Gladstone: We think we want objectivity from media, but we're simply not wired that way

ONLY ON THE BLOG: Answering today’s OFF-SET questions is Brooke Gladstone, co-host and managing editor of WNYC’s “On the Media,” a weekly magazine program distributed by NPR.

She has also served as NPR’s media correspondent, Russia reporter and senior editor of NPR news programs. Gladstone has received two Peabody Awards, a few Edward R. Murrow Awards, and the National Press Club’s press criticism award.

Gladstone is author of the new book, “The Influencing Machine,” illustrated by Josh Neufeld. In the form of a graphic non-fiction book, Gladstone offers her take on the history of media influence, on media bias, and the role of media consumers.

What is the impact on “professional” journalists that anyone with a cell phone, as you write, “can now presume to make, break or fabricate the news”? What is that amazing transformation doing to institutional journalism?

The radical change? It is less and less the role of mainstream journalism to break news of unfolding events.

It is increasingly its role to contextualize those stories and analyze their impact and significance. In other words, mainstream media’s big selling point no longer lies in being everywhere all the time, but in historical memory, experience, KNOWLEDGE,  qualities that take work and time to develop and not easily supplanted (at least not right now) by citizen journalists on the ground.

Why do you say that American media are afraid of their audiences and advertisers? What do they fear?

The “News Media” is a business. It seems to be selling information, but in fact it is selling an image of America.

When that reflection does not match the image we have of ourselves, when its choices do not match our priorities, when its positions don’t square with our values, we get ANGRY and we turn it off, or complain to the advertisers. The ad money gets pulled and before too long, absent an extraordinary commitment by the news outlet, the show goes away. That is fundamentally the motivator – and the brake – for a lot of news stories.

You’ve thought a lot about such relentless journalism issues as objectivity, reporter bias and fairness. In your view, what do audiences want?

We think we want objectivity, but objectivity is beyond our capacity as human beings – we’re simply not wired that way (the way we ARE wired is shockingly and hilariously illustrated in the book). We are, however, capable of being fair and accurate, but polls suggest we really don’t care as much about those things as we think we do.

In fact, love of the press spiked during both the initial reporting after 9/11 and Katrina. In both instances the reporting was rife with inaccuracies and emotion. The audiences forgot the inaccuracies – they loved the media for the way it expressed the anguish and the outrage of the American media. QED.  

You point out that “Journalists will bend over backward to appear balanced by offering equal time to opposing viewpoints, even when they aren’t equal.” What should journalists do when confronted by complex and/or politically-charged issues?

This is what I call fairness bias, which is the product of four decades of hammering  – starting with the Nixon White House – that the media have a liberal bias.

It is true that journalists tend to be more “liberal” than the average American. But hyper-awareness of that fact has caused some of our most respected mainstream media outlets to bend over backwards to compensate – offering  far more conservative voices than liberal ones, and according equal time to two sides of issues that are not in fact, equal.

I do not for a second advocate banning any voices from the air, but to give equal time to those who dispute say, global warming, merely muddies the water. The public is not served by hearing prolonged presentations of a nonsensical debate. Give them a voice, but not an equal voice. That’s the same as lying in order to appear fair.  

Now, about the title of your book: One of Freud’s students coined the term to describe a delusion among schizophrenics—that an unseen, external machine was controlling their minds, and blame their pain and compulsions on the machine. Do you think that’s how most people view the power of media?

Certainly. We all believe that an unseen force is hobbling our judgment, exciting our lusts and shrinking our attention spans.

It feels good to believe that. In fact, every time there has been an advance in communications technology, there has been an explosion of anxiety that we are teetering on the brink of civilization’s collapse.

And yet, miraculously, the Republic survives.

I believe neither in impending doom nor a bright, shining cyber-uptopia. I do believe that we are on the brink of transformation – but that much of what we most fear we have already lived through, time and time again.

What I believe most of all is that the time has come to OWN the fact that we are the Media, and we have the power – and the responsibility – to make it and ourselves, smarter and more useful.

If the media appeal to our inner demons rather than our better angels, we are the reason why.