“Nonpartisan” and “fair and balanced” journalism sound like great ideas. But they probably aren’t what you think they are. They’ve been made to sound like best practices for ethical news gathering. But historically these ideas are artifacts of technology and capitalism.
I bring this stuff up because getting beyond all the usual ideological mess and straight bullshit like this tone-deaf nonsense from The Tennessean, is crucial to understanding why “writer and social media personality” Ryan Moore’s weird love letter to his Make America Great Again (MAGA) hat appeared in Gannett newspapers including The Commercial Appeal.
A screen shot/excerpt from The Commercial Appeal.
America’s partisan-funded press came skidding to a halt in the last quarter of the 19th century when new, high-speed printing made it possible for newspapers with enough up-front investment capital to distribute their products farther than ever before. Lots of attention is paid to the idea that “a biased news medium is bad for a self-governing people.” But the thing is, at scale, it was also bad for business. Politically neutral papers could reach bigger markets becoming valuable to local interests and emerging national brands wanting less partisan places to advertise. Economic realities forged the new journalistic ideals regarding what makes appropriate news content, not idealistic struggles for better information and freer reporting. And they still do.
A similar technological disruption bent the modern media mythos away from big-market “objectivity” toward a more useful narrative for an exploded economy: “fair and balanced.” This works in a crowded field because you can’t know the truth until you’ve heard every [hardline ideological] side, right? When cable news blew up and America went from having only three major news networks to having so many choices you could no longer get by without a remote control, the basic idea of what constitutes respectable market shares reduced considerably. Niche marketing and partisan reporting made sense again. This is where Fox News comes from and with it the logical fallacy that all tits require right-wing tats.
So what does any of this have to do with Gannett’s MAGA-Man-crush?
Like I’ve said before, markets determine content and Tennessee remains a solid red patch on the political map. Gannett’s earnings are in the shitter and its products, deformed as they are by a loss of local autonomy and investment, waste like plague victims. So much reporting and media opinion following the infamous MAGA-Teen‘s 15-minutes in the barrel, cast MAGA caps in a bad light, and judging by the color of those electoral maps I’ve linked above, that’s the favored headgear of many if not most Tennesseans. In other words, the news smacked lots of Gannett’s subscribers and potential subscribers right across the brim.
Market served. “Tat” accomplished.
Moore’s editorial is mostly familiar rhetoric about folks needing to be respectful of other folks and judging people by the content of their character, not the color of their stupid, racist hats. I could do a whole post on irony and the character of Moore’s content, but that’s not my purpose.
If serving readers/viewers/listeners is important it’s probably not a good idea for news-oriented media to be in the business of promoting standard, white-male victimization narratives. If media serves a public good it’s also probably a bad idea to participate in softening symbols that, regardless of what secret, special things they may mean to social media personalities, are also, inarguably, touchstones for white supremacists.
But c’mon! From a commercial POV this stuff’s candy — bulked up by outrage-shares and sweetened with hate-clicks. Win-win for everybody! Unless the consumer was looking for information instead of a daily rise, in which case, not so much there.
Nevertheless, the story went big opening Moore’s complaint up to a wider dialogue.
Top comment, Newsweek
I’ll conclude my rant by answering some rage-posts I’ve seen in my social media feed from folks justifiably wondering why MAGA-bro Moore is fronting all over their social media feeds. The real question is, why are you sharing it? And are you ready for more?
It’s just business; thanks for yours.
