Face it, the News Sucks. Why it is that Way, and How to Overcome it
A reaction to, "I'm a Journalist Who Hates The News," and how it relates to Chomsky, Debord, Postman, and our lives as news consumers.
Journalist and YouTube producer, Johnny Harris, recently denounced news media in a video entitled, “I’m a Journalist Who Hates the News".” Harris, who has worked at Vox and for The New York Times, says of news, “... it is meant to keep the public aware of what is important in the world. But as a news consumer myself and as someone who wants to be informed and understand how the world works, I find the news less and less and less helps me do that.” Harris gives a wonderful insider perspective, and for those familiar with media studies, touches on many themes that appear throughout the field. This conversation is well worth continuing, and this piece is intended to do just that. Expanding on Harris’ objections, I hope to connect to similar ideas presented by other authors; introducing their work as a steppingstone for those interested in the subject.
The news tells you what isn’t actually happening.
What He Says: Harris finds that newsworthy stories are, more often than not, exceptional rather than commonplace. As he puts it, “Often, we look at the news and see crazy things...They don’t teach us about how the world actually works.” Headlines centric news often show things breaking down rather than inform how they work and when they work. The focus on headlines poorly details the underlying conditions and systems that produce them. The problem as Harris states, “...someone who reads the news everyday as their gateway into the world will often walk away with a completely delusional version of how the world works.”
What They Say: Noam Chomsky develops a similar account in his short book, “Media Control” ( A short follow-up to the more famous, “Manufacturing Consent”) Chomsky describes the United States as a “Spectator Reality,” of which the public “...is to be ‘spectators’ not participants in action.” The passive consumption of today’s headlines leaves consumers with a wholly incomplete picture of the world, as well as their part in it. Chomsky, similar to Harris, says, “The picture of the world that’s presented to the public only has the remotest relation to reality.” If the primary function of the news media is to inform, it doesn’t. Chomsky goes a step further. To him a spectator reality leaves the public susceptible to propaganda. They are not simply ill informed, but barred from vital information. As he puts it, “The truth of the matter is buried under edifice after edifice of lie upon lies.” Media that fails its primary duty is destructive to the public it is meant to serve.
The news is way too much fun
What He Says: News is a mix of bright graphics, click-bait headlines, raucous arguments, all over an alluring soundtrack; the results of which are produced by financial incentives to entertain. Harris, critical of those incentives, recognizes the impacts on the content itself. He says, “The economic incentive that is built into news makes it really difficult for news to honor that first incentive [To inform],” instead entertainment becomes the primary driver. When entertainment is the focus, information takes a distant second place to, “...false feelings of ‘this is important’ or ‘this is scary’.” It's the emotion and feelings that sells not the information. So long as the new producer can display that emotion the audience is hooked.
What They Say: In the groundbreaking book, “The Society of the Spectacle”(1967) French Philosopher Guy Debord details the growth of an image based economy in which visuals are the leading commodity. Preempting Harris, Debord saw commodified images behaving like prepackaged emotions for consumers. He refers to this economy as the spectacle. He writes, ‘... the spectacle is both the result and the project of the dominant mode of production... —news, propaganda, advertising, entertainment— the spectacle represents the dominant model of life.” Debord suggests that visual and emotional based commodities have replaced the purely useful. In the case of news media the useful, being information, has been replaced by pure entertainment. He goes on to write, ‘where the real world is replaced by a selection of images which are projected above it, yet which at the same time succeed in making themselves regarded as the epitome of reality.” The Spectacle looms over modern media today, and divorces the seen and displayed from the real and tangible. Under those conditions neither the producer or the consumer is incentivized to seek and produce information alone.
The news tricks you into thinking you're informed
What He Says: Harris’ third point develops directly from the second. He describes that today there is a “...glorification of the person who is really up to date on the daily news.” However, in actuality, he argues, “Because of the entertainment incentive, the news doesn't end up being super informative,” reduced instead to, “a giant gossip-fest.” News shows only superficially imitate political discourse, but underneath produces none of the challenging rigor needed to form well-thought out opinions. He goes on to say “...no evidence is being examined, scrutinized, or cross examined,” The consumer receives little substantive information, but all the self-flattering feelings as if they had.
What they said: Harris' argument at large may best align with author and Media Critic, Neil Postman, and his 1985 book, “Amusing Ourselves To Death,” This book delivers an account of the evolution of modern media, and the effect it has had on our consumption and digestion of information. The 5th chapter, “In the Age of Show Business,” Postman details a very similar analysis to Harris. He says of news,” No matter what is depicted or from what point of view, the overarching presumption is that is there for our amusement and pleasure.” Postman states, “A news show, to put it plainly, is a format for entertainment, not for education reflection or catharsis.” He goes on to detail the shows themselves, “...even when the discussion period began, there was no argument or counter arguments, no scrutiny of assumptions, no explanations, no elaborations, no definitions.” A description of televised news, 35 years later, that is spot on Harris’ own criticism.
So, the news sucks. What can we do about it.
The underlying forces that determine what news producers actually produce is stacked against those who hope to be informed about the world. Despite this, real journalism persists. In his words:
The incentives of this industry make it harder and harder for that journalism to happen. But the journalists who are out there collecting evidence, reporting on really difficult things, talking to lots of experts, trying to piece together all this information so that they can inform the public. Those are the people out there doing this work in spite of the 24 hour new cycle.
To his credit, Harris’ own work is a part of it. I would say, on top of this, understanding why media work is a crucial aspect as well. Chomsky, Debord and Postman are great starting points to do so. Great information may be few and far between, but for those inquisitive enough to search, it's worth finding.