A MEDIA PORTENT?

By Chris Daly

There's a story by the AP today that may point toward one path to a new future for news. It reports that the Capital Times of Madison, Wisc., is abandoning its print version and going mainly on-line instead. An excerpt:


MADISON, Wis. - The Capital Times, the feisty afternoon newspaper that helped define this city and championed a unique brand of Midwestern progressivism, publishes its final daily today after a colorful 90-year history.
The paper that battled Joseph McCarthy, former senator of Wisconsin, and crusaded for decades to build a Frank Lloyd Wright convention center could no longer survive after decades of circulation losses.
But the self-described champion of the little guy isn't ready to quit. Next week, the paper starts publishing two weekly tabloids and transitions its daily coverage to the Internet with a smaller staff in a first-of-its-kind move being watched closely in the industry.


Despite the gloomy, elegiac tone of the piece [who says the AP is always neutral about the news?] and its heavy reliance on quotes from readers in their 80s and 90s, the real news is that this newspaper is finding a way to survive by going entirely on-line.

As I have argued before, newspapers are at a crossroads. Part of their legacy from the 19th Century is manufacturing. Almost every newspaper is committed to manufacturing (and distributing!) a product every day. This is a giant anchor they are dragging into the 21st Century.
Newspapers are also, of course, in the information industry. In that field, almost all the work and profits are digital.

Newspapers are like the emblematic case of the folks who used to make buggy-whips for people to use in driving horses for carriages. Those buggy-whip makers never realized that they were in the transportation business. Instead, they thought they were in the horse business, and they went the way of the farrier.

The Times' Loose Cannon

TIMES FIRES A BIG GUN, HITS WRONG TARGET

By Chris Daly

As the world knows, the Times launched a massive assault Sunday on the Pentagon in the form of a 7,625-word front-page “expose” of the cozy relationship between the Pentagon and an inter-service corps of “analysts” who feed the news media. The paper did some valuable reporting (and should be applauded for bringing suit to pry loose some of the documents the report was based on).

But the piece, by David Barstow, failed to score a direct hit. In my judgment, it was aimed at the wrong target. The newspaper came off sounding disingenuous and (needlessly) antagonistic to the military.

Certainly, it can come as no surprise that the Pentagon seeks to shape the battlefield in the media world just as it does in the real world. I more or less figured that’s what they were up to.


Torie Clarke, the former public relations executive who oversaw the Pentagon’s dealings with the analysts as assistant secretary of defense for public affairs, had come to her job with distinct ideas about achieving what she called “information dominance.” In a spin-saturated news culture, she argued, opinion is swayed most by voices perceived* as authoritative and utterly independent.
[* emphasis added]


And, though it is chilling to hear it actually stated, I suppose it is no surprise that the top brass seek to target the hearts and minds of the American people.


“The strategic target remains our population,” General Conway [operations head for the Joint Chiefs] said. “We can lose people day in and day out, but they’re never going to beat our military. What they can and will do if they can is strip away our support. And you guys[referring to the analysts] can help us not let that happen.”


As for the “analysts,” they were guilty only of pursuing their own interests. Some of them are trying to drum up business for the defense contractors they work for. Some may be bored with retirement and may want to feel important by going on TV. Most of them probably believe that it was a good idea to invade Iraq, or at least not to get defeated there.

So, the Times’ sense of shock, disappointment, and outrage over these disclosures was misplaced. The real target should have been the media, which got off rather lightly. The question should have been: In all this mess, which institution is not living up to its own standards?

The answer, of course, is the media, which employ these “analysts.” They are the ones who are guilty of shoddy practices. Where is the transparency? Why don’t they vet these guys? Why don’t they disclose the massive conflicts of interest? Why don’t they bestir themselves to find – or hire – truly independent analysts?

The television network that relies most heavily on the analysts is, not surprisingly, Fox News, which seems to operate on the principle that the proper role for the media is to cheer for Republican administrations. The others – CNN and the broadcast networks along with, to a less extent, the print media, including the Times itself – should be ashamed of themselves. And they should not have been allowed to get off with the mealy-mouthed non-denial denials they all issued.


[p.s. This seems like a good time to re-visit “Wag the Dog” (1997, Barry Levinson) and see how much of this was foretold in that brilliant satire.]