Making a profit
Making a profit while
telling the truth
It’s no secret – the press is out to make a profit.
Most of those profits come from advertisers because news consumers won’t pay the cost of gathering and presenting the news. That’s a fact abundantly clear in the newspaper industry where much of its audience has been taken away by cable and web news operations, forcing hundreds of journalists into unemployment in order to preserve profits.
Those jobs could be preserved if news consumers were willing to pay more, but we aren’t.
Unlike other industries, journalists have a special bond with their customers. A free society depends upon how well they do their jobs. They are provided constitutional protections that don’t extend to car salesmen or restaurants.
But profits are still a factor and they do have an impact on what news is covered and how stories are told.
Certain celebrities, when featured on magazine covers, sell more copies than do other faces. Television stations make stories sound more important in teasers than they might actually be in order to draw an audience for an upcoming newscast.
As long as we’re not too gullible, it’s not a problem. Most of us tend to recognize hype when we hear it.
The problem is what we don’t know. We don’t know when a reporter or editor has “softened” a story because of the potential impact on advertisers. And we certainly don’t know when reporters or editors decline to cover a story to avoid such conflicts.
The solution is to be promiscuous in your news consumption. There is no power that can kill a story entirely. If a newspaper decides not to pursue a story, a television station or web site may decide to run with it. Those involved in a newsworthy event may leak details to bloggers or other outlets so the truth gets out. Often these leaks force the press into covering a story because ignoring it would be too embarrassing.
The growth in competition that has cut into media profits does provide us with more opportunities to get to the truth, but it’s up to us to take advantage of opportunities.
It’s true that journalists have special responsibilities, but the responsibility to be informed rests on us.
See also:
Chris Anderson tells you a dirty secret about the magazine industry.
Cuts in newsroom budgets mean less oversight of government agencies.
USA Today to become more advertiser friendly.