Sadly, western media has its faults, too
I spent many parts of my days, and much of my time in China, defending western journalism. If I had a kuai for every time somebody told me CNN was the mouthpiece of the US government, or western journalists had obvious agendas, I'd be able to go on a major shopping spree at Shanghai's Plaza 66.
If CNN is the mouthpiece of the US government, I'm surprised to see so many stories broadcast about everything that's going wrong in Iraq. I mean, come on. Even Fox News, known to be more Republican-leaning (that's putting it awfully politely, I know), covers roadside bombings and American deaths. Even the most pro-administration newspaper or broadcast outlet will still run news the government considers negative or would not approve of. Welcome to a country featuring a free press. Conversely, when I worked as a news presenter at China Radio International, I had a memo handed down to my producer telling us exactly which order every single news story should be run. Now that's a government mouthpiece.
Anyway, I am more proud of western media (in my home country of Canada) now than I've ever been. Sure, when I worked there, I complained about it vociferously. I hated the CBC for running "Liberal government propaganda", I thought the private networks were too sensational, and the radio stations had become too commercial. But compared to Chinese media, which doesn't care who's listening/watching/reading as long as the right message is being sent, Canadian media is a bastion of fairness, ethnics, integrity, and opportunity.
So I was awfully sad when I saw an article from my hometown, Victoria B.C., online. I was drawn to the story by an excellent blog on B.C. Provincial politics called Public Eye Online. It has covered the story published in the Victoria News, a smallish newspaper serving the city core. The article was about a woman, Ms. Schevenius, who traveled to Portland, Oregon to buy a used Mercedes. Because the Canadian dollar is nearly at par with the greenback, and because taxes are lower and variety of cars higher in the US, it made sense for her to head south. She claims to have saved CAD $13,000 by doing so.
"With the foreign exchange rate the way it is, it really is on the purchaser's side to go down to the states and buy a car," Schevenius said. "I love a good bargain."The Mercedes, listed at $22,000 in Portland, would have cost closer to $38,000 north of the border. Even after the taxes were paid, the savings more than justified the time and airfare it took to bring the vehicle back.
Vehicle importers do not have to pay duty on car made within the borders of the North American free Trade Agreement, she said.
Schevenius and a friend are planning to publish an 18-page how-to pamphlet entitled "How to Import a Car into Canada" for others interested in testing the cross-border used car market.
See anything wrong yet? I didn't. The story continues, with relevant reaction from local car dealerships.
Peter Tolsma of Sussex Insurance in Langford said the rising Canadian dollar - sitting at 95 cents US as of Friday - has piqued interest from cross-border buyers of in both new and used cars."There is way more interest and it's probably not as difficult as most people think," he said.
"A lot of it is just sheer number. Take California, it has about 25 million people and there's just a lot more cars available."
However, new car dealers say the market isn't big enough to have an impact on them.
"I haven't really come across that many because we're on the Island so it's a bit different, but I know some of the dealers near borders are conscious they are losing a few deals to that," said Saunders Subaru sales manager Edie Foster. "Most of those people are going down for really exotic or expensive vehicles."
Industry Canada estimates that Canadians purchased more than 112,000 cars from the U.S. in 2006.
The story seems fine. This woman legitimately went south of the border and apparently saved a substantial amount of money on a used car purchase. Sure, it's only one case study. The story would have more credibility if it had two or three more cases, or could show a trend. But the reporter went and uncovered the fact that Canadians purchased 112,000 cars from the U.S. in 2006, and even spoke with car dealerships for reaction. He had most of his bases covered.
Now the kicker: the reporter, Brennan Clarke, has resigned. His editor, Keith Norbury, has been fired. This, thanks to advertiser complaints.
It's been rumored for years (decades, perhaps) that western media is controlled not by the government, but by advertisers. When I was in local radio, many years ago (well, couldn't be that long ago, I'm only 28!), I remember my first news boss, Frank Stanford, telling me that when a story shed negative light on an advertiser, we should drop the advertiser during the period the story was running. Priority was always given to the story, not the advertiser. But the advertiser was given the respect of being notified of the story, and having the option to pull advertising temporarily (or permanently).
Contrary to what many people think, journalists are inundated with ethics teaching during journalism school. We are warned not to misquote, or make judgments. I still remember a writing test when I said a politician "waffled" when asked a question. "That's wrong, Cam," my instructor intoned. "That's just your opinion. Others might not think she waffled."
But back to the point... what happens between learning ethics in school, and what happened at the Victoria News? As I am no longer located in Victoria, I'm not hearing the word on the street. But if two staff members, including an editor, were fired (the reporter technically resigned, but I can only assume he was asked to do so), something about this smells funny. How much pressure did the advertisers put on this small paper, which probably relies substantially on advertising? And if so, where are the stories about this? And why didn't the publisher stand up for his staff? Or was something actually wrong with the story?
Perhaps the answers will come out in the coming days. Sadly, though, I've lost a bit of credibility with the critics of western media. Newspapers buckling to special interests is not a whole lot different than Chinese media buckling to the government. If it turns out the Victoria News fired two people because of advertising pressure on a legitimate story, it's a sad day for Canadian journalism.
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I have been following the Victoria News story quite closely, and figured, since I've written extensively about it already, I may as well bring readers up to date. First, and thankfully, the media in Victoria and British Columbia have begun... Read More
Good post, Cam.
You'd have to be tripping to believe either that Western media is beyond reproach or that Chinese media is beyond salvation. Thinking back, plenty of cases of American media scandal come to mind (I know you're Canadian, but stick with me), from Dateline NBC's Hollywood-assisted exploding trucks to Stephen Glass and Jayson Blair to the trading of access in Washington. And so on. At the same time, there are Chinese newspapers and magazines that, even within GAPP's obnoxious system, produce good, credible journalism.
Advertising is partially a deal with the devil. On one hand, there will always be pressure to keep advertisers sweet. On the other, the revenue from advertising supports big newsrooms, international bureaus, long-term investigative reporting and the other expensive things that can enable a global news operation to function. Not every nation will fund a government-chartered news organization without explicit political interference, a la the BBC. And even if every government did, diversity matters. So this is the deal we make for big newspapers and networks.
There is an interesting transition underway in newspapers with regard to this issue. Historically newspapers derived much of their revenue from classified ads, which were less vulnerable to conflict of interest situations. Now that the Internet has destroyed that business, brand advertising should account for a larger share of newspaper revenue. I wonder how this will shape the pressures on newspapers in coming years.
But in despite all of this I think western commercial media has done well on the whole for a couple of reasons. Plurality is a big one. As long as there are multiple voices competing, and your scandal is my news, then the media will be subject to a degree of self correction. Advertising may influence media, but there are a lot more advertisers than there are governments. If General Motors kills a story, Ford may try to make sure it gets out (trust the PR man on this). A plural, commercial media environment provides more opportunities for a story to find its way through the cracks.
Also, advertising drives revenue, but so do audiences and --for a news organization-- credibility. That provides incentives that can counter the influence of advertising, if not always successfully.
But of course none of this is guaranteed. The commercial forces that empower a lot of western media can also threaten it. Government managed media will give the audience what the government thinks it needs. Commercial media will give the audience what it wants. If we want shallow idiocy, raving partisanship (in either direction), nonstop celebrity panty shots, and short-attention-span digestibility then that is what we will get.
Government won't have to censor our media. We'll do it ourselves.
Great post, I think the thing people forget is that Western media is generally defined by the tension between corporate interests and journalist ethics.
In the editorial rooms all around the country, there are less and less people making decisions and more and more editors who basically are the lapdogs of their sponsors.
Am I scared of the Chinese government? Yeah, there's good reason to be.
Am I scared of corporate interests? Yeah, I think there's plenty of evidence that big business wants to limit and control news about corporate scandals, exploitation and government collusion.
That's why investigative journalism in the West, post 9-11 is basically a joke, and why, right now, corporate interests are reigning while western journalists take a vacation from their ethics.
Hi Kimura,
Thanks for your post. I often hear people saying investigative journalism in the west is a joke, but I'm not sure where that feeling comes from. Scooter Libby was outed, Karl Rove was investigated (and has since resigned), reporters have been all over Dick Cheney, and countless investigations/specials have been held about why America got tricked into going to war. Your point may be valid, I'm just wondering what kinds of issues American journalists are not investigating fully.
Cam.
@Kimura: Big business definitely wants to control and limit news about corporate scandals. That's what keeps people like me (PR pros) in our jobs. But most of what we do, while possibly annoying, is pretty un-sinister.
I rather think there is a lot of good investigative journalism in the US these days (most PR people appreciate good journalism, perhaps somewhat ironically). It doesn't always move on the schedules we would like or appear in the places where we expect, but it is there.
I don't think it will be the explicit control of advertisers or corporate interests that eats into big-time investigative journalism so much as the general erosion in diversity and resources for big news organizations, and the decline in competition as consolidation continues. If you're the only show in town and you don't need to kick the ass of your crosstown rivals with a major scoop, why invest?
I do think you're right about the tension between journalistic ethics and corporate interest. That has always been there. When that tension isn't there is when it will be time to worry.
Good post and a good point. I must say though, that my experience as a sometime copy polisher in the newsrooms of a couple of major Chinese papers is that you get the worst of both worlds here now.
Chomsky made a good observation a long time ago about product and consumer in commercial media. It seems obvious that the product is the paper/magazine/program and the the customer is the reader/viewer/listener. In fact, this is all the wrong way round. The product is actually the reader/viewer/listener and the customer is the advertiser. Newspapers "sell" their readers to the real customer (who is always right) - the advertisers.
For this to work, you have to have readers or viewers in the first place. If a paper or program is as boring as watching paint dry, no one will read it or watch it if they have a choice. With no readers or viewers, there is no product to sell to the advertisers. So that means you have to at least make an effort to be interesting. But interesting is not necessarily the same thing as being useful or true. In the worst of China's state media this doesn't really apply, since the only consumers that matter are the leaders. In that case, truth and interest are both fairly irrelevant.
Is investigative journalism dead in countries like the US? No. But there's not enough of it. Earlier this year, Bill Moyers looked at pre-Iraq war reporting and found that Knight Ritter was practically the only news agency that did what journalists are supposed to do. Their reports existed - I read them at the time and was always impressed. But they were smothered by the overwhelming mass of government initiated propaganda. We have to ask why we allow this kind of thing to happen when our media are not physically controlled by the government.