Summer 1997
Media, Values, Moguls: Is the Compass Broken?
A Syposium Sponsored by the Pew Center with The Atlantic Monthly
Century Club, New York City, April 16, 1997
James Fallows
Editor, U.S. News and World Report
The news business will survive this transition to being just another corporate model for producing its product. But the way in which we survive will aggravate, rather than offset, many of the things that are most troubled about our country and the way news is delivered… the polarization along the lines of income and education and general involvement in life’s affairs. . .
We’ll have very high-level sophisticated publications… and there will be things which will satisfy a larger mass market… But I contend this will be bad for our country because what the older model of news provided was a sort of democratic glue. Common information. Common experiences.
Jennie Buckner
Editor, The Charlotte Observer
We find ourselves traveling down some pretty rocky roads these days. Rocky road number one is the Tabloid Trail. Television news I think is being guided more and more by entertainment values and less and less by journalism values. Problem path number two I would call the Elite Trail. Somehow, press professionalism has morphed into press elitism. The result is journalism that’s too often irrelevant and sometimes downright neglectful of the things that concern ordinary citizens. I worry there is too much journalism of elites, by elites, and for elites. . .
People are hungry for more insight and more inspiration. For some hope and some help. Meanwhile, it seems to me the media is desperately seeking drama. And finding it mostly in stories that feature conflict.
As we think about change, I think we can revise journalism by reconnecting with our public — looking outward to them. And I think we will have to look inward and really own this credibility problem.
Daniel Okrent
Editor, New Media, Time Inc.
I’m learning already on the Internet about the dangers of involving citizens or democratic input into what we in the media do. That it can be a very volatile and scary mix… And this tells us what our responsibilities are at the top of a pyramid of information.
What we can do to connect with communities is two things: to be interesting and to tell the truth. If we do a good job of it, then we are, indeed, giving communities what they want.
I guess I’m speaking in defense of the editors’ union. Our profession has been built on the fact that we know what they want to read better than they know what they want to read… My carpenter knows how to build a piece of furniture far better than I do, and I think I know how to make a better magazine . . .
We do end up in this coming new environment of fractionated audiences, where people are choosing what they want to know on a very narrow basis. These small audiences break up society and it becomes the obligation, I believe, of the media — of the big media — to have large minds, to break up those small audiences and put ’em all back together again.
Former Gov. Mario Cuomo
New York State
If there’s a big problem right now, it’s the sanctification of popularity… Values is the issue. There is a sickness in this society. There is nothing real to believe in for a lot of people. There is no hero. There is no heroine. There is no great cause. There is no ideology. There hasn’t been anything to believe in since the Second World War. We have nothing that we can wrap our arms around and say, “This is it. This is the purpose. This is what ennobles us. This is what uplifts us.”
The big principle is interconnectedness and interdependence. Everybody needs everybody else… We’re all in this together. You can be rich at the top — just empower those people in the middle. With what? With education, with health care, with roads and bridges. Make some investments. But you are going to have to give something up, you rich person, who is going to insist on your Medicare, on your Social Security, on your tax cuts. . .
Don’t give the people what they want. Because if you give them what they want, you won’t be giving them what they need. What I want to see The New York Times and the Charlotte paper and the Internet and everybody else do is tell them the truth.
Fallows: Yes, we can’t just give them what they want. But if they don’t want it at all, we’re going to go out of business…
Buckner:I’d like to clarify that folks who are practicing public journalism listen to the public not to give them what they want. But to understand where they are on a given issue… I really think that you listen to people so that you understand how to engage them about issues that matter. Not just listen to pander.