Tuesday, March 1, 2011
The Media - Ethics or Business?
Last year, France tried to deal with the issue of media having to respond and act like a business and therefore having to be sensational all the times and not necessarily only objective, by limiting the privatization of the media and the advertisements in between programs. The goal, again, was to go back to a more ethical, more serious, maybe even more monotonous media that would just deliver news and nothing else. This has provoked a tremendous debate, because the heads of media companies argued that indeed media were a business before anything else and that it was unfair to hold them to different standards. Reading Lippman and Dewey, I simply wonder where the middle could be between media being a business or an institution of ethics, and if this middle exists at all....
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While the business model for media may not be ideal as it breeds sensational,less objective, soft-news, I also think that the deprivitazion of media holds perhaps even more potent dangers, ie: the government manipulating the media for its own purposes.
ReplyDeleteI think an ethical media is more ideal than a buiness media, but not necessarily something we can fairly say "should" be the case. I do think, hwoever, that the public has a certain amount of power to coerce the media into being an ethical business. If we demand a better product, the media might actually produce it.
Hello Mouchka my love,
ReplyDeleteOne side of the debate seems to be assuming that ethics is the same as objectivity. Yet one could easily disagree, arguing that perhaps it would be more "ethical" if the press took the side of human rights in every story, or something of the sort. I think the danger of equating the two is that it then attributes a value judgement to the argument- objective is ethical, therefore good and our normative aim, and news coming from a certain background is biased, therefore bad because it is shared to the public around a corporation's agenda. I think attributing a moral value to it is very superficial.
You think it is superficial because impossible or because pointless? Shouldn't we at least try to tend toward what we know is good but never completely reachable? (Ilana, you're so responsible for me talking idealistically right now)
ReplyDeleteI really don't believe there can be a middle ground nor do I believe it is fair to expect one. Editors, newscasters, and reporters alike must feed their families. The adage "it's a business" is quite true. In order to survive, in order to be productive, they must make money. I believe that news should be more than that because I would hope the people investing their time in this subject care to make in influence on this world. With that said, finances must come at the forefront. I completely understand that.
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