April 26, 2023 by Darren Pasek (‘25)
Americans cower at the idea of publicly run press and media, and rightfully so. If the government controlled what journalists said and reported, Americans worry that there would be a translucent haze between the people and the truth. This fear is not based entirely on theory though.
When looking at communist countries, many have government run media. Looking at North Korea or China, for example, there is an incredibly misguided public who are oblivious to what their government is up to and what is going on in the world. Closer to home, our very own publication, The Lightning Rod, has experienced some failures of publicly funded media.
When you are funded by the organization on which you report, you can’t really write about some subject matters. This is troubling because if the school paper cannot report on school events in an honest way, what is the point of reporting on anything at all? It can make the school look bad if problems are brought to light, or if their staff is criticized. That interest in maintaining appearance can overshadow the true purpose of what the school is working toward, the student body’s benefit.
More generally in America, however, there is a media culture that has the freedom to say whatever they want. Journalism becomes a business where articles and reporting are the product. In other words, the media sells information, in whatever form they want to tell it. The best-selling information is the most polarizing information, regardless of its validity or relevance.
Humans evolved in a way that favored those more reactionary and more responsive to threats. Animals, when presented with a threat, have an immediate instinctual response of pure fear, muscle excitement, and a heightened aptitude for fighting. Humans have experienced this response countless times throughout the evolutionary process, and those humans with a stronger instinctual response survived more often than their counterparts.
Humans evolved favoring those who reacted to negative or adverse situations more strongly, thus the trait of strong response further perpetuated and was passed on through generations. This trait, despite modern humans encountering predators or extreme danger at a lesser rate than their ancestors, lingers in their DNA. Nowadays, this response presents itself in the form of Negativity Bias, the favoring and prioritization of negative emotions over positive ones. This is exactly why people are drawn to look at car crashes as they speed by on the highway.
Information that sells is the most negatively polarizing. There is nothing we can do about that fact. There is no untraining negativity bias from every mind. This is not to condemn negativity bias, for if we did, humans would act irrationally optimistic and fail to respond properly in life-or-death situations. But when it comes to journalism, negativity bias becomes an opportunity to make money.
American journalism is completely incentivized by profit, and that leads to a cycle of competition and hyperbole with reporting. Yellow journalism and emotionally misleading headlines emerge to try and draw more clicks, more TV viewership time, and more purchases of newspapers. That threatens the idea that American press is truly free. A free press society would enable journalists to report without choosing topics based purely on marketability.
Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is the only American media company with funding that is remotely public. PBS is a privately run not-for-profit that receives guaranteed government subsidies and donations. Unlike The Lightning Rod and the aforementioned communist media companies, PBS is not working with some bias toward the government or their funding institution. PBS simply has no profit incentive, and they consistently win the most prestigious journalism awards.
PBS’ prestige is surprising to most because of how few people read what they say or watch their programming. Considering the culture of media, this is not surprising. PBS wins awards because they report the most effectively and accurately. People don’t want to watch or read accurate news; they want the most polarizing, negative information.
There cannot exist legitimately free press and information within the same society as humans, as it is not economically or pragmatically possible. Someone must pay journalists, and neither companies nor governments can feasibly enable the provision of fair, free information to the people.