tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/npr-19230/articlesNPR – The Conversation2023-04-24T19:57:33Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2036492023-04-24T19:57:33Z2023-04-24T19:57:33ZTucker Carlson’s departure and Fox News’ expensive legal woes show the problem with faking ‘authenticity’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522669/original/file-20230424-1075-lksybg.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=9%2C0%2C6390%2C4529&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Fox News Host Tucker Carlson speaks during the 2022 Fox Nation Patriot Awards on Nov. 17, 2022, in Hollywood, Fla.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/tucker-carlson-speaks-during-2022-fox-nation-patriot-awards-news-photo/1442331995?adppopup=true">Jason Koerner/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>For decades, Fox News thrived because the people behind it understood what their audience wanted and were more than willing to deliver: television news – or what Fox called news – from a populist perspective. </p>
<p>Fox is <a href="https://deadline.com/tag/ratings/">consistently the most-watched cable news channel</a>, far ahead of competitors like MSNBC and CNN. That’s in large part due to people like Tucker Carlson, whose show “Tucker Carlson Tonight” <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/markjoyella/2023/02/14/with-35-million-viewers-tucker-carlson-has-the-weeks-highest-rated-cable-news-show/?sh=c4328587f529">has been one of the highest-rated in cable news</a>. But on April 24, Fox announced that <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/24/business/media/tucker-carlson-fox-news.html">Carlson is leaving the network</a>, and while no explanation was provided, it’s safe to say it wasn’t a lack of viewers.</p>
<p>Carlson’s departure came on the heels of Fox News’ <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/04/18/business/fox-news-dominion-trial-settlement">US$787.5 million settlement of the lawsuit lodged by Dominion Voting Systems</a> over the network’s promotion of misinformation about the 2020 election. Dominion had <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/fox-news-media-tucker-carlson-part-ways-2023-04-24/#:%7E:text=Dominion%20had%20alleged%20that%20statements,in%20Biden's%20favor%20were%20false.">cited claims made on Carlson’s program</a> as well as on other shows as evidence of defamation, and Carlson <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/apr/04/fox-dominion-trial-tucker-carlson-sean-hannity-testify">was expected to testify</a> if the case had gone to trial. The settlement reveals Fox’s biggest strength and weakness: the network’s incredible understanding of what its audience wants and its unrelenting willingness to deliver exactly that. </p>
<h2>More real than elites</h2>
<p>I’m a journalism scholar who studies <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/imagined-audiences-9780197542606?cc=us&lang=en&">the relationship between the news industry and the public</a>, and I’ve long been interested in <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/19312431211060426">understanding Fox’s appeal</a>. As media scholar <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Yk3Elf0AAAAJ&hl=en">Reece Peck</a> observes in <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/politics-international-relations/american-government-politics-and-policy/fox-populism-branding-conservatism-working-class?format=HB&isbn=9781108496766">his book about the network</a>, Fox’s success is less about politics than it is about style. Fox’s star broadcasters like Carlson <a href="https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/digital-news-report/2022/which-journalists-do-people-pay-most-attention-and-why-study-six-countries">found enormous success</a> by embracing an authenticity-as-a-form-of-populism approach.</p>
<p>They presented themselves as more “real” than the “out-of-touch elites” at other news organizations. Journalists have traditionally attempted to earn audience trust and loyalty by emphasizing their professionalism and objectivity, while people like Carlson earn it by emphasizing an us-against-them anti-elitism where <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/27/fox-news-tucker-carlson-elections/">expertise is more often a criticism than a compliment</a>. </p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/politics-international-relations/american-government-politics-and-policy/fox-populism-branding-conservatism-working-class?format=HB&isbn=9781108496766">Peck notes</a>, Fox broadcasters present themselves as “ordinary Americans … challenging the cultural elitism of the news industry.” So the allure of Fox is not just in its political slant, but in its just-like-you presentation that establishes anchors like Carlson as allies in the fight against the buttoned-up establishment figures they regularly disparage. </p>
<p>In short, NPR plays smooth jazz between segments, while <a href="https://www.cjr.org/tow_center/fox-news-partisan-progaganda-research.php">Fox plays country</a>.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522671/original/file-20230424-18-r2qeby.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A large crowd of people surrounding a small group of people on a public plaza." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522671/original/file-20230424-18-r2qeby.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522671/original/file-20230424-18-r2qeby.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522671/original/file-20230424-18-r2qeby.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522671/original/file-20230424-18-r2qeby.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522671/original/file-20230424-18-r2qeby.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522671/original/file-20230424-18-r2qeby.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522671/original/file-20230424-18-r2qeby.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Reporters surround Dominion Voting Systems lawyers during a news conference in Wilmington, Del., after the defamation lawsuit by Dominion against Fox News was settled April 18, 2023.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/PicturesoftheWeek-NorthAmerica-PhotoGallery/b8917d7cb42c459396ef17fe971ddcc3/photo?Query=Fox%20News&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=4879&currentItemNo=8">AP Photo/Julio Cortez</a></span>
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</figure>
<h2>‘Authenticity’ became a trap</h2>
<p>This anti-establishment, working-class persona embraced by many of Fox’s broadcasters has always been a performance. </p>
<p>Back in 2000, Bill O'Reilly, whom the network would eventually <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/21/business/media/bill-oreilly-sexual-harassment.html">pay tens of millions of dollars a year</a>, called his show the “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/2000/12/13/the-life-of-oreilly/b9cd54fb-3edd-4e68-a489-2e990e3a7bca/">only show from a working-class point of view</a>.” </p>
<p>More recently, Sean Hannity, who is a friend of former President Donald Trump’s and makes about $30 million a year, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/09/28/hannity-slams-overpaid-media-elites-then-journalists-respond-noting-his-29m-salary-and-private-jet/">slammed “overpaid” media elites</a>. <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/politics-international-relations/american-government-politics-and-policy/fox-populism-branding-conservatism-working-class?format=HB&isbn=9781108496766">Peck observes</a> that this posturing is purposeful: It emphasizes “Fox’s moral purity, a purity that is established in terms of a distance from the corrupting force of political and media power centers.”</p>
<p>However, the Dominion lawsuit revealed that, after decades of using this distinctly populist – and often misleading – brand of performative authenticity to earn the loyalty of millions of people, Fox became trapped by it. </p>
<p>Internal communications between Fox broadcasters that were revealed in the months leading up to the trial’s scheduled start date showed the network’s marquee acts trying to reconcile their audience’s sense that the 2020 election had been rigged with their own skepticism about that lie. </p>
<p>Messages made public as part of the Dominion suit show Carlson, for example, said that he believed that Sidney Powell, Trump’s lawyer, was lying about election fraud claims. But, he added “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/31/business/fox-dominion-defamation-case.html">our viewers are good people and they believe it</a>.” Fox wasn’t telling its audience what to believe. Instead, it was following its audience’s lead and presenting a false narrative that aligned with what its viewers wanted to be true.</p>
<p>Once Fox’s broadcasters and the Fox audience became bonded by the network’s outsider status, those broadcasters felt compelled to follow the audience off a cliff of election misinformation and right into a defamation lawsuit. The alternative would run the risk of sullying its populist persona and, ironically, its credibility with its audience. </p>
<p>As New York Times TV critic <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/19/arts/television/fox-news-settlement.html">James Poniewozik observed</a>, “The customer is always right. In fact, the customer is boss.” </p>
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<span class="caption">Bill O'Reilly was one of the earliest Fox News hosts to present an ‘everyman’ persona to the viewing public.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/TVOReillyAccuser/909647250fc34130acd81e7a9d51a191/photo">AP Photo/Richard Drew</a></span>
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</figure>
<h2>A trendsetter and a cautionary tale</h2>
<p>The Dominion lawsuit was more than a rare opportunity to see firsthand just how dishonestly Fox’s talent acted when the cameras were rolling. </p>
<p>It’s also a cautionary tale for those who see so-called authenticity as a marker of trustworthiness in journalism, and in the media more generally. </p>
<p>“As a society, we … love the idea of people ‘being themselves,’” <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/apr/02/social-media-analyst-emily-hund-influencer-authenticity-interview">says scholar Emily Hund</a>, a researcher at the University of Pennsylvania’s Center on Digital Culture and Society and the author of “<a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691231020/the-influencer-industry">The Influencer Industry: The Quest for Authenticity on Social Media</a>.” </p>
<p>The question that many seem to implicitly ask themselves when deciding whether to trust <a href="https://items.ssrc.org/beyond-disinformation/trust-and-authenticity-as-tools-for-journalism-and-partisan-disinformation/">journalists</a> and others within the media world seems to be shifting from “Does this person know what they are talking about?” to “Is this person genuine?”</p>
<p>Media workers have noticed: <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2023/03/social-media-policies-are-failing-journalists/">Journalists</a>, <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/celebrities/2023/03/03/stars-are-embracing-authenticity-taylor-swift-prince-harry/11152779002/">celebrities</a> and <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90768656/ugc-influencers-content-marketing">marketers</a> routinely share seemingly personal information about themselves on social media in an effort to present themselves as people first and foremost. These efforts are not always necessarily dishonest; however, they are always a performance.</p>
<p>For decades, Fox’s prolonged popularity has made it clear that authenticity is truly valuable when it comes to building credibility and audience loyalty. Now, the network’s settlement with Dominion has revealed just how manipulative and insincere that authenticity can be.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/203649/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jacob L. Nelson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Tucker Carlson and his employer, Fox News, had an incredible understanding of what their audience wants: a kind of authenticity that is not genuine but instead manipulative.Jacob L. Nelson, Assistant Professor of Communication, University of UtahLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2042012023-04-21T12:02:47Z2023-04-21T12:02:47ZTwitter drops ‘government-funded’ label for media organisations – here’s what it should use instead<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522152/original/file-20230420-18-jkcnd1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=134%2C42%2C4570%2C3080&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/professional-microphone-radio-station-studio-on-1932559997">Andrei_Diachenko/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>After objections from a number of major media organisations, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/technology/twitter-removes-state-affiliated-media-tags-some-accounts-2023-04-21/">Twitter appears to have dropped</a> its media account labels. The labels drove <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/canada-public-broadcaster-joins-npr-in-quitting-twitter-over-label-uproar-db812525">at least two</a> media organisations from the platform, and enraged followers <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2023/04/17/twitter-adds-more-government-funded-labels-to-global-news-outlets">of many others</a>. </p>
<p>The BBC <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-65226481">pushed back</a> against its initial designation of “government-funded media”. This was highly misleading given that the BBC is funded primarily through licence fees paid directly by the public.</p>
<p>“Our goal is simply to be as truthful and accurate as possible. We’re adjusting the label to be ‘publicly-funded’, which I think is perhaps not too objectionable,” Twitter CEO Elon Musk told the BBC <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlCKYTm4jGc">in an interview</a>.</p>
<p>US public radio station NPR was the first to stop tweeting after being labelled “government-funded”. More than 99% of its funds do not come from federal sources, and it retains editorial independence from the US government. Even this label was a step down by Twitter, which had first assigned it “state-affiliated”. Canada’s CBC followed a week later. </p>
<p>All of these designations risk muddling the already misunderstood world of media funding. But Twitter doesn’t need to concoct a new label. There is already a term that exists to describe these organisations: public service media.</p>
<p>Twitter’s use of designations fundamentally misunderstands how public service media is funded and operates. And, as global association the Public Service Media Alliance has <a href="https://www.publicmediaalliance.org/pma-calls-for-nprs-state-affiliated-designation-to-be-revoked">pointed out</a>, at a time of heightened disinformation it risks turning people away from accurate, reliable and trustworthy sources of information.</p>
<p>Public service media has its origins in the UK in the 1920s. Recognising the power in the ability to communicate simultaneously with millions of people across large geographic areas, the BBC was established as a public service broadcaster to ensure that no single government had the ability to wield that power. </p>
<p>Funding was essential to this model. The licence fee introduced in the 1920s was designed to limit the government’s ability to control the BBC by interfering with its funding. It also instilled the ethos of the BBC as an organisation funded and owned by the people of the UK, not the state. </p>
<p>Crucially, with public funding also comes regulation. Remits and laws set out the responsibilities of public service media organisations and hold them accountable to independent regulatory bodies (Ofcom in the UK). Although funding public service media directly from taxation can open the doors to government interference, independence can be secured through robust legislation and a <a href="https://www.publicmediaalliance.org/resources/psm-funding-models">strong, independent regulator</a>.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1646138100035272704"}"></div></p>
<h2>The danger of mislabelling</h2>
<p>The danger of Twitter’s mislabelling of public service media as government-funded or state-affiliated is that it blurs the boundaries between media services that are owned and run by the state, and those that are independent from state control. </p>
<p>This is already a misunderstood subject. In my team at the University of Huddersfield’s <a href="https://research.hud.ac.uk/institutes-centres/cpc/ourprojects/routes/#:%7E:text=Routes%20to%20Content%20addresses%20the,connected%20and%20on%2Ddemand%20viewing.">research with UK audiences</a>, we found significant variety in people’s understanding of public service media. Some believed that the BBC was funded by government, others that the UK didn’t have a public service media system at all. Public service media organisations that are state-funded are likely to be <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/333247527_Public_Service_Media_in_Europe_Exploring_the_Relationship_between_Funding_and_Audience_Performance">less trusted and seen as less independent</a>.</p>
<p>It also leaves the door open for confusion between state-funded public service media – legislated to be independent from government – and state-run media. These organisations, such as the China Media Group and Russia Today, act as mouthpieces for the government itself. Labelling independent public service media organisations as government-funded could confirm misguided assumptions that government funding = government control.</p>
<p>Partly because of the remit for independent and accurate news, strong public service media leads to <a href="https://www.ebu.ch/publications/research/login_only/infographic/the-value-of-psm">stronger democracies</a>. Research <a href="https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/research/files/Analysis%2520of%2520the%2520Relation%2520Between%2520and%2520Impact%2520of%2520Public%2520Service%2520Media%2520and%2520Private%2520Media.pdf">indicates</a> that public service media have a net positive impact on levels of political knowledge and may increase political participation.</p>
<h2>Public service, government influence?</h2>
<p>In reality, however, the role of public service media is becoming murkier in the UK. While legislation instils the importance of the BBC’s independence, in effect this is undermined by the fact that the government appoints the BBC’s chair, makes appointments to its board, and determines the level and nature of its funding.</p>
<p>The current chairman, Richard Sharp, is <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/d2ee7d01-0fe4-48f9-b134-993395a1c5d2">under investigation</a> for failing to divulge his role in facilitating a loan for the former prime minister, Boris Johnson. </p>
<p>The UK government can also exert control over the BBC because it sets the terms and amount of the licence fee. There have been <a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/medialse/2022/02/11/time-for-fresh-and-radical-thinking-on-the-licence-fee/#:%7E:text=The%20government's%20announcement%20for%20BBC,2024%20to%2031%20March%202028">significant cuts</a> over the past decade, and more recently, rumours about <a href="https://inews.co.uk/news/media/bbc-licence-fee-will-be-axed-and-replaced-by-government-grant-and-subscription-john-whittingdale-predicts-1371762">removing the licence fee</a> and replacing it with a subscription model. This would fundamentally undermine that key tenet of public service media being owned by and serving the whole nation. </p>
<p>In this regard, Elon Musk is right. It does matter how the media is funded, and government influence over media funding (whether state controlled or public service) can undermine independence and trust. </p>
<p>Mislabelling public service media organisations will not help this situation. Greater independence from government control over funding for public service media would. A good start in the UK would be to follow the <a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/medialse/2015/07/15/lessons-from-germany-for-the-bbc/">German model</a> where an independent body is responsible for setting the terms of funding, much as already exists in the UK in relation to MPs’ pay. </p>
<p>This debacle also raises uncomfortable questions about the significant power Musk is able to wield through his ownership of Twitter. Whether that is in reportedly being able to control how visible and prominent <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2023/2/14/23600358/elon-musk-tweets-algorithm-changes-twitter">his own tweets are</a>, to setting the terms by which media organisations are understood by the public.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204201/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Catherine Johnson receives funding from UKRI and the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme. She is a member of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport's (DCMS) College of Experts. </span></em></p>Calling media organisations ‘government-funded’ risks turning people away from reliable sources of information.Catherine Johnson, Professor in Media and Communication, University of HuddersfieldLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1990772023-03-23T16:22:35Z2023-03-23T16:22:35ZPublic radio can help solve the local news crisis – but that would require expanding staff and coverage<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516722/original/file-20230321-1069-lcafsn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=31%2C15%2C5161%2C3876&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Can public radio fill the hole left by the decline of local news outlets?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/news-royalty-free-image/183361244?phrase=radio%20news&adppopup=true">Talaj/iStock / Getty Images Plus</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Since 2005, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/29/business/media/local-newspapers-pandemic.html">more than 2,500 local newspapers, most of them weeklies, have closed</a>, with more closures on the way. </p>
<p>Responses to the decline have ranged from <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/katevinton/2016/06/01/these-15-billionaires-own-americas-news-media-companies/">luring billionaires to buy local dailies</a> to encouraging <a href="https://www.economist.com/united-states/2022/04/16/startups-aim-to-reinvigorate-local-news-in-america">digital startups</a>. But the number of interested billionaires is limited, and many <a href="https://citap.unc.edu/local-news-platforms-mis-disinformation/">digital startups</a> have struggled to generate the revenue and audience needed to survive.</p>
<p>The local news crisis is more than a problem of shuttered newsrooms and laid-off journalists. It’s also a democracy crisis. Communities that have lost their newspaper have seen a decline <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/news-hole/86C7B8933122EB6EC229E4B05BBAA27C">in voting rates</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/073953291103200103">the sense of solidarity among community members</a>, <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/news-hole/86C7B8933122EB6EC229E4B05BBAA27C">awareness of local affairs</a> and <a href="https://niemanreports.org/articles/less-local-news-means-less-democracy/">government responsiveness</a>. </p>
<p>Largely overlooked in the effort to save local news are the nation’s local public radio stations. </p>
<p>Among the reasons for that oversight is that radio operates in a crowded space. Unlike a local daily newspaper, which largely has the print market to itself, local public radio stations face competition from other stations. The widely held perception that public radio caters to the interests of people with <a href="https://blog.marketenginuity.com/by-the-numbers-who-is-actually-listening-to-public-radio">higher income and education</a> may also have kept it largely out of the conversation.</p>
<p>But as <a href="https://www.hks.harvard.edu/faculty/thomas-patterson">a scholar who studies media</a>, I believe that local public radio should be part of the conversation about saving local news. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516733/original/file-20230321-2335-18kei4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A newspaper called " src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516733/original/file-20230321-2335-18kei4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516733/original/file-20230321-2335-18kei4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516733/original/file-20230321-2335-18kei4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516733/original/file-20230321-2335-18kei4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516733/original/file-20230321-2335-18kei4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=648&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516733/original/file-20230321-2335-18kei4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=648&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516733/original/file-20230321-2335-18kei4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=648&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Since 2005, more than 2,500 local newspapers have closed.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/newspaper-royalty-free-image/200374290-001?phrase=newspaper&adppopup=true">Don Farrell/Digital Vision/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Advantages are trust, low cost and reach</h2>
<p>There are reasons to believe that public radio can help fill the local news gap.</p>
<p><a href="https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/2022/04/05/trust-media-2022-where-americans-get-news-poll">Trust in public broadcasting</a> ranks above that of other major U.S. news outlets. Moreover, public radio production costs are relatively low – not as low as that of a digital startup, <a href="https://knightfoundation.org/public-media-white-paper-2017-ragusea/">but far less</a> than that of a newspaper or television station. And local public radio stations operate in every state and reach <a href="https://www.npr.org/about-npr/178640915/npr-stations-and-public-media">98% of American homes</a>, including those in news deserts – places that today no longer have a daily paper. </p>
<p>Finally, local public radio is no longer just radio. It has expanded into digital production and has the potential to expand further.</p>
<p>To assess local public radio’s potential for helping to fill the local information gap, I conducted an in-depth survey of National Public Radio’s 253 <a href="https://www.npr.org/about-npr/178640915/npr-stations-and-public-media">member stations</a>. </p>
<p>The central finding of that study: Local public radio has a staffing problem. Stations have considerable potential but aren’t yet in a position to make it happen. </p>
<p>That’s not for lack of interest. Over 90% of the stations I surveyed said they want to play a larger role in meeting their community’s information needs. As one of our respondents said, “The need for the kind of journalism public media can provide grows more evident every day. The desire on the part of our newsrooms is strong.”</p>
<p>To take on a larger role, most stations would need to expand their undersized news staff. </p>
<p>Sixty percent of the local stations have 10 or fewer people on their news staff, and that’s by a generous definition of what constitutes staff. Respondents included in this count broadcast and digital reporters, editors, hosts, producers and others who contribute to local news and public affairs content in its various forms, as well as those who directly provide technical or other support to those staff members. In addition to full-time employees, stations were asked to include part-time employees and any students, interns or freelancers who contribute regularly.</p>
<p>The staffing problem is most acute in communities that have lost their newspaper or where local news gathering has been sharply cut back. Many of these communities were judged by the respondents to have a below-average income level, which limits the local station’s fundraising potential. </p>
<p>Although the staffing problem is more pronounced at stations in communities where local news is in short supply, staff size at nearly every station falls far short of even a moderate-sized daily newspaper. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.desmoinesregister.com/contact/staff/">Des Moines Register</a>, for example, has a daily circulation of 35,000 copies and a nearly 50-person newsroom – a staff larger than 95% of local public radio stations.</p>
<h2>Limitations on potential</h2>
<p>One consequence of the staffing problem is that local public radio is actually not all that “local.” </p>
<p>The survey found that in the 13-hour period from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. on weekdays, only about two hours of locally produced news programming was carried on the average station, some of it in the form of talk shows and some of it as repeat programming. For stations with a news staff of 10 or fewer people, the daily average of locally produced news – even when including repeat programming – is barely more than one hour. </p>
<p>This is only one indicator of the limitations of an undersized newsroom. </p>
<p>Stations with a news staff of 10 or fewer people, for example, were only half as likely as those with more than 20 to have a reporter routinely assigned to cover local government. Some stations are so short of staff that they do not do any original reporting, relying entirely on other outlets, such as the local newspaper, for the stories they air.</p>
<p>A small news staff also means it’s hard to create content for the web, as illustrated by stations’ websites. The stations with 10 or fewer people in their newsroom were only half as likely as those with a staff size of more than 10 to feature local news on their homepage. A local station’s website cannot become the “go-to” place for residents seeking local news on demand if the station fails to provide it.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Lawn signs in different colors advertising local candidates." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516759/original/file-20230321-2351-r8tysu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516759/original/file-20230321-2351-r8tysu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516759/original/file-20230321-2351-r8tysu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516759/original/file-20230321-2351-r8tysu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516759/original/file-20230321-2351-r8tysu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516759/original/file-20230321-2351-r8tysu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516759/original/file-20230321-2351-r8tysu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Who covers local political races if a town’s newspaper has gone under?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/IowaTownVoteAdBlitz/fe05b8adcc6c47c89065d16f29cca96c/photo?Query=city%20council%20iowa&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=51&currentItemNo=22">AP Photo/Ryan J. Foley</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The stakes for democracy</h2>
<p>With more staff, local public radio stations could help fill the information gap created by the decline of local newspapers. They could afford to assign a reporter full time to cover local government bodies like city councils and school boards. </p>
<p>It would still be a challenge for stations in rural areas that include multiple communities, but that challenge is also one that newspapers in rural areas have always faced and have in the past found ways to manage. </p>
<p>With adequate staff, local stations could also make their programming truly “local,” which would broaden their audience appeal. </p>
<p>Programming created by NPR, PRX and other content providers accounts for much of the appeal of local stations. But it can be a handicap in areas where many potential listeners have values and interests that aren’t met by national programming and where the station offers little in the way of local coverage. As one respondent noted, stations must provide coverage “that reflects the entirety of their communities.”</p>
<p>How much new money would local stations require to expand their coverage? Based on our respondents’ estimates and a targeting of the funding for the communities most in need, roughly $150 million annually would be required. </p>
<p>Given that these communities tend also to be the ones in below-average income areas, the funding would have to come largely from outside sources. That won’t be easy, but it needs to get done. As the Knight Foundation’s Eric Newton noted, local news gives people the information they <a href="https://knightfoundation.org/reports/rethinking-public-media-more-local-more-inclusive/">“need to run their communities and their lives.”</a></p>
<p><em>This story has been corrected to state the name of one of two content providers to public radio stations, PRX.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/199077/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thomas E. Patterson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The local news crisis is more than a problem of shuttered newsrooms and laid-off journalists. It’s a democracy crisis. And public radio can help fix it. But it needs more money and staff to do that.Thomas E. Patterson, Bradlee Professor of Government and the Press, Harvard Kennedy SchoolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1782512022-03-09T13:17:15Z2022-03-09T13:17:15ZIs ‘headline stress disorder’ real? Yes, but those who thrive on the news often lose sight of it<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/450701/original/file-20220308-19-172nse9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=21%2C0%2C7156%2C5389&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The front-page of the New York Post following a missile strike in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Feb. 26, 2022.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-front-page-of-the-new-york-post-shows-a-picture-of-the-news-photo/1373108511?adppopup=true">Photo by Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>It began with a basic “news you can use” feature from National Public Radio. Titled “<a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/02/25/1083077194/news-anxiety-tips-self-care">5 ways to cope with the stressful news cycle,”</a> producer Andee Tagle’s piece, published in late February, offered tips on how to cope with anxiety caused by news consumption in tense times. </p>
<p>Among Tagle’s tips: “Do something that feels good for your body and helps you get out of your head.” Also: “The kitchen is a safe space for a lot of us. Maybe this is the weekend that you finally re-create Grandpa’s famous lasagna … or maybe just lose yourself in some kitchen organization.”</p>
<p>Tagle’s simple self-help counsel quickly ignited <a href="https://www.theblaze.com/news/npr-selfcare-war-headlines-twitter">social media scorn</a>, seemingly touching a nerve among numerous commentators. </p>
<p>National Review’s Dan McLaughlin <a href="https://twitter.com/baseballcrank/status/1497314778951438346">tweeted that the piece</a> indicated that NPR employees “really do not envision their audience as grown adults.”</p>
<p>“I’m all for mental health awareness and therapeutic care,” <a href="https://twitter.com/anthonyLfisher/status/1497379583728967687">tweeted Daily Beast editor Anthony Fisher</a>, before ultimately dismissing Tagle’s article as “a lifestyle guide for narcissists.”</p>
<p>The piece and its condemnation raise issues involving research about the mental and psychological toll of everyday news consumption that’s gone largely unnoticed by the public over the last few years. Recent surveys and research on the subject <a href="https://time.com/5125894/is-reading-news-bad-for-you/">have only occasionally been publicized in the general press</a>. The COVID-19 global pandemic – and the doomsday news reports it sparked - attracted <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/why-we-worry/202009/the-psychological-impact-negative-news">a bit more attention</a> to this research. </p>
<p>Yet the mental and psychological toll of news consumption remains largely unknown to the general news consumer. Even if the research isn’t widely known, the emotions felt by what one Northwestern University Medical School <a href="https://www.nm.org/healthbeat/healthy-tips/5-ways-to-cope-with-the-news">article</a> called “<a href="https://www.nm.org/healthbeat/healthy-tips/5-ways-to-cope-with-the-news">headline stress disorder</a>” probably exist for an certain unknown proportion of news consumers. After all, if these feelings didn’t exist for at least some of their listening audience, NPR would never have published that piece. Nor would Fox News have <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/lifestyle/identifying-stress-and-anxiety-russia-ukraine-war">published a similar article</a> to help its viewers cope.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/450767/original/file-20220308-21-1ncirsg.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A worried-looking man at a desk, looking at his computer screen." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/450767/original/file-20220308-21-1ncirsg.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/450767/original/file-20220308-21-1ncirsg.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/450767/original/file-20220308-21-1ncirsg.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/450767/original/file-20220308-21-1ncirsg.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/450767/original/file-20220308-21-1ncirsg.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/450767/original/file-20220308-21-1ncirsg.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/450767/original/file-20220308-21-1ncirsg.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The news can wreak a mental and psychological toll on some people.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/how-in-the-world-royalty-free-image/1190875206?adppopup=true">DjelicS via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>News threatens mental stability</h2>
<p>The idea that more news, delivered faster through new and addicting technologies, can cause psychological and medical harm has a long history in the United States. </p>
<p>Media scholars like <a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9780807841075/media-and-the-american-mind/">Daniel Czitrom</a> and <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/haunted-media#:%7E:text=In%20Haunted%20Media%20Jeffrey%20Sconce,with%20paranormal%20or%20spiritual%20phenomena">Jeffrey Sconce</a> have noted how contemporaneous research linked the emergence and prevalence of neurasthenia to the rapid proliferation of telegraphic news in the late 19th century. Neurasthenia is <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/neurasthenia">defined by Merriam-Webster</a> as “a condition that is characterized especially by physical and mental exhaustion usually with accompanying symptoms (such as headache and irritability).” Early 19th-century scientific exploration in neurology and psychiatry suggested that too much news consumption might lead to “nervous exhaustion” and other maladies.</p>
<p>In my own research into <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0143968042000293856">social psychology and radio</a> <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0143968042000293856">listening</a>, I noticed the same medical descriptions recurring in the 1920s, once radio became widespread. News reports chronicled how radio listening and radio news consumption seemed to threaten some people’s mental stability. </p>
<p>One <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1923/12/02/archives/radio-as-divorce-cause-minneapolis-woman-asserts-radio-mania-has.html">front-page New York Times article</a> in 1923 noted that a woman in Minnesota was divorcing her husband on the then-novel grounds that he suffered from “radio mania.” The wife felt her husband “paid more attention to his radio apparatus than to her or their home,” which had apparently “alienated his affection” from her.</p>
<p>Similar reports of addiction, mania and psychological entanglement <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1745691620919372">spawned by new media emerged again</a> as television proliferated in the American home in the 1950s, and again with the proliferation of the internet.</p>
<p>The public discussion of psychological addiction and mental harm caused by new technologies, and the ensuing moral panics they spawn, appears periodically <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1745691620919372">as new communication technologies emerge</a>. But, historically, adjustment and integration of new media occurs over time, and disorders such as neurasthenia and “radio mania” are largely forgotten.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/450762/original/file-20220308-27-3gkpy0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A 1923 story from the New York Times with the headline, " src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/450762/original/file-20220308-27-3gkpy0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/450762/original/file-20220308-27-3gkpy0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/450762/original/file-20220308-27-3gkpy0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/450762/original/file-20220308-27-3gkpy0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/450762/original/file-20220308-27-3gkpy0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/450762/original/file-20220308-27-3gkpy0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/450762/original/file-20220308-27-3gkpy0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A story from the Dec. 2, 1923, New York Times front page.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1923/12/02/106022959.html?pageNumber=2">New York Times archive</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Anxious about frightening news</h2>
<p>“Headline stress disorder” might sound ridiculous to some, but research does show that reading the news can make certain subsets of news consumers develop measurable emotional effects. </p>
<p>There <a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C20&as_vis=1&q=%22headline+stress+disorder%22&btnG=">are numerous</a> <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26391834/">studies</a> looking <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33777650/">into this</a> phenomenon. In general, they find some people, under certain conditions, can be vulnerable to potentially harmful and diagnosable levels of anxiety if exposed to certain types of news reports. </p>
<p>The problem for researchers is isolating the exact subset of news consumers this happens to, and describing precisely the effect that occurs in response to specific identified news subjects and methods of news consumption.</p>
<p>It is not only probable, but even likely, that <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7735916/">many people are made more anxious by the widespread distribution of frightening news</a>. And if a news consumer has a diagnosed anxiety disorder, depression, or other identified mental health challenge, the likelihood that <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/13744/coronavirus-disease-covid-19-psychological-reactions-to-the-pandemic">obviously distressing news reports would amplify and inflame</a> such underlying issues seems almost certain. </p>
<p>Just because popular culture manages to pathologize much of everyday behavior doesn’t mean identified problems aren’t real, as those skewering the NPR story implied. </p>
<p>We all eat; but some of us eat far too much. When that occurs, everyday behavior is transformed into actions that can threaten health and survival. Likewise, most of us strive to stay informed, but it’s likely that in certain situations, for certain people, staying informed when the news is particularly frightening can threaten their mental health. </p>
<p>[<em>Over 150,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletters to understand the world.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?source=inline-150ksignup">Sign up today</a>.]</p>
<p>Therefore, the question is not whether the problem is real, but how research might quantify and describe its true prevalence, and how to address the problem.</p>
<p>And that’s precisely why the NPR article caused such a stir. Many people who consume news without problem couldn’t fathom why others might benefit from learning how to cope with “headline stress disorder.” </p>
<p>In reality, the criticism aimed at NPR says nothing about those who find our current run of bad news particularly anxiety provoking. It does say a lot about the lack of empathy from those who would scoff at the idea.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/178251/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael J. Socolow does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Public scorn in response to a news story about how to cope with stressful news ignores a fact: The news can take a mental and psychological toll on a person.Michael J. Socolow, Associate Professor, Communication and Journalism, University of MaineLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1703612021-11-03T04:01:13Z2021-11-03T04:01:13ZAmerica’s public broadcasters are thriving – here’s what Australian media can learn from them<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429859/original/file-20211103-25-4o0vqc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=180%2C36%2C2355%2C1781&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>When ABC chair Ita Buttrose told a National Press Club lunch earlier this year that the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol <a href="https://www.victorharbortimes.com.au/story/7239670/abc-chair-links-funding-to-extremism-cases/">could be blamed</a> on the lack of a “well-funded public broadcaster”, she echoed a dangerous misunderstanding about the American media landscape. </p>
<p>In fact, America’s public broadcasters are better funded than Australia’s, and the rise of Trumpism led to a golden age of journalism in the United States. </p>
<p>The January 6 insurrection happened <em>in spite</em> of excellent journalism. Australian policymakers and media leaders need a more sophisticated understanding of America’s information ecosystem if they’re to counter the same forces here. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429855/original/file-20211103-13-tt3hu0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429855/original/file-20211103-13-tt3hu0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429855/original/file-20211103-13-tt3hu0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429855/original/file-20211103-13-tt3hu0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429855/original/file-20211103-13-tt3hu0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429855/original/file-20211103-13-tt3hu0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429855/original/file-20211103-13-tt3hu0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Buttrose said in May that countries without a well-funded public broadcaster often have examples of right-wing extremism, as was evident in the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jose Luis Magana/AP</span></span>
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<h2>A different definition of ‘public funding’</h2>
<p>The US has two public broadcast systems. The biggest of them - National Public Radio - attracts an audience of <a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2020/08/radio-listening-has-plummeted-npr-is-reaching-a-bigger-audience-than-ever-what-gives/">57 million</a> each week. One in five US adults gets their political news from NPR. That is the <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/2020/01/24/democrats-report-much-higher-levels-of-trust-in-a-number-of-news-sources-than-republicans/#sortable-tables">seventh-largest audience</a> of any news organisation in any medium in the US. </p>
<p>If you’ve ever listened to This American Life, Serial or Radio Lab - among the most downloaded podcasts ever - you’re part of the American public radio audience. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/philanthropy-is-funding-serious-journalism-in-the-us-it-could-work-for-australia-too-79349">Philanthropy is funding serious journalism in the US, it could work for Australia too</a>
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<p>NPR staff would agree with Buttrose that they need more funding, but not in the way she means. US public radio has nearly twice the budget of the entire ABC, with <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/fact-sheet/public-broadcasting/">US$1.3 billion (AUD$1.8 billion) in annual revenue</a> for NPR, the <a href="https://www.prx.org/">Public Radio Exchange (PRX)</a> and the 123 largest local public radio stations. </p>
<p>Annual revenue for public TV in the US is smaller at <a href="https://d1qbemlbhjecig.cloudfront.net/prod/filer_public/pbsabout-bento-live-pbs/Financial%20Reports/7c75dcd648_FY%202020%20Audited%20PBS%20Consolidated%20FS.pdf">$US690 million</a> (A$927 million). Still, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/2020/01/24/democrats-report-much-higher-levels-of-trust-in-a-number-of-news-sources-than-republicans/#sortable-tables">16% of all US adults</a> get their political news from the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), comparable to the BBC audience in the US.</p>
<p>The depth of NPR funding shows in deeply reported programs such as Morning Edition and The New Yorker Radio Hour, which feature experienced journalists (some of whom have been on the same beat for decades). Solid resources underpin shows that are dense with field recordings and interviews with real people across America and from 17 international bureaus. </p>
<p>NPR has also funded a spring of innovative, popular podcasts such as Invisibilia and In the Dark, which are finding large global audiences.</p>
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<h2>A different definition of ‘public broadcaster’</h2>
<p>Buttrose’s narrow definition of “public broadcaster” is based on how much money comes directly from government. </p>
<p>NPR’s coalition of 1,000+ content makers and stations receives <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/fact-sheet/public-broadcasting/">only 12% of its funding</a> directly from the government. But the bulk of funding still comes from taxpayers. Public radio stations are structured as not-for-profits and all contributions are tax deductible. Nearly 40% of their funding comes directly from audience members, while another 10% comes from foundations. </p>
<p>“Corporate sponsorships” from <a href="https://www.cityandstateny.com/politics/2018/10/which-corporations-get-to-sponsor-wnyc-its-not-so-black-and-white/178050/">carefully vetted</a> companies – which are also <a href="https://www.councilofnonprofits.org/tools-resources/corporate-sponsorship-income-taxable-or-charitable-contribution">mostly tax deductible</a> – make up 19% of NPR’s funding.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/npr-is-still-expanding-the-range-of-what-authority-sounds-like-after-50-years-124571">NPR is still expanding the range of what authority sounds like after 50 years</a>
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<p>In 2019, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/fact-sheet/public-broadcasting/">individual</a> donations to the top 123 public radio stations totalled $US430 million (A$593 million) from 2.35 million listeners. The average listener contribution was $US183 (A$250).</p>
<p>Those are still taxpayer dollars – money diverted from government coffers where it might have been used on education, health care or infrastructure. But by making news media donations tax deductible, the US government allows audiences to decide which public interest journalism they want to support with their tax money, if any at all. </p>
<p>That, in turn, gives news media that qualify for tax-deductible status a strong incentive to reach as big an audience as possible with content that is so trusted, valuable and engaging, people want to pay to help keep it alive.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"947517418812960768"}"></div></p>
<p>It’s the same case Guardian Australia has made to persuade 170,000 readers to voluntarily contribute to keep its content free for all. </p>
<p>This is not necessarily an argument to change the ABC funding model in Australia. (The ABC only accepts money from government – and none from donors – in the belief this protects it from influence.) Australia also has a more dispersed population and smaller news media market, which is highly vulnerable to foreign competition. </p>
<p>It <em>is</em> an argument for a more sophisticated understanding of the options available to all public interest media as they battle for financial survival. </p>
<p>Like NPR, Australian not-for-profit media should have access to tax-deductible status. Among content makers, only The Conversation, Australian Associated Press and the Judith Neilson Institute have made their way through the opaque and subjective government approval process. </p>
<p>The ACCC and a coalition of media and politicians have <a href="https://piji.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/dickson-g-2021.-proposals-to-provide-news-organisations-tax-deductible-gifts.pdf">advocated</a> for this change, but it has yet to gain parliamentary support. </p>
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<h2>A pioneer in reader-revenue business models</h2>
<p>This audience revenue-driven business model made NPR a pioneer in the world of media “community building”, which has gone mainstream as advertising revenue has shrunk. Successful media businesses are now working hard to replicate NPR’s success in persuading audiences to pay.</p>
<p>Jad Abumrad, creator of the groundbreaking public radio program Radio Lab, explained the concept to my class at the Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York in 2015. </p>
<p>Build audience trust and engagement with authenticity, he said. Tell stories that are driven by real people, with language that is accessible to all. Reporter diversity is key to ensuring stories engage with a broad audience. Be transparent about the reporting process and funding (<a href="https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/133015230/202111329349304686/IRS990">financial statements</a> including staff salaries are published online). </p>
<p>Like all American public radio journalists I’ve met, he had no envy of the government-funded model for public broadcasters. Audience funding makes journalists answerable and responsive to their audiences, he said, and he liked it that way. It has also protected NPR from government pressure.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/funding-public-interest-journalism-requires-creative-solutions-a-tax-rebate-for-news-media-could-work-146563">Funding public interest journalism requires creative solutions. A tax rebate for news media could work</a>
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<h2>A golden age of journalism is not enough to stop extremism</h2>
<p>In truth, the rise of Trumpism has been a gift to American journalism in important ways. President Donald Trump’s attacks on the press and democracy itself unleashed a flood of funding from audiences and philanthropists, who saw quality journalism as their best defence against authoritarianism. </p>
<p>The New York Times <a href="https://www.axios.com/washington-post-new-york-times-subscriptions-8e888fd7-5484-44c7-ad43-39564e06c84f.html">quadrupled its subscriptions</a> to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/04/business/media/nyt-new-york-times-earnings-q2-2021.html">eight million</a>, while <a href="https://www.axios.com/washington-post-new-york-times-subscriptions-8e888fd7-5484-44c7-ad43-39564e06c84f.html">The Washington Post</a> and <a href="https://newscorp.com/2020/05/07/news-corp-reports-third-quarter-results-for-fiscal-2020/">Wall Street Journal</a> have each grown to more than three million subscribers. </p>
<p>The rise of Trumpism was rooted in America’s decades-long lack of investment in education, healthcare and a social safety net. The resulting inequality was fanned by right-wing media and voices on social media. </p>
<p>Those same forces have driven a big rise in far-right politics in Europe and the UK, in spite of government-funded broadcasters and strong social welfare nets. And, as the pandemic has made clear, social-media-driven, right-wing extremism and growing inequality are alive in Australia, too. </p>
<p>Australia will need strong media to combat this rise. A more nuanced understanding of what’s happening in the US media ecosystem is a critical place to start.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/170361/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Prue Clarke heads a not-for-profit media development organisation that receives funding from foundations and governments not mentioned in this article including the Wellspring Philanthropic Fund, German Development Cooperation, Australian Aid, American Jewish World Service. She is a contributor to National Public Radio. </span></em></p>Contrary to what some think, US public broadcasters are well-funded. Public radio stations bring in US$1.3 billion in annual revenue – most of it generated from their audience.Prue Clarke, Research Fellow at the Centre for Media Transition and head of New Narratives, a US-based not-for-profit newsroom and media development organisation working in low income countries., University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1245712019-12-06T13:04:51Z2019-12-06T13:04:51ZNPR is still expanding the range of what authority sounds like after 50 years<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/304753/original/file-20191202-67002-zzs54k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Susan Stamberg interviewed President Jimmy Carter during a National Public Radio call-in program in 1979.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-AP-A-DC-USA-APHS360022-Jimmy-Carter/d55ff92e8bc7403097980e2b0a36e1a0/4/0">AP Photo/Charles Tasnadi</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>From its start half a century ago, National Public Radio heralded a new approach to the sound of radio in the United States.</p>
<p>NPR “would speak with many voices and many dialects,” according to “<a href="https://current.org/2012/05/national-public-radio-purposes/">Purposes</a>,” its founding document.</p>
<p>Written in 1970, this blueprint rang with emotional immediacy. NPR would go on the air for the first time a year later, on <a href="https://www.npr.org/about-npr/192827079/overview-and-history">April 20, 1971</a>.</p>
<p>NPR is sometimes mocked, perhaps most memorably in a 1998 “Saturday Night Live” sketch starring <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPpcfH_HHH8">actor Alec Baldwin</a>, for its staid sound production and its hosts’ carefully modulated vocal quality. But the nonprofit network’s commitment to including “many voices” <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/25/fashion/npr-voice-has-taken-over-the-airwaves.html">hatched a small sonic revolution</a> on the airwaves.</p>
<p>As a radio historian, I have written about the medium’s unique blend of <a href="https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/radioas-intimate-public">intimate voices and public address</a>. As the 50th anniversary of public radio draws near, I’m interested in NPR’s contradictory legacy of <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/publiceditor/2019/08/07/749060986/sounding-like-a-reporter-and-a-real-person-too">sonic innovation and monotony</a>.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">‘Saturday Night Live’‘s Schweddy Balls sketch spoofed NPR.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>This is NPR</h2>
<p>One of the first voices to become associated with NPR’s flagship evening news program was <a href="https://www.npr.org/people/2101242/susan-stamberg">Susan Stamberg</a>. Hired in 1971, she soon became the first woman to co-anchor a national nightly newscast on radio or television in U.S. history.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.radiodiaries.org/the-man-who-put-the-p-in-npr/">William Siemering</a>, the network’s first program director and the <a href="https://current.org/2012/05/national-public-radio-purposes/">author of “Purposes</a>,” wanted the voice of the network to communicate curiosity rather than authority.</p>
<p>Stamberg, 31 when she was hired, brought youthful exuberance to the job. And, in another departure from newscasting’s baritones, with their <a href="https://www.degruyter.com/view/product/174425">supposedly neutral midwestern</a> accents, Stamberg’s voice was “<a href="http://www.lisaaphillips.com/PublicRadio.html">nasal, quizzical, and unashamedly female,</a>” as Lisa Phillips put it. It came she said, “with a hometown – New York – and an ethnicity – Jewish.”</p>
<p>The decision to stick with young and relatively unproven voices came at a cost, according to <a href="https://experts.news.wisc.edu/experts/jack-mitchell">Jack Mitchell</a>, the original director of the “All Things Considered” evening newscast.</p>
<p>In his account of NPR’s beginnings, “<a href="https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/56608245/lists">Listener Supported</a>,” Mitchell later recalled how Siemering passed up Ford Foundation funding tied to hiring the proven and respected newscaster <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/clearing-the-air/oclc/1358484">Edward P. Morgan</a>, a white man originally from Walla Walla, Washington. Instead, NPR stood by the less “authoritative” and more engaging voices of Stamberg and her peers, even if they sometimes sounded “less than professional.” </p>
<p>“Masculine, commanding” voices were “exactly how we DON’T want to sound,” Siemering told his staff, as Stamberg later recalled in “<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8492866-this-is-npr">This Is NPR: The First Forty Years</a>.”</p>
<p>Early feedback on Stamberg from station managers around the country wasn’t encouraging. She sounded too New York, too Jewish, too off-putting, Mitchell wrote.</p>
<p>Siemering hid these negative reviews from Stamberg as she found her own broadcast voice, which helped her win many prestigious <a href="https://www.npr.org/people/2101242/susan-stamberg">awards in broadcast and digital journalism</a>. The network regards her as one of its “founding mothers.”</p>
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<h2>Women as anchors</h2>
<p>NPR has kept speaking with many voices that would sound out of place on the air anywhere else. Many, if not most, have been female. As hosts and anchors, correspondents and reporters, women have played a key role in giving NPR its distinctive sound.</p>
<p><a href="https://law.nd.edu/news-events/news/npr-nina-totenberg-notre-dame-law/">Nina Totenberg</a>, <a href="https://www.wellesley.edu/alumnae/awards/achievementawards/allrecipients/linda-cozby-wertheimer-65">Linda Wertheimer</a> and <a href="https://www.biography.com/news/cokie-roberts-obituary">Cokie Roberts</a> brought hard-nosed journalism and inside-the-Beltway sensibility to the fledgling network in the 1970s. In the process, these white women changed what the news sounded like.</p>
<p>By the time Wertheimer took over as an “All Things Considered” co-anchor in 1989, it was no longer controversial to hear women deliver the news of the day.</p>
<p>But on network television, most of the early stints for the women who were the first to anchor daily news programs were short-lived. <a href="https://variety.com/2017/tv/features/barbara-walters-abc-tv-news-1202379901/">Barbara Walters</a> lasted two years in the mid-1970s as an “ABC Evening News” co-anchor. <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Diane-Sawyer">Diane Sawyer</a> co-anchored the “CBS Morning News,” from 1981 to 1984 and <a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/katie-couric-makes-network-anchor-debut">Katie Couric</a> spent five years, starting in 2006, as the sole “CBS Evening News” anchor. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/every-night-at-five-susan-stambergs-all-things-considered-book/oclc/7998543">Curating distinctive voices</a> “rich with the rhythms and accents of their regions” was another explicit way in which “All Things Considered” initially sought to sonically mark its difference from what had come before, according to Stamberg.</p>
<h2>A wider range?</h2>
<p>NPR’s commitment to many voices included those who brought regional, as well as gender, diversity to the airwaves.</p>
<p>Occasional commentators <a href="https://baxter-black.merchmadeeasy.com/">Baxter Black</a>, a cowboy poet from Texas; <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/09/04/470547500/remembering-culinary-griot-and-npr-commentator-vertamae-smart-grosvenor">Vertamae Grosvenor</a>, a culinary anthropologist born in the Gullah community of North Carolina; and <a href="https://apnews.com/053ede322d28a32b87570b1e85f04ee3">Kim Williams</a>, a naturalist, checked in during the late 1970s and early 1980s, with field reports from their corners of the country. <a href="https://www.codrescu.com/">Andrei Codrescu</a>, a Romanian-American artist living in New Orleans, began to bring his thickly accented English and droll humor to NPR in 1983.</p>
<p>Putting these folks on air seemed to address the network’s vision of speaking in many voices and accents. The intent, Mitchell wrote, was <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/56608245/lists">explicitly democratic</a>, to be “representative of the nation. That meant white, black, Hispanic, Asian and as many women as men.”</p>
<p>NPR’s growth led to the opening of foreign bureaus, even as print publications hemorrhaged these expensive positions. International coverage further expanded its vocal range.</p>
<p>Some of the women now working as the network’s anchors got their start as foreign correspondents. <a href="https://www.npr.org/people/102828890/doualy-xaykaothao">Doualy Xaykaothao</a> spent years reporting from Asia and <a href="https://www.npr.org/people/4462099/lourdes-garcia-navarro">Lulu Garcia-Navarro</a> covered Latin America and the Middle East for NPR.</p>
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<p>Other women with nonconventional news voices, including <a href="https://www.npr.org/people/17796129/eleanor-beardsley">Eleanor Beardsley</a> in Paris, <a href="https://www.npr.org/people/2101034/sylvia-poggioli">Sylvia Poggioli</a> in Rome and <a href="https://www.npr.org/people/4513318/ofeibea-quist-arcton">Ofeabia Quist-Arcton</a> in Dakar, are still overseas. Their signature approach to signing off with their name and locale is a sonic pleasure for many NPR fans.</p>
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<p>Even so, by the turn of the century, the network faced complaints about its <a href="https://www.bostonmagazine.com/2006/05/15/fear-on-the-air-1/">tight control over pronunciation</a>, cadence <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2015/01/30/382612791/is-there-a-pubradiovoice-that-sounds-like-america">and accent</a>, especially for <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12359.Radio_On">women</a> and <a href="https://transom.org/2015/stephanie-foo/">people</a> of <a href="https://transom.org/2015/chenjerai-kumanyika/">color</a>. </p>
<p>Critics denounced a sense that the voices of NPR’s female journalists sounded “<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12359.Radio_On">alike in their sober nasal condescension</a>,” as the writer and actor Sarah Vowell put it – hinting at a class-related critique, along with a gendered one.</p>
<p>NPR’s women, some of these naysayers contend, have low-pitched voices that sound too much like men and that NPR voices in general sound more like each other than everyone else. Writer <a href="http://scottgsherman.com/bio.php">Scott Sherman</a> calls it the “<a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/good-gray-npr/">NPR drone</a>.”</p>
<p>Even Stamberg said in a 2010 interview that one price of NPR’s success was that listeners weren’t “<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27110828-lost-sound">hearing great voices anymore</a>.” </p>
<p>Another round of criticism, this one aimed primarily at young women, identified “<a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/publiceditor/2019/08/07/749060986/sounding-like-a-reporter-and-a-real-person-too">vocal fry</a>,” a <a href="https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/is-vocal-fry-ruining-my-voice">low creaky way</a> of speaking, as an irritating feature of public radio voices. The critique, which <a href="https://www.npr.org/2015/07/23/425608745/from-upspeak-to-vocal-fry-are-we-policing-young-womens-voices">came mostly from men and older folks</a>, suggested that despite what the critics were saying, NPR’s sound was not static but evolving.</p>
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<p>NPR’s sonic palette and its range of voices has broadened in recent years, especially through its podcasts and on weekends – when Navarro, who is Latina, and <a href="https://www.npr.org/people/5201175/michel-martin">Michel Martin</a>, an African American woman, are two of the network’s main three news anchors.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510317/its-been-a-minute-with-sam-sanders">Sam Sanders</a>, an openly gay African American man, hosts a cultural talk show branded with his own name. Programs like “<a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/altlatino/">Alt.Latino</a>” and “<a href="https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510315/radio-ambulante">Radio Ambulante</a>,” which are either in Spanish or in English punctuated with Spanish words, indicate that the network aims to serve new listeners. </p>
<p>As NPR looks forward to the next 50 years, its decisions over whose voices belong on the air will determine how well it lives up to its founding commitment to sound like America. And it is likely that criticism of how those voices sound will reflect dominant attitudes about who gets to speak. </p>
<p>[ <em>Like what you’ve read? Want more?</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=likethis">Sign up for The Conversation’s daily newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/124571/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jason Loviglio does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>From the beginning, National Public Radio vowed that it would speak with ‘many voices.’Jason Loviglio, Chair and Associate Professor of Media and Communication Studies, University of Maryland, Baltimore CountyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/983762018-07-11T11:15:49Z2018-07-11T11:15:49ZThe pace of nonprofit media growth is picking up<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226372/original/file-20180705-122259-18ng6pp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">H.F. 'Gerry' Lenfest, left, donated tens of millions of dollars to sustain Philadelphia's newspapers.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Philadelphia-Newspapers-Nonprofit/f7c483f8769745e6add0b55956789ffa/10/0">AP Photo/Rich Schultz</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The man best known for founding the digital classified listing service Craigslist recently gave a New York City journalism school US$20 million. His gift was big enough to prompt rebranding at what will now be called the <a href="http://www1.cuny.edu/mu/forum/2018/06/11/the-cuny-graduate-school-of-journalism-receives-20-million-gift-from-craig-newmark-founder-of-craigslist-and-craig-newmark-philanthropies/">Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York</a>.</p>
<p>Newmark’s big gift made a big splash, but charitable gifts that support the media are pretty common. Some 6,568 foundations gave nonprofit media outlets a total of <a href="https://shorensteincenter.org/funding-the-news-foundations-and-nonprofit-media/">$1.8 billion distributed between 2010 and 2015</a>, according to a recent study.</p>
<p>All that largesse is responding to the loss of hundreds of newspapers and 35,000 newsroom employees since 2006, according to <a href="http://www.journalism.org/fact-sheet/newspapers/">Pew Research Center analysis</a> of federal Bureau of Labor Statistics data. I believe this workforce erosion endangers all Americans because accurate and timely information is the lifeblood of any democracy. As <a href="https://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/if-we-are-guard-against-ignorance-spurious-quotation">Thomas Jefferson</a> said, “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.” </p>
<h2>Nonprofit media proliferation</h2>
<p>Back when <a href="https://www.american.edu/soc/news/Charles-Lewis-receives-IF-Stone-medal.cfm">I founded the Center for Public Integrity</a>, one of the country’s oldest and largest nonpartisan, nonprofit investigative news organizations, at my home in 1989, it was just the third of its kind in the whole country. Two decades later, when I co-founded what later morphed into the <a href="https://inn.org/">Institute for Nonprofit News</a>, <a href="https://inn.org/pocantico-declaration/">there were at least 27</a> of these operations.</p>
<p>According to Sue Cross, the institute’s executive director and CEO, there are approximately 270 U.S. nonprofit news sites today, 165 of which are annual dues-paying members of her organization. Some are small with a handful of staffers. A few are much bigger.</p>
<p>After the cable TV entrepreneur-turned-philanthropist <a href="https://www.philanthropyroundtable.org/philanthropy-magazine/article/spring-2014-interview-with-gerry-lenfest">H.F. “Gerry” Lenfest</a> bought Philadelphia’s two largest newspapers – The Philadelphia Inquirer, the Philadelphia Daily News and their joint website, philly.com – in 2016, he donated them to the <a href="https://www.philafound.org/OurWork/TheLenfestInstituteforJournalism.aspx">Philadelphia Foundation</a>. The nonprofit Lenfest Institute for Journalism, to which he has donated <a href="http://www.philly.com/philly/entertainment/arts/on-the-receiving-end-for-a-change-the-lenfests-win-the-carnegie-medal-20170622.html">$129.5 million</a>, oversees the papers.</p>
<p>I expect nonprofit daily news sites of that kind to become more common due to the collapse of commercial newspaper and television newsroom staff levels, which have weakened news coverage capacities. </p>
<h2>Where the money goes</h2>
<p>Public media operations like National Public Radio, Public Broadcasting Service and individual broadcast stations get nearly half of the media funding foundations parcel out: $800 million, or 44.3 percent of that $1.8 billion distributed between 2010 and 2015, according to a study from the <a href="https://shorensteincenter.org/funding-the-news-foundations-and-nonprofit-media/">Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy</a> at the Harvard Kennedy School and Northeastern University’s School of Journalism.</p>
<p>National nonprofit media organizations such as ProPublica and the Center for Investigative Reporting took in $220 million. Local nonprofit news outfits pulled in $80 million, and university-based journalism initiatives drew $36 million in grants over this same period.</p>
<p><iframe id="uqW5R" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/uqW5R/5/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>In general, national nonprofit media outlets attract more funding than local news operations. This lack of support for local news is coinciding with an increase in the number of “<a href="https://www.cjr.org/local_news/american-news-deserts-donuts-local.php">news deserts</a>,” regions without viable commercial or nonprofit news organizations.</p>
<p><iframe id="GAmkY" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/GAmkY/6/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>This serious problem isn’t a surprise, given the disparities in terms of everything from the quality of trained medical personnel and facilities, to online internet access and per capita income between <a href="https://theconversation.com/six-charts-that-illustrate-the-divide-between-rural-and-urban-america-72934">America’s rural and urban communities</a>.</p>
<h2>Driving growth</h2>
<p>Why are foundations, individual <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/propublica-non-profit-investigative-news-2013-3">philanthropists</a> and now states pouring more money into the media? The answer is very simple. Without credible news and information, and thus a public that’s at least somewhat informed about the uses and abuses of power, a healthy democracy is not possible.</p>
<p>Maybe because his website took a big bite out of newspapers’ classified advertising revenue by digitally connecting buyers and sellers, which makes him at least indirectly responsible for some of the media’s decline, Newmark is clearly worried about that problem.</p>
<p>“In this time, when trustworthy news is under attack, somebody has to stand up,” <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/11/business/media/craigslist-cuny-journalism-school.html">he told The New York Times</a>. “And the way you stand up these days is by putting your money where your mouth is.”</p>
<p>Cross, a former Associated Press executive, says donations to her organization’s member organizations began to surge at the end of 2016.</p>
<p>“Initially we thought that might be prompted by reaction to (President Donald) Trump’s attacks on the press,” she told me. “We now believe it is a broader and more sustained growth in nonprofit news fueled in good part by community concern over continuing losses of reporting by the traditional press.”</p>
<p><em>The Conversation, a nonprofit media outlet, relies on support from its <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/partners">university partners</a> and grants more than a dozen foundations.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/98376/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Charles Lewis does not work or consult for, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would materially benefit from this article. He serves gratis on several nonprofit research and journalism organization boards and advisory boards/committees, including two of the organizations he founded, the Center for Public Integrity and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.</span></em></p>Without credible news and information, a healthy democracy is not possible.Charles Lewis, Professor, School of Communication; Executive Editor, Investigative Reporting Workshop, American University School of CommunicationLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/797372017-11-17T01:00:14Z2017-11-17T01:00:14ZHow to get the biggest bang out of matching funds<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178285/original/file-20170714-14254-13034qx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">That looks like a good match.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/partnership-concept-hands-putting-jigsaw-pieces-444725923?src=Yf3-32pAs-WzwpUa5NzIaA-1-11">Peshkova/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Since 2012, thousands of charities have urged Americans to express their holiday-season generosity by opening their wallets on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving for good causes.</p>
<p>Nonprofits often try to make the most of this occasion, known as <a href="https://www.givingtuesday.org/">Giving Tuesday</a>, through email and social media with messages like “If you give today, a generous donor will match your donation dollar-for-dollar.”</p>
<p>I’m an <a href="http://laurakgee.weebly.com/">economist</a> who studies nonprofit fundraising. These pitches made me want to find out whether matching funds, a common tool, really make people more likely to give.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178286/original/file-20170714-14287-1v3czf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178286/original/file-20170714-14287-1v3czf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178286/original/file-20170714-14287-1v3czf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178286/original/file-20170714-14287-1v3czf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178286/original/file-20170714-14287-1v3czf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178286/original/file-20170714-14287-1v3czf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=654&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178286/original/file-20170714-14287-1v3czf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=654&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/178286/original/file-20170714-14287-1v3czf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=654&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fundraising drives are routine for nonprofits that rely on donations.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/confirm/98565527?src=ydahaHRjhAVyQmIAga0oog-1-22&size=huge_jpg">iQoncept/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Feeling important</h2>
<p>Donations, including matching ones, are extremely important to nonprofits. The 123 largest news-oriented public radio stations, for example, get <a href="http://www.journalism.org/fact-sheet/public-broadcasting/">nearly two-thirds of their funding from listeners</a>. The rest of their budgets comes from businesses, foundations and other nonprofits. </p>
<p>Research on this topic has raised questions about this common fundraising tool’s effectiveness. <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1257/aer.97.5.1774">Some</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1162/JEEA.2007.5.6.1203">studies</a> have found that matching funds increase the likelihood someone will donate any amount, while <a href="http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10683-007-9190-0">others</a> <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047272710001842?via%3Dihub">have not</a> detected <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1257/pol.20120312">that benefit</a>.</p>
<p>To determine one way that matching funds might work, I teamed up with fellow researcher <a href="https://mjschreck.wordpress.com/">Mike Schreck</a> of the Analysis Group, an economic consulting firm. We looked into whether making people <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0899825617301951">feel important</a> by having them unlock matching funds for the nonprofits they support would increase the number of donations. </p>
<p>To understand what we mean by “feel important,” consider what happens when NPR stations say “We need 20 donors by the end of the hour to get $500 in matching funds.” If you could know for sure that 19 people would answer that call, you could believe in your power to personally activate the match. </p>
<p>However, if you could be certain that only 18 people will call in, then even if you make a donation the goal of 20 won’t be met. And if you were certain that at least 20 other people will call in, you would realize that you could be the 21st donor or the 22nd. In those cases your gift would still count, but you wouldn’t be helping to make a match. </p>
<h2>Multiple matches</h2>
<p>We reasoned that by tinkering with different thresholds and changing the number of donors needed to unlock matching funds, we could change how important potential donors would feel.</p>
<p>To give that a shot, we first partnered with an educational charity that requested anonymity.</p>
<p>The nonprofit mailed five different types of letters asking prospects for donations. Everyone on its mailing list randomly received one of the five letters. They included a traditional dollar-for-dollar match letter – meaning that if donors gave US$10, the charity would automatically receive $20 – and a control-group letter that simply told people about the group’s mission and asked for a donation. </p>
<p>We also created three letters telling recipients they had been randomly assigned to a group of 10 people. One promised that if at least one of the 10 donated, the charity would get an extra $50 in matching funds. Another said that if at least two of them made a gift, the nonprofit would receive that $50. The third letter pledged those $50 in matching funds if at least three recipients donated.</p>
<p>Everything we told potential donors was true. There was indeed a generous person who promised to make those matches if the various thresholds were met, along with dollar-for-dollar matches if that’s what a donor’s letter told them would happen across the board. </p>
<h2>What worked best</h2>
<p>Eight weeks later, we measured and compared the donation rates for the five kinds of letters.</p>
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<p>Only 1.59 percent of the prospective donors who got the control-group letter with no match made donations, the lowest rate. The second-lowest donation rate was for those who got a letter requiring one person in 10 to activate matching funds, at 2 percent, followed by a 2.34 percent rate for the people promised an unconditional dollar-for-dollar match. The donation rate among prospective donors told that gifts from two in 10 would do the trick was about the same, at 2.35 percent.</p>
<p>For the people told matching funds would require three donors, the donation rate stood much higher: 3.68 pecent. That surprised us because we thought the higher goal would discourage donations. Instead, potential donors seemed to be reacting to our raising the bar by themselves rising to the greater challenge. It’s possible that as the goal rose, people felt more needed and so were more likely to give.</p>
<p>Response rates in the low single digits may sound underwhelming. But <a href="http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=50771">donation rates</a> for this kind of campaign typically run only <a href="http://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/aer.97.5.1774">2 percent</a> and even averages of <a href="http://www.nber.org/papers/w22867">0.5 percent</a> or less can be worth it for fundraisers.</p>
<p>To further test whether making people feel more likely to activate matching funds makes them more apt to give to a charity, we did another study, this time working with people in person. We asked them to decide whether to donate and to tell us how important they thought their gifts would be in terms of activating the matching funds. </p>
<p>We summed up the results from both studies in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geb.2017.11.002">Games and Economic Behavior</a>.</p>
<p>As with the mailings, we found that the more instrumental a person thought their gift was in terms of activating matching funds, the more likely they were to donate.</p>
<p>What should nonprofits learn from our research? Not all pitches about matching funds are equal. The ones that make potential donors feel that their gift is a key part of what it will take to unlock that extra money work best.</p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of an article originally published on <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-get-the-biggest-bang-out-of-matching-funds-79737">November 16, 2017</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/79737/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Laura Gee does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Nonprofit fundraisers have long relied on matching funds to encourage giving without knowing if they work. Research suggests one way to make the most out of challenge gifts from big donors.Laura Gee, Assistant Professor of Economics, Tufts UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/578562016-04-22T10:04:44Z2016-04-22T10:04:44ZCould Donald Trump change journalism for the better?<p>It is unsurprising that wherever Donald Trump goes, headlines follow. But what is particularly interesting is just how many of those headlines involve the practice of journalism and journalists themselves. </p>
<p>Trump has called to <a href="http://www.politico.com/blogs/on-media/2016/02/donald-trump-libel-laws-219866">“open up” libel laws.</a> He has <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/27/us/politics/donald-trump-says-his-mocking-of-new-york-times-reporter-was-misread.html?_r=0">mocked</a> New York Times reporter Serge Kovaleski’s disability. He has <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/01/27/the-long-strange-history-of-the-donald-trump-megyn-kelly-feud/">feuded with Fox News’ Megyn Kelly</a> over questions she asked of him during a Republican presidential debate. And then there are the <a href="http://fortune.com/2016/03/12/donald-trump-rally-arrest/">accusations of violence against journalists</a> at Trump rallies.</p>
<p>Trump so challenges the norms and conventions of politics, it has caused some to express anxiety about the “<a href="http://democracyjournal.org/alcove/trump-and-the-fragility-of-democratic-culture/">corrosion of democratic culture</a>” as a result of the damage he leaves in his wake.</p>
<p>Journalists, as chroniclers of the political system, are confronted with a dilemma. How should journalists cover Trump’s candidacy? Can they – and <em>should</em> they – be objective?</p>
<p>Objectivity is a much misunderstood concept and is too often <a href="http://jou.sagepub.com/content/13/4/435.short">uncritically mythologized</a> as central to American journalistic practice. What interests me is how the pressure to be objective – and therefore disengaged from the very real impact Trump is having on the democratic process – may impede journalists’ crucial role as stewards of democracy.</p>
<h2>The Cokie Roberts case</h2>
<p>In March, longtime NPR commentator Cokie Roberts received flak from journalists, including some of her NPR colleagues, for <a href="http://cjonline.com/opinion/2016-02-26/steve-and-cokie-roberts-gop-must-stop-trump-now">coauthoring a column</a> that argued that Trump is</p>
<blockquote>
<p>one of the least qualified candidates ever to make a serious run for the presidency. If he is nominated by a major party – let alone elected – the reputation of the United States would suffer a devastating blow around the world.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/119727/original/image-20160421-27019-168uowj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/119727/original/image-20160421-27019-168uowj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=825&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119727/original/image-20160421-27019-168uowj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=825&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119727/original/image-20160421-27019-168uowj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=825&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119727/original/image-20160421-27019-168uowj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1037&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119727/original/image-20160421-27019-168uowj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1037&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119727/original/image-20160421-27019-168uowj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1037&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cokie Roberts.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cokie_Roberts-a.jpg">National Archives</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Roberts was roundly chastised by her colleagues and NPR executives for failing to adhere to the objectivity norm – this despite her status as a commentator. </p>
<p>Morning Edition host David Greene even expressed his disappointment with Roberts <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/03/14/470340825/npr-clarifies-cokie-roberts-role-after-anti-trump-column">on the air</a>, telling her that “objectivity is so fundamental to what we do” and asking, “can you blame people like me for being a little disappointed to hear you come out and take a personal position on something like this in a campaign?” </p>
<p>Roberts defended her column by describing herself as someone who is nonpartisan but “interested in government working.” Her argument was essentially an appeal to basic democratic values and the manner in which Trump is challenging them.</p>
<p>In contrast – and providing a masterful illustration of the tension between journalistic and business values – CBS head Leslie Moonves <a href="http://www.politico.com/blogs/on-media/2016/02/les-moonves-trump-cbs-220001">recently told an audience of investors</a> that while Trump “may not be good for America” he is “damn good for CBS…The money’s rolling in.”</p>
<h2>Is your analyst my commentator?</h2>
<p>NPR’s dilemma speaks to broader shifts in the media ecosystem. </p>
<p>A <a href="http://jmq.sagepub.com/content/92/2/468">study I coauthored with Elizabeth Blanks Hindman</a> examined the responses of journalists to NPR’s decision to <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130712737">fire analyst Juan Williams</a> for comments he made on Fox News in 2010 about feeling “nervous” about sharing a plane with Muslims. </p>
<p>The responses indicated much confusion about Williams’ role, with some pondering what exactly it means to be an “analyst” as versus, say, a “reporter” or a “commentator.” Others criticized Williams for not adhering to the objectivity norm.</p>
<p>We found similar findings in <a href="http://jmq.sagepub.com/content/90/2/267.short">our study</a> of journalistic responses to the retirement of veteran White House correspondent <a href="http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2013/07/helen-thomas-trailblazing-reporter-dead-at-92-168818">Helen Thomas</a> following <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/06/04/white-house-reporter-helen-thomas-apologizes-saying-jews-hell-palestine.html">controversial remarks</a> she made that Israel should “get the hell out of Palestine.” The majority of responses we analyzed criticized Thomas for failing to be objective regarding the Israel-Palestine conflict, when in fact her role at the time was as an opinion columnist.</p>
<p>We see these findings as markers of broader uncertainties about 21st-century journalism. To question objectivity is to invite the larger question of what we expect of the 21st-century journalist. Is “objectivity,” at least as presently understood, fit for purpose?</p>
<p>The fact is that Cokie Roberts is not the only one to express her unease about Trump’s candidacy. </p>
<p>The Huffington Post has taken to <a href="http://www.politico.com/blogs/on-media/2016/01/huffpost-to-publish-anti-trump-kicker-with-all-trump-coverage-218345">appending an editor’s note to every article about Trump</a> informing readers that he is “a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist, birther, and bully.” </p>
<p>The Boston Globe attracted attention for a cover that ran on the front of its Sunday edition’s Ideas section presented as an account of <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/11/business/media/boston-globe-envisions-trump-presidency-with-mock-front-page.html?_r=0">what life would look like under President Trump</a>, with mass deportations and trade wars the new normal.</p>
<p>How, then, should journalists respond to an <a href="http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/how-authoritarianism-took-over-gop-and-allowed-emergence-emperor-trump">authoritarian</a> candidate who incites violence, fuels racial tension and fractures the social fabric by indulging the worst excesses of American bigotry? </p>
<h2>‘Journalists owe democracy their allegiance’</h2>
<p>The first defense of Roberts column is to point out that it was an opinion column written by a commentator. Roberts was, in effect, doing what she is paid to do: opine. This makes the criticism of her column all the more bizarre.</p>
<p>However, the second and more fundamental defense is to consider at a deeper level how journalists in a liberal democracy respond to phenomena that challenge the very precepts of liberal democracy.</p>
<p>This is a much-needed conversation, and one that has long been stifled by a narrow conception of objectivity. Too often objectivity, as it is practiced, emphasizes neutrality and balance at all costs. This can be seen, for example, in coverage of the human impact on <a href="http://www.cjr.org/essay/the_danger_of_fair_and_balance.php">climate change</a> as a question still being debated when an overwhelming majority of scientists believe there is unassailable evidence that it is a fact that needs to be dealt with. </p>
<p>This kind of objectivity positions the journalist as a “morally disengaged” communicator possessing, as <a href="http://www.columbia.edu/itc/journalism/j6075/edit/readings/glasser.html">the ethicist Ted Glasser argues</a>, </p>
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<p>neither the need nor the opportunity to develop a critical perspective from which to assess the events, the issues, and the personalities he or she is assigned to cover.</p>
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<p>In “<a href="http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/jbp/jlp/2008/00000007/00000001/art00007">The Limits of Objective Reporting</a>,” the philosopher Raphael Cohen-Almagor argues that </p>
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<p>subjectivity is preferable to objectivity when the media cover illiberal and anti-democratic phenomena.</p>
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<p>Cohen-Almagor argues – and I concur – that when confronted with issues that challenge the basic values of liberal democracy itself, journalists are called to set aside moral neutrality. </p>
<p>From this perspective, journalism ought to be nonpartisan in party terms but wholly on the side of democracy, good governance and the protection of people’s rights and civil liberties.</p>
<p>As Cohen-Almagor says, journalists </p>
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<p>live within the democratic realm and owe democracy their allegiance. Free speech and free journalism exist because democracy makes them possible.</p>
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<p>This is not so unusual an idea, and ought not be controversial. Indeed, we don’t need to go that far back into journalism history to find examples of it. </p>
<p>One of the reasons <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1872668">Edward R. Murrow is regarded as one of the finest American journalists</a> is because of his opposition to the demagoguery of Joseph McCarthy, devoting an episode of “See It Now” to a methodical exposition of McCarthy’s smears and deceits.</p>
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<p>Murrow recognized the threat that McCarthy (and McCarthyism) posed to the fabric of American democracy and acted with conviction. Where is today’s Edward R. Murrow?</p>
<p>Trump is testing the boundaries of the political system. His platform and proclamations, and the manner in which he articulates them, pose such a challenge to regular order that it becomes necessary to ask if the norms of political coverage ought to be rethought. </p>
<p>Perhaps a new journalistic vocabulary is necessary. Trump’s candidacy may provide just the occasion for such a rethink.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/57856/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ryan J. Thomas does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Trump’s campaign challenges the conventions of politics and liberal democracy. So maybe the time has come to question how journalists practice objectivity.Ryan J. Thomas, Assistant Professor, Journalism Studies, University of Missouri-ColumbiaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/431462015-09-02T16:20:54Z2015-09-02T16:20:54ZWhy the Murdoch press wants to exterminate public broadcasters<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/92287/original/image-20150818-12433-1ozo65t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"></span> </figcaption></figure><p>Like most people with even a passing interest in the part played by News Corporation in British politics, I remember exactly what I was doing when scandal broke in 2011 and the sense of a seemingly indestructible media behemoth crumbling into chaos and ruin before our eyes. Now, Rebekah Brooks <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/sep/02/rebekah-brooks-return-tony-gallagher-sun-editor-rupert-murdoch">is to return as chief executive of News UK</a>, publisher of the Sun, the Times and the Sunday Times. In 2014 she was cleared of all charges relating to the phone-hacking scandal. </p>
<p>I had been researching and teaching about the News empire for more than two decades by 2011. While I always took care to acknowledge Murdoch’s positive contribution to sustaining the idea that journalism is important and must be invested in if it is to survive the digital age, looking further back the deeply unethical behaviour of The Sun in relation to such events as the <a href="http://hillsboroughinquests.independent.gov.uk/">Hillsborough stadium disaster</a> and the <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/history/falklands-war-a-look-back-in-50-photographs-7581454.html?action=gallery&ino=25">sinking of the Belgrano</a> during the Falklands war were and remain classic examples of the excesses of British tabloid journalism.</p>
<p>Murdoch’s use of his media to influence and shape the democratic political process in all the markets where he operates was illustrated by me by reference to Fox News, The Sun and other News Corp outlets which operate as what the late newspaper proprietor Robert Maxwell called a “megaphone” for the Murdochian world view and political agenda.</p>
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<p>So the impact of the phone hacking scandal of 2011 was a genuinely shocking thing to behold. Robert Peston’s <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b049ffld">BBC Panorama documentary</a> was a reminder of that moment, which at the time was generally regarded as pivotal in British political history. Where senior politicians of both Labour and Conservative parties had for decades “queued up to kiss the shoes” of Rupert Murdoch and his tabloid editors (as investigative journalist Nick Davies put it to Peston), suddenly no one wanted to be his friend anymore. </p>
<p>The hitherto unspoken truth (unspoken among politicians who were its beneficiaries, that is) that the relationship between the Murdoch media and the political elite in Britain had become undemocratic and incestuous – became the new common sense overnight.</p>
<p>Among the many adverse impacts of the scandal on News Corporation was the collapse of its <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-14112465">bid to buy the remaining 61% of the shares for BSkyB</a> that it didn’t own, a deal that was by now attracting heat for both the Murdochs and a government that had seemed eager to wave the multi-billion deal through despite massive public opposition. </p>
<p>Few doubted that the reputation of Rupert Murdoch and the corporate culture which he had presided over for more than 40 years had been seriously, perhaps terminally, wounded.</p>
<h2>Rupert resurgent</h2>
<p>That view has turned out to be well wide of the mark. Once again News Corporation is <a href="http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/Politics/article1580368.ece">on the offensive against its old enemy</a>, the BBC, lobbying a Cameron government – armed now with a majority in the House of Commons and thus empowered to act with greater freedom than was possible in the five years of Coalition – to shrink the corporation.</p>
<p>Once again there are reports of Murdoch’s privileged access to the corridors of power, as in <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/george-osborne-under-pressure-to-reveal-if-meeting-with-rupert-murdoch-preceded-announcement-of-bbc-cuts-10428769.html">The Independent in July</a>.</p>
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<p>George Osborne is under pressure to reveal if he held a private meeting with Rupert Murdoch days before the Treasury imposed a £650m budget cut on the BBC. Whitehall speculation about the alleged meeting – which would raise fresh questions about the closeness of the relationship between the Conservatives and the Murdoch empire – has prompted Labour to write to Mr Osborne demanding he release full details of his contact with the News Corp boss. </p>
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<p>And now Brooks is back. It looks like business as usual, then, for a global media baron used to commanding the attention of political leaders and wielding his power to influence policy making.</p>
<h2>Whose side are you on?</h2>
<p>In Australia where I live and work – and where the phone hacking scandal had little impact on News Corporation’s activities – a similar offensive is <a href="http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/piers-akerman-grubby-excuses-cannot-erase-the-abcs-shame/story-fni0cwl5-1227417790359">underway against the ABC</a>.</p>
<p>In Australia, as in the UK, News Corporation is allied to a right-of-centre government which regards the public sector in general, and public service media in particular, as hostile to its goals and ripe for “reform”. The Australian, News Corp’s flagship title down under (like The Times and Sunday Times in the UK) maintains a steady flow of anti-public service media reportage and commentary, criticising with boring predictability executive salaries, or the alleged bias of its news department, or indeed anything that can be made to appear excessive and un-Australian.</p>
<p>Prime minister Tony Abbott <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/jun/23/abbott-asks-the-abc-whose-side-are-you-on-over-zaky-mallahs-qa-appearance">recently asked of the ABC</a>: “Whose side are you on?” In a similar way, News Corporation likes to present the ABC as a cultural fifth column, its commentators regularly demanding that it be reduced to a “market failure” broadcaster (and in the process, coincidentally enough, allowing News the opportunity to become even more dominant in the Australian media landscape <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/media-ownership">than it already is</a>). On this issue, as on many others, Murdoch’s media act as cheerleaders for the Abbott government.</p>
<p>I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but the ferocity of the campaigns against public service media in Australia and the UK could easily be read as more than coincidence. In both countries News Corp press seek to undermine the funding models of public service media, and their right to produce popular entertainment programming such as The Voice. This has been a decades long campaign for News Corp in the UK, and after the Jimmy Savile scandal and other dents to its reputation, the BBC is more vulnerable than it has ever been. </p>
<p>The ABC, one might argue, is in a stronger defensive position than the BBC. While the latter now faces five years of majority Conservative government, Abbott must go to the polls in September 2016 at the latest – and repeated opinion polls show a deep affection among Australians for the ABC. Tampering with Auntie would be politically risky. The real danger will come if the Coalition is re-elected with a comfortable majority, giving Abbott the freedom of manoeuvre now enjoyed by Cameron in the UK.</p>
<p>In the meantime, the BBC and ABC must hold their nerve, and trust in the capacity of the publics they serve to continue recognising the importance of the role they play and the excellent value for money which they deliver. Both the BBC and ABC cost the individual license fee or taxpayer much less than a subscription to Foxtel or BSkyB. Even the purchase of one daily newspaper in either country for a year exceeds the cost per person of funding pubic service media and the wealth of content they deliver on TV, radio and online.</p>
<p>Supporters of public service media are familiar with these arguments, but in both Australia and the UK they must be made and made again, forcefully and with confidence. To lose the BBC and the ABC, or to see them reduced to a pale shadow of public service media – <a href="http://www.freepress.net/sites/default/files/stn-legacy/public-media-and-political-independence.pdf">think PBS and NPR in the United States</a> – would be a cultural disaster from which there would be no recovery that was not directed by News Corporation and other private media interests.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/43146/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brian McNair receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>We thought the phone hacking scandal would chasten News Corp. We were wrong.Brian McNair, Professor of Journalism, Media and Communication, Queensland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/450222015-08-25T15:01:33Z2015-08-25T15:01:33ZFuture of the BBC: why the ‘market failure’ model is a flop in broadcasting<p>For any fans of the BBC – and that would include <a href="http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/aboutthebbc/insidethebbc/howwework/reports/pdf/bbc_report_trust_and_impartiality_jun_2015.pdf">the 59% of Britons</a> who say it is the source they are most likely to turn to for accurate news coverage or, for that matter, the 34% of Americans who told Pew last year they turn first to the BBC for their news – then the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/445704/BBC_Charter_Review_Consultation_WEB.pdf">government’s green paper</a> on the future of the UK’s public broadcaster will come as worrying news.</p>
<p>At the heart of the green paper is a belief that public funding should only apply to those areas where the market fails to deliver. It is worth reminding ourselves where this philosophy has prevailed and what it has produced.</p>
<p>Up until the 1960s broadcasting in the US was run purely as a commercial enterprise, lightly regulated by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Programming was constructed around the needs of advertisers (who paid the bills) who had a preference for light, mildly entertaining fare that could be regularly interrupted with commercial messages.</p>
<p>US president John F Kennedy’s first chair of the FCC, Newton Minow, in a <a href="http://www.terramedia.co.uk/reference/documents/vast_wasteland.htm">memorable speech to commercial broadcasters</a>, castigated US broadcasting for its poor quality, formulaic and ad-filled content. The US television landscape, he said after having spent a week watching American TV, resembled a “vast wasteland” – repetitious, uninformative and cajoling. The UK system, meanwhile, run very much along public service principles, was entering a golden age of serious popular drama, biting satire, innovative comedy, news, current affairs and documentary programming rarely seen in the US.</p>
<p>Democratic administrations, looking enviously across the Atlantic, decided to introduce public service broadcasting into the US system, creating PBS and NPR. Under pressure from commercial broadcasters, however, they adopted the kind of <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/bbc_funding_review/annex8.pdf">“market failure” model</a> that appears to inform the current government’s thinking. Public television, in particular, was there to provide what that market did not.</p>
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<h2>Worthy but dull</h2>
<p>With the possible exception of children’s programming (notably Sesame Street), this pushed PBS away from making popular programmes. It quickly gained the reputation for being high-brow, worthy but dull. Its financial dependence on government also laid it open to budget cuts whenever politicians found its programmes too questioning or critical. This made PBS increasingly risk averse. So, for example, while Year Zero, John Pilger’s famous documentary about the genocide in Cambodia, aired on primetime on ITV, <a href="http://www.cjournal.info/2007/08/11/the-unseen-lies-journalism-as-propaganda/">PBS refused to show it</a> in the US. Many worry that our government’s threat to reduce BBC funding is having a <a href="http://www.channel4.com/news/rona-fairhead-interference-has-chilling-effect-on-bbc">similarly chilling effect</a>.</p>
<p>Politically compromised and under-funded, PBS does its best, but it pales by comparison with the BBC. While the BBC is the <a href="http://www.barb.co.uk/whats-new/weekly-top-30">most popular British broadcaster</a> – on TV, on radio and online - <a href="http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2010/04/12/where-did-the-primetime-broadcast-tv-audience-go/47976/">PBS is marginal</a> to American broadcasting.</p>
<p>Some would argue that this doesn’t matter, that US commercial broadcasters produce plenty of high-quality, innovative programmes. Having lived in the US for 12 years, I would ask anyone who thinks this to do what Newton Minow did, and sit down for a week in front of a TV in America – or even worse, to listen to the radio. This is the wealthiest media market in the world; it is far richer than the UK and yet the original, critically acclaimed shows it produces (think The Wire or the West Wing – or even well-crafted sitcoms such as Friends, Big Bang Theory or Parks and Recreation) are very much the exception rather than the rule. </p>
<p>Many of the critially well-regarded US shows are made on subscription channels such as HBO that are only really viable in a market as lucrative as the US. The rest, with endless repeats, commercials and hollow canned laughter, is so formulaic and derivative that it makes Bake Off and Strictly Come Dancing seem positively uplifting. As for radio, the BBC alone offers more high-quality and diverse programming than the entire commercial network in the US.</p>
<h2>Crowd-pleasing TV</h2>
<p>There are many areas where a sensibly regulated market works well, but the evidence suggests that broadcasting is not one of them. So, for example, our <a href="https://corporate.sky.com/bigger-picture/sustainability-reporting/how-were-doing-2013-14/financial-revenue-and-profit">wealthiest broadcaster is Sky</a>, yet few could argue that Sky produces anything like the range of high-quality output produced by the BBC. British broadcasting is a huge success story precisely because it has a well-funded public service, commercial-free broadcaster at its core.</p>
<p>One of the reasons for this is that the programming produced by commercial broadcasters is designed to please advertisers – after all it is they, rather than the people watching, who pay the piper. The wishes of advertisers – who prefer mildly entertaining, easily interrupted content – are not the same as the preferences of audiences.</p>
<p>So, for example, when BBC and ITV show the same event live, people <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/bbc-coverage-trounces-itv-in-world-cup-final-viewing-figures-9604484.html">overwhelmingly choose to watch the BBC</a>. This is, in part, because of its reputation as a national broadcaster, but also because, given the choice, people prefer their TV commercial-free. The “market failure” model takes away this choice.</p>
<p>The success of UK television, in other words, is because of its mixed ecology, with strong public service and commercial channels, a system that offering far more choice and high-quality programming than a monotone, commercial model with a weak public service provider. With a smaller BBC, <a href="http://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/publication/what-if-there-were-no-bbc-television">commercial broadcasters could make more money to provide more programmes</a>. But to suppose that they would do as good a job as the BBC is to take a huge risk. As the Americans would say: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/45022/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Justin Lewis does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>If you want to see how the market failure model works, look across the Atlantic at PBS and NPR and be afraid.Justin Lewis, Professor of Communication, Cardiff UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.