“There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.”
Oscar Wilde
I am fairly certain that most of us will remember a time, when we were children, when another child’s (usually a sibling) words or actions would rile us so much that we would lodge a protest with a parent (usually our mother) complaining about said words or actions. Expecting judgement, and swift action, in our favour, we would be instead left crestfallen when were advised ‘just ignore him/her’. As children, we found this outcome deeply unsatisfactory for two main reasons. First, our tormentor was, in effect, permitted to continue their behaviour, without sanction, and secondly, this approach seemed counterintuitive: how did one stop something irritating by doing nothing?
Over the last year or so, as I scroll through my social media feed, one of the notable themes in posts is how biased, and piss-poor, our mainstream media seems to be when covering anything (other than sport). In the interests of full disclosure, I was, for a time, an active participant in the pile-on.
While I had always treated mainstream media with a degree of caution, there were elements of it that could be ‘trusted’ in terms of quality and impartiality. However, the COVID pandemic put paid to any belief on my part that the content and analysis by the media could be trusted. The reporting regarding government measures to deal with and overcome both the COVID virus and its effects on the community could be summed up in three words: superficial, emotive and banal. What I read in newspapers, and saw on TV, ditched any pretension to being informative: it was about making feel, and usually the emotions that were being incited were those of fear and anger.
The pandemic and its effect passed, but the coverage of events – domestic and international, political and economic, social and financial followed the same pattern: superficial, emotive and banal. From my perspective, it also took on a fourth attribute: biased. The bias was, mostly, not overt (other than in the Murdoch press, which are at least honest about their bias), but was demonstrated either by omission, that is, a complete failure to address, much less analyse, perspectives other than the narrative put forward in particular reportage, or open contempt expressed towards those who stand against the prevailing paradigm or consensus within the media.
Initially, much of the adverse commentary about the media on social media was directed at the ‘commercial’ media (both TV and newspapers), but over time, the principal public broadcaster in Australia – the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) – became the target. Apparently, the ABC has transformed from an organisation full of ‘commies’ and socialists who follow some ‘politically correct, woke’ agenda (the description commonly given by conservative politicians) to being one who reporting and analysis is now dominated by the same biases as the commercial media. The evidence showing this transformation (say the social media posters) can be seen from the selection of guests on news, current affairs and analysis programs (conservative politicians and, worse, journalists and commentators from the Murdoch press), presenters showing obvious hostility towards Labor party governments (Federal and State), and general lack of rigour in terms of analysis that – what do you know – tends to favour one side of politics.
With the greatest respect to all those social media posters and critics, you are wasting your time: if there is one thing that I have found about the news media and journalists is that they are Teflon-coated, and there are no mirrors in news departments. Any criticism about the quality of content, or suggestion of bias, is quickly brushed away, and any prospect of self-reflection, let alone an acknowledgement of error, remote indeed.
However, not only are those social media critics unlikely to bring about any change in approach or coverage by their criticism, but they are also validating that approach or coverage, because they are acknowledging that they are still reading or watching. Whether the media organisation is one dependent on advertising or not, it lives and dies on readership or ratings. It does not care whether you agree with the content it presents, it cares that you are (still) reading or watching.
The media is a business and, amongst other things, it is competing in a market for your eyes and ears. The basic theory underlying how a market works is that suppliers allocate resources to supplying things that we (the consumer) want. If enough consumers change their preference, and direct their demand to a good or service that is a substitute for what those suppliers had been supplying, those suppliers reallocate their resources to supply the alternative. In the content of the media, if the public buy a newspaper, log on to a news site or turn on their TV, to obtain particular content, then the media continues to supply it. In turn, if the public stop buying, logging in or switching on, then the media needs to supply different content: the content that the public now want.
If a commercial (if, a for-profit) media organisation seeks to defy the market theory, then there is a simple outcome: they lose money. Revenue from sales, but particularly revenue from advertising starts to dry up when advertisers realise that fewer people are reading organisation’s paper(s) or switching on its news. Whatever the political persuasions of those who control or direct the content of these media organisations, few if any of them run that organisation entirely for the power and influence that that organisation might command; they are in it for the money, and money talks louder than anything else.
For the public broadcaster, the dynamic is a little different. It may not rely on sales or advertising quite so much, but it does need the relevance and credibility that comes with people acquiring its content. It needs viewers to and readers to continue to be able to argue that it is offering ‘value’ for the taxpayer dollar that funds it. Instead, the public broadcaster has been masterful over the last decade in alienating both sides of politics as well as just about anyone under the age of 50 (and all the Bluey fans do not vote). It is to avoid the assessment that, like the conservative parties, it is seeking to consolidate its ‘base’ at a time when that base is rapidly dying off. I digress.
Until the widespread adoption of the internet, and then social media, the participants in the ‘mainstream’ media could afford to serve up any kind of news content because, other than its direct competitors in the mainstream media, it had no competition in terms of the supply of news content. Now, online providers and social media, where news content can be generated more cheaply now offers a ready alternative to the content from the legacy media providers – which is why those legacy providers never miss an opportunity to call for regulation of internet-generated news.
My point is this. We all have an expanded range of choices in terms of where we source our news coverage and analysis. If the mainstream or legacy media is not delivering content that meets our requirements or expectations, then we should look elsewhere. Rather than spending time posting about how the mainstream media is wrong or biased, we should be praising and validating any new sources of news and analysis we find.
Oscar Wilde’s words of wisdom apply very much to the media: that media being talked about (even if the commentary is negative), but fears the silence that comes from being ignored and irrelevant. So to those on social media that bemoan coverage on commercial media and the ABC, I say “Stop posting about it, find something you like and promote it”. If enough people ignore mainstream media, it will get the message.
