How do we know that what we read in the newspapers is fake or real news? Wait. What is news? Who determines what gets published? Wasn’t it Malcolm X who said that: “The media’s the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that’s power. Because they control the minds of the masses.” If Malcom X is right and the media is imbued with so much unethical power, how are we to respond to what we read? Should we trust what we read, hear on the radio or watch on television? The situation gets worse when certain journalists are political activists and blur the line between reporting and campaigning.
I recently read a lovely little book by Alain de Botton called News: A User’s Manual. I recommend this book especially for those who haven’t done a degree in Media Studies. I am going to quote heavily from this text because I believe it is laden with pearls of wisdom relating to the media. De Botton is right that “… we don’t entirely grasp who decides on what counts as news and by what criteria – and therefore bulletins have a habit of seeming as if they had been generated by nature or some higher necessity to which we are not privy and which it would be impudent to question. We forget the highly contingent and human dynamics underlying the choice of what ends up being picked as a ‘story’. A certain coy secrecy is maintained about how news is even made” (Botton, 2014:71). De Botton is exposing the news selection underbelly; that news are selected by people who have agendas and biases. This is not always admitted by media practitioners who habitually argue that they report fairly. How de Botton reminds us that: “The news knows how to render its own mechanics almost invisible and therefore hard to question. It speaks to us in a natural unaccented voice, without reference to its own assumption-laden perspective. It fails to disclose that it does not merely report on the world, but is instead constantly at work crafting a new planet in our minds in line with its own often highly distinctive priorities” (Botton, 2014:11). What de Botton means is that the media is biased, whether consciously or unconsciously. And he argues that bias is not necessarily a bad thing. “In serious journalistic quarters, bias has a very bad name. It is synonymous with malevolent agendas, lies and authoritarian attempts to deny audiences the freedom to make their own minds. Yet we should be more generous towards bias. In its pure form, a bias simply indicates a method of evaluating events that is guided by a coherent underlying thesis about human functioning and flourishing. It is a pair of lenses that glide over reality and aim to bring it more clearly into focus. Bias strives to explain what events mean and introduces a scale of values by which to judge ideas and events. It seems excessive to try to escape from bias per se; the task is rather to find ways to alight on its more reliable and fruitful examples. …. What should be laudable in a news organisation is not a simple capacity to collect facts, but a skill – honed by intelligent bias – at teasing out their relevance” (Botton, 2014:29).
Once we know that the media is biased and that bias is not necessarily a bad thing, we are equipped to approach the media in a more realistic manner. Our challenge is to determine the nature of bias; whether it is the malignant of the benign one. We must not be fooled by the media. We do know that “When journalists are asked to explain what their most important contribution to society is, they will tend to emphasise one function over any other: they will say that it is their responsibility to hold ‘power to account’. Journalists would argue that the powerful must be held to account because they have strong tendencies to break the laws of the land and to imagine themselves immune from prosecution: they steal money, hide untaxed income, bribe their way around legislation, contravene employment and environmental rules and intimidate and sexually abuse the powerless. Journalism is, according to this argument, primarily a branch of the police force, as well as a proxy for the tax office and various consumer groups” (Botton, 2014:59). But we know this is not always true. Sometimes the media is used to do exactly the opposite. We know that although “The noblest promise of the news is that it will be able to alleviate ignorance, overcome prejudice and raise the intelligence of individuals and nations.” However, “…from some quarters it has been accused of a contrary capacity, that of making us completely stupid.” (Botton, 2014:67)
So we must be aware that what we read in a paper, listen to on radio or watch on television is all biased – and not all bias is manipulative. We must however question: Why is this story front page news? What does such a choice say about the writer or the editor? We must question the use of certain words and editorials. We must not only question the selection of stories which make news. We must also question why certain stories don’t become news. What I am calling for is cynicism. Don’t be too trusting of what is in the media – not because it is inherently bad – but because it was selected from a thousand other stories which could have made news but were left out. Exercise your intelligence and question. Yes. Question.
