Enjoyed this, Kevin. Curious to know whether Wright makes much of Yellow journalism and its ‘pioneers’ - Pulitzer and Hearst and those who discovered just how profitable outrage could be.
Wright touches on figures like Pulitzer and Hearst toward the end of the book, but they represent the end of the period he is focused on — when U.S. news shifted from that "artisanal literary product" to something more industrial.
But Wright does touch on other editorial figures who discovered that fake news and outrage could be highly profitable. My favorite example from the book is Benjamin Day, who published sensational stories in his paper, The Sun, about things like scandals, suicides, and crimes of passion. One of the Sun's more sensational "humbugs" was all about "man-bats" living in lush forests on the moon.
From both right-wing and left-wing news media, too much of ‘journalism’ is motivated more by a paycheck and publication (‘a buck and a byline’) rather than a genuine strive to challenge the big and bad powers that be: To truly comfort the afflicted while afflicting the comfortable in an increasingly unjust global existence.
Mainstream news-media have been editorially emasculated thus negligent, however much it may be due to orders from ownership headquarters and therefore beyond their control.
Such journalism’s traditional function may also be subtly changing. The adage-description of journalism’s fundamental function can remain the same, but revision of terminological representation is definitely in order. While it remains “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable,” there may be an alteration to what/who constitutes an “afflicted” and “the comfortable”.
Frankly, journalists/editors with genuine integrity should tender their resignations and even publicly proclaim they can no longer help propagate their employer’s media product, whether it involves self-censored or missing coverage of a brutally lopsided foreign war or that of domestic corporate corruption that will harm the populace. Instead, the mainstream news-media's distortion and diversion continues.
Also, over decades I’ve heard of too many cases of employees not standing up and doing what is necessary for the public and/or human(e) good, instead excusing themselves with something like: ‘I need this job — I have a family to support’. I have to say that such familial obligation status does not actually ethically or morally justify their willing involvement — unless, of course, they were actually forced into coupling and copulating with intent to procreate.
What astonishes me, though, is how such news-media professionals can afterwards sleep at night or look their little children/grandchildren in the face everyday?
While I appreciate your passion and you rightly point to some of the challenges facing journalism today, overall I have to disagree with the heavy-handed belief that all news media have been either "editorially emasculated" or operate solely to protect the powers that be.
Yes, there have been several high-profile cases lately of newsrooms being gutted and owners pressuring coverage to align with their interests. Jeff Bezos and David Ellison's handling of The Washington Post and CBS, respectively, are two pertinent examples.
However, there are still plenty of newsrooms and investigative journalist teams out there doing fantastic work uncovering the truth and reporting it to the public. In fact, the only reason we know about the troubles at organizations like the Post and CBS is that journalists reported on it — sometimes the journalists in those very newsrooms who sacrificed their jobs to tell the story.
Yes, some "news" organizations lack integrity and bend their coverage toward ideological ends, or they outright fabricate the news. Yes, too much coverage these days is based on opinionated punditry rather than investigative reporting. But we also share some responsibility and need to do better about seeking out and supporting good journalism (rather than expecting to get it for free online).
I would add that journalism's purpose is not to "comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable." This oft-cited antimetabole was actually coined by the humorist Finley Peter Dunne in a 1902 column. He wrote it to poke fun at the idea that newspapers should be so powerful that we find comfort in their pages rather than in our neighbors, communities, and society at large working together to make the world a better place.
The purpose of good journalism is to report accurately on events so that readers can understand what is happening in the world. Whether that holds the powerful accountable depends on what we, as citizens and consumers, choose to do with that information. And as Alex Wright's book shows, compared to the journalists of the past, today's institutions, while not perfect, are doing much better in that regard.
But while we may disagree, I do appreciate you reading with us and sharing your opinion in the comments. Take care!
And while both the UK and the US are guilty of sensational news stories, there does seem to be a deep distrust (in a good way) of politicians and power that continues to motivate excellent reporting and a demand for accountability.
I, on the other hand, feel you're being a bit lenient. ...
Perhaps similar to some of their American counterparts (e.g. The Economist and The Wall Street Journal), much, if not most, of Canada's mainstream and heavily corporatized news-media are in bed with the fossil fuel industry's interests here.
Most notably, Postmedia — which, among many other publications, owns one of Canada's two national daily newspapers (The National Post) — is on record allying itself with not only the planet’s second most polluting forms of carbon-based “energy” but also THE MOST polluting/dirtiest crude oil, bitumen.
During a presentation, it was stated: “Postmedia and [Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers] will bring energy to the forefront of our national conversation. Together, we will engage executives, the business community and the Canadian public to underscore the ways in which the energy sector powers Canada.”
[According to Wikipedia, “Postmedia Network Canada Corp. (also known as Postmedia Network, Postmedia News or Postmedia) is an American-owned, Canadian-based media conglomerate consisting of the publishing properties of the former Canwest, with primary operations in English-language newspaper publishing, news gathering and Internet operations. It is best known for being the owner of the National Post and the Financial Post. It owns and operates over more than 130 print and digital news titles across Canada.”]
Also, Postmedia acquired a lobbying firm in 2019 with close ties to Alberta Premier Jason Kenney in order to participate in his government’s $30 million PR “war room” in promoting the industry's interests. And in May of 2021, the newspaper giant refused to run paid ads by Leadnow, a social and environmental justice organization, that exposed the Royal Bank of Canada as the largest financer of the nation's fossil fuel extraction.
And I'm not the only vocally concerned Canadian, one being the now-deceased yet quite memorable Rafe Mair:
“I would argue that what little ethical and moral foundation the country has is deeply threatened by the crumbling discipline of a fossil-fuel-based economy and the politics it spawns. Nothing requires government supervision in so many areas (and nothing has anything like the influence on government) as this industry.
“It follows that no other industry remotely requires the amount and kind of honest, wary media surveillance this one does,” Rafe Mair aptly wrote in his book Politically Incorrect: How Canada Lost Its Way and the Simple Path Home [published in October 2017, the same month he died].
Mr. Mair also had been an elected representative, journalist and talk-show host. His book largely forensically dissects democracy’s decline in Canada and suggests how it may be helped: “What has the media, especially but hardly exclusively the print media, done in response to this immense challenge? It’s joined fortunes with the petroleum industry. And a very large part of it has done so in print and in public.
“The facts are that the rest of the media have not raised a peep of protest at this unholiest of alliances and that governments contentedly and smugly pretend all that favourable coverage they get proves their efficiency — not that the fix is in and they’re part of that fix. Let me just comment that the difference from 1972 to 2017 in the media’s dealing with governments and politics takes the breath away!”
Enjoyed this, Kevin. Curious to know whether Wright makes much of Yellow journalism and its ‘pioneers’ - Pulitzer and Hearst and those who discovered just how profitable outrage could be.
Thanks for the kind words, Michael!
Wright touches on figures like Pulitzer and Hearst toward the end of the book, but they represent the end of the period he is focused on — when U.S. news shifted from that "artisanal literary product" to something more industrial.
But Wright does touch on other editorial figures who discovered that fake news and outrage could be highly profitable. My favorite example from the book is Benjamin Day, who published sensational stories in his paper, The Sun, about things like scandals, suicides, and crimes of passion. One of the Sun's more sensational "humbugs" was all about "man-bats" living in lush forests on the moon.
We ran an excerpt about it over at Big Think. You can check it out here if you'd like: https://bigthink.com/books/the-1835-moon-hoax/
Kevin Dickinson
- Big Think Books editor
A stunning piece
I’m glad I found you.
I'd love for you to check out my pieces and kindly connect back if it sticks.
https://lawrenceomoregiejr.substack.com/p/i-carried-the-weight?r=3g3d4k&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
https://lawrenceomoregiejr.substack.com/p/i-know-you-think-im-happy?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=3g3d4k
https://lawrenceomoregiejr.substack.com/p/to-my-substack-family-561?r=3g3d4k&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
Would love to hear your thoughts as we grow together here.
Do have a great read and a lovely day
From both right-wing and left-wing news media, too much of ‘journalism’ is motivated more by a paycheck and publication (‘a buck and a byline’) rather than a genuine strive to challenge the big and bad powers that be: To truly comfort the afflicted while afflicting the comfortable in an increasingly unjust global existence.
Mainstream news-media have been editorially emasculated thus negligent, however much it may be due to orders from ownership headquarters and therefore beyond their control.
Such journalism’s traditional function may also be subtly changing. The adage-description of journalism’s fundamental function can remain the same, but revision of terminological representation is definitely in order. While it remains “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable,” there may be an alteration to what/who constitutes an “afflicted” and “the comfortable”.
Frankly, journalists/editors with genuine integrity should tender their resignations and even publicly proclaim they can no longer help propagate their employer’s media product, whether it involves self-censored or missing coverage of a brutally lopsided foreign war or that of domestic corporate corruption that will harm the populace. Instead, the mainstream news-media's distortion and diversion continues.
Also, over decades I’ve heard of too many cases of employees not standing up and doing what is necessary for the public and/or human(e) good, instead excusing themselves with something like: ‘I need this job — I have a family to support’. I have to say that such familial obligation status does not actually ethically or morally justify their willing involvement — unless, of course, they were actually forced into coupling and copulating with intent to procreate.
What astonishes me, though, is how such news-media professionals can afterwards sleep at night or look their little children/grandchildren in the face everyday?
While I appreciate your passion and you rightly point to some of the challenges facing journalism today, overall I have to disagree with the heavy-handed belief that all news media have been either "editorially emasculated" or operate solely to protect the powers that be.
Yes, there have been several high-profile cases lately of newsrooms being gutted and owners pressuring coverage to align with their interests. Jeff Bezos and David Ellison's handling of The Washington Post and CBS, respectively, are two pertinent examples.
However, there are still plenty of newsrooms and investigative journalist teams out there doing fantastic work uncovering the truth and reporting it to the public. In fact, the only reason we know about the troubles at organizations like the Post and CBS is that journalists reported on it — sometimes the journalists in those very newsrooms who sacrificed their jobs to tell the story.
Yes, some "news" organizations lack integrity and bend their coverage toward ideological ends, or they outright fabricate the news. Yes, too much coverage these days is based on opinionated punditry rather than investigative reporting. But we also share some responsibility and need to do better about seeking out and supporting good journalism (rather than expecting to get it for free online).
I would add that journalism's purpose is not to "comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable." This oft-cited antimetabole was actually coined by the humorist Finley Peter Dunne in a 1902 column. He wrote it to poke fun at the idea that newspapers should be so powerful that we find comfort in their pages rather than in our neighbors, communities, and society at large working together to make the world a better place.
The purpose of good journalism is to report accurately on events so that readers can understand what is happening in the world. Whether that holds the powerful accountable depends on what we, as citizens and consumers, choose to do with that information. And as Alex Wright's book shows, compared to the journalists of the past, today's institutions, while not perfect, are doing much better in that regard.
But while we may disagree, I do appreciate you reading with us and sharing your opinion in the comments. Take care!
Kevin Dickinson
- Big Think Books editor
And while both the UK and the US are guilty of sensational news stories, there does seem to be a deep distrust (in a good way) of politicians and power that continues to motivate excellent reporting and a demand for accountability.
I, on the other hand, feel you're being a bit lenient. ...
Perhaps similar to some of their American counterparts (e.g. The Economist and The Wall Street Journal), much, if not most, of Canada's mainstream and heavily corporatized news-media are in bed with the fossil fuel industry's interests here.
Most notably, Postmedia — which, among many other publications, owns one of Canada's two national daily newspapers (The National Post) — is on record allying itself with not only the planet’s second most polluting forms of carbon-based “energy” but also THE MOST polluting/dirtiest crude oil, bitumen.
During a presentation, it was stated: “Postmedia and [Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers] will bring energy to the forefront of our national conversation. Together, we will engage executives, the business community and the Canadian public to underscore the ways in which the energy sector powers Canada.”
[According to Wikipedia, “Postmedia Network Canada Corp. (also known as Postmedia Network, Postmedia News or Postmedia) is an American-owned, Canadian-based media conglomerate consisting of the publishing properties of the former Canwest, with primary operations in English-language newspaper publishing, news gathering and Internet operations. It is best known for being the owner of the National Post and the Financial Post. It owns and operates over more than 130 print and digital news titles across Canada.”]
Also, Postmedia acquired a lobbying firm in 2019 with close ties to Alberta Premier Jason Kenney in order to participate in his government’s $30 million PR “war room” in promoting the industry's interests. And in May of 2021, the newspaper giant refused to run paid ads by Leadnow, a social and environmental justice organization, that exposed the Royal Bank of Canada as the largest financer of the nation's fossil fuel extraction.
And I'm not the only vocally concerned Canadian, one being the now-deceased yet quite memorable Rafe Mair:
“I would argue that what little ethical and moral foundation the country has is deeply threatened by the crumbling discipline of a fossil-fuel-based economy and the politics it spawns. Nothing requires government supervision in so many areas (and nothing has anything like the influence on government) as this industry.
“It follows that no other industry remotely requires the amount and kind of honest, wary media surveillance this one does,” Rafe Mair aptly wrote in his book Politically Incorrect: How Canada Lost Its Way and the Simple Path Home [published in October 2017, the same month he died].
Mr. Mair also had been an elected representative, journalist and talk-show host. His book largely forensically dissects democracy’s decline in Canada and suggests how it may be helped: “What has the media, especially but hardly exclusively the print media, done in response to this immense challenge? It’s joined fortunes with the petroleum industry. And a very large part of it has done so in print and in public.
“The facts are that the rest of the media have not raised a peep of protest at this unholiest of alliances and that governments contentedly and smugly pretend all that favourable coverage they get proves their efficiency — not that the fix is in and they’re part of that fix. Let me just comment that the difference from 1972 to 2017 in the media’s dealing with governments and politics takes the breath away!”
Source: https://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2017/11/14/mair-media-unholiest-alliances