: New York, 2007.
Fischer, Ken. “Jon Stewart wins, CNN cancels Crossfire.” Ars Technica. Jan. 2005. 28 April 2008. < http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20050106-4509.html>.
Johnson, Nicholas. “The History of Media Reform: Scanning the Horizon.” History of Media Reform Panel, Nov. 2003. 28 April 2008.
Mass Media: Pluralist View. “The Mass Media as the Fourth Estate.” 28 April 2008. < http://www.cultsock.ndirect.co.uk/MUHome/cshtml/media/4estate.html >.
McChesney, Robert. “A Cornerstone of the Media Reform Movement: FAIR at 20.” FAIR. Feb. 2006. 28 April 2008. < http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2812 >.
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