The media is often accused, en bloc, of following a particular narrative. What that narrative might be, and who writes it, varies depending on who you ask.
On both sides of the political aisle – if you’ll excuse my resorting to a simplistic left-right analysis – commentators accuse the media of following a particular narrative.
On the right, people decry the “liberal media narrative” (misusing “liberal” in the American sense to refer to the political left). On the left, they’re “fighting the right’s narrative dominance”.
On the right, people complain about the supposed influence of George Soros and Klaus Schwab. On the left, they’re worried about the influence of the Koch brothers and Rupert Murdoch.
And whenever journalists express an opinion that is controversial with either side of the political spectrum, they are likely to face accusations that they’re following a “narrative”, as instructed by the global powers that be.
A comment on a recent article of mine suggested that economists are not held accountable for their predictions because “that would be inconvenient for the narrative based ‘journalism’ model followed by legacy media”.
If you ask for evidence of their claim, they’ll cite elaborate links involving media funding by philanthropic organisations, or simply the coincidence of having expressed similar viewpoints as their political opponents.
Conspiracy
The belief that the world is being pulled astray by a vast global conspiracy, and that public figures including journalists are somehow agents of that conspiracy, is popular on the fringes of the left and the right alike. It is psychologically appealing, even to intelligent people.
It softens the distress caused by the realisation that you either have no idea what’s going on, or if you do, you have no control over it. Everyone likes to nod sagely around the braai, saying, “I knew it! It’s obvious when you think about it! Just follow the money!”
Don’t get defensive. The world is an infinitely complex place. I also often have no idea what’s going on. Who does, with all the unprincipled clowns and unpredictable madmen strutting about the world stage, ignorant of basic economics and focused more on retaining power than doing what is right?
And while I hope my writing carries at least some influence, in some circles, I don’t delude myself into believing I control world affairs, or even national opinion.
That feeling of being a very insignificant cog in a massive, out-of-control machine, makes the notion that everything one opposes fits neatly into a grand conspiracy woven by shadowy puppet-masters very attractive. But it would be wrong.
Example
For example, let’s take Daily Maverick. (I cite this example only because I know it well.)
It is often accused of following a “globalist narrative”, on the orders of Klaus Schwab’s World Economic Forum, or George Soros’s Open Society Foundation.
And it is certainly true that in its opinion writing, it has come to lean fairly precipitously to the left.
Moreover, it openly admits to having been funded by the Open Society Foundation. So is that a gotcha?
Not quite. It also says that no philanthropic funder has contributed more than 5% of its total income. Believing that a small minority funder “controls” the editorial “narrative” is a stretch.
I worked for the Daily Maverick for over a decade, and worked for its founder, publisher and editor-in-chief, Branko Brkic, for almost a decade before that at other publications. I was never specifically made aware of who funds the publication, who advertises in it, or what “narrative” I was supposed to follow. I worked in editorial. It wasn’t my business to know.
I sat in many diary meetings. Not once to my recollection did the discussion turn to editorial favours for advertisers or sponsors unless it was to reject a request from an uppity advertising salesperson.
I’ve always known Brkic to be a dogged defender of editorial independence, and of publishing a diversity of opinion. I’ve also written hard-hitting stuff that cost his publications large advertising contracts, and Brkic always had my back. All he’d want to know was, “Are you sure you’re right?”
Exception
There was one exception. I was once told, “We need to talk about climate change.”
I said, “No we don’t,” and that was the end of the conversation. I left Daily Maverick not long after.
I have grave reservations about a publication’s membership of organisations such as Covering Climate Now, which claims to “support reporters and news outlets around the world to help them do more and better coverage of the defining story of our time,” and boasts over 500 partner organisations.
It counts the South African publications Daily Maverick, the Mail & Guardian, allAfrica, Politically Aweh, and Oxpeckers Investigative Environmental Journalism among its South African “partners”.
That is a degree of global narrative coordination I’m certainly not comfortable with. Still, I’d write this off as the exception that proves the rule.
Doggedly independent
The vast majority of the journalists I know are doggedly independent. They look down their noses at public relations people and fight hard to keep advertising salespeople out of editorial offices. The notion of writing what pleases advertisers or funders would abhor them.
The fact that many journalists tend to lean to the left of centre actually makes them even less likely to be influenced by corporate or institutional funding. If you’re instinctively anti-capitalist, you’re hardly going to dance to the tune of the money men.
Daily Maverick’s opinion pages became more left-wing as it grew and hired more left-leaning journalists. That’s an unfortunate dynamic, perhaps, but it isn’t evidence of the coordinated imposition of a narrative from the top down.
And while the opinion pages turned to the left, and a bespoke climate alarmism section was added, it is important to distinguish between news reporting and opinion. The publication’s news reporting, investigative journalism and business coverage remained of a very high standard.
Monolithic media
The media is not monolithic. There is no single “legacy media” or “mainstream media” or “left-wing media” or “conservative media”.
Most journalists I know are hard-pressed to even meet their deadlines. They’re not organised enough to march in step with some global drum.
They’re also professionally competitive and have professional pride. They will openly denounce any journalist who fails to abide by good journalism practices and brings the craft into disrepute.
There’s a reason a certain media house in South Africa catches a lot of flak over missing decuplets and other journalistic crimes: most journalists are jealous about their integrity and want to be seen to distance themselves from rivals who are incompetent, dishonest, or compromised.
There’s a commercial motive for publications to police each other’s reporting, too. If one publication gets it wrong, others will pounce to diminish their rival’s credibility. Different media houses are certainly not all on the same side. They’re all in it for themselves and are generally quite careful not to give their competitors an excuse to poke holes in their work.
That’s how markets work. Just like there is no monolithic “market”, but instead thousands of rival companies, there is no monolithic media, but dozens of competing publications.
Narratives and bias
That’s not to say that journalists never follow narratives. Narrative is an important part of communication, and of understanding.
Those narratives are not imposed from the top down, however, but created from the bottom up, by journalists themselves. And when new facts are discovered that contradict an established narrative, the narrative can change.
It is also clear that many publications have a political leaning. Some are more conservative, and some are more socialist.
More than that, however, they have different levels of reliability. I would think twice before relying on a publication where I know the owner interferes with editorial decisions, where editors routinely write hagiographic paeans to that owner, and where their idea of groundbreaking news involves untraceable decuplets.
By contrast, other publications, despite the political bias of individual reporters or editors in their newsrooms, run a fairly tight reporting ship.
Research
There’s actually some solid research on the topic, which finds that although a majority of journalists (in the US, at least) do tend to lean to the left, their individual ideological leanings do not produce a measurable bias in what news they choose to cover.
On aggregate, then, there is no bias against either the right or the left; or more accurately, there is equal bias in both directions, depending on the media you consume.
In the US, there are third-party ratings of media bias and accuracy. Two examples of such ratings are the media bias chart by AllSides and the interactive media bias and accuracy chart by Ad Fontes Media.
They’re shortcuts, and lack nuance, but they certainly help to identify and avoid political echo chambers. It would be nice if such ratings existed for local publications, but in South Africa, readers are largely left to their own devices.
Media choice
Internationally, I’d put a fair amount of trust in the factual accuracy of publications like the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, CNN, the BBC, the Associated Press, Reuters, the Washington Post, Reason magazine, and Business Insider, even if some of them (though not all) lean somewhat to the left.
I know they employ professionals, and I know their reputations rely on getting things right. If I read all of them, I’m likely to have a fairly good idea what’s going on – and who’s getting it wrong – outside of specialist beats like diplomacy, science, economics, technology and defence.
By contrast, I wouldn’t trust publications on either side of the political spectrum that routinely play fast and loose with the truth for the sake of sensationalism, like the Daily Mail, Breitbart, Jacobin, Daily Beast, the New York Post, or Fox News. Not without getting second and third opinions, at least.
I largely ignore political podcasters, and avoid obvious conspiracy, quackery or culture war sites like Natural News, Common Dreams, Media Matters, OAN, InfoWars, Counterpunch, and NewsMax.
And if that list tells you anything, it is that misinformation, disinformation, and fake news are problematic across the political spectrum.
Fake news
Speaking of fake news, one should never take a politician’s word (or a corporate executive’s word, for that matter) for what constitutes “fake news”.
It is a classic tactic of both slippery crooks and would-be authoritarians to denounce journalists as pursuing some sort of vendetta against them or pushing the “narrative” of political opponents.
That’s why you’ll hear that the Koch brothers sponsor racism, xenophobia, white nationalism and Christo-fascism in the media, while George Soros allegedly pushes abortion, illegal immigration, Marxism, and transgender grooming in media that his foundation supports.
Each is charged with extreme positions that they do not actually hold. However, by associating them with manifest evils, even if the links are vague and unsupported, it becomes easier to dismiss truth as “fake news” and declare propaganda to be “truth”.
Reality, then, becomes not what is, but what politicians tell you it is, and you’re expected to believe that any news that contradicts them is orchestrated by shadowy puppeteers with an evil agenda.
The journalists that I know do not take orders from global power mongers, resist manipulation, question conventional wisdom, and verify unsupported claims, in most circumstances. Most are dedicated to establishing and publishing the facts, as best as they can determine them. There are exceptions, but they are few and far between.
Declared biases
Bias is not inherently a bad thing. In fact, bias is largely unavoidable. We all have biases, based on our upbringing, beliefs, cultural context, worldview, and ideological principles.
Once you know the bias of a particular writer or publication, it is easy to assess their work and place it in a broader context.
With opinion writers, your mileage may vary.
I’m one of them. I declare my biases up front. My bio on social media and all my articles says I address topics from the perspective of individual liberty and free markets. I advocate an ideological position, and openly say so.
Most news reporters, on the other hand, attempt to keep their biases out of the news. They don’t always succeed. Some even argue that journalism ought to be activist. Once you know that, you can judge their work in the context of their known biases.
Media literacy
Rejecting entire bodies of work or entire publications as “fake news”, driven by a global “narrative”, is not media literacy. Blanket mistrust of “legacy media” or “mainstream media” or “left-wing media” or “conservative media” is not critical thinking.
Media literacy depends on many factors and requires an appreciation of nuance and complexity. There are online resources that can help.
Among the most important rules, however, are Occam’s Razor, which cautions against believing that thousands of professionals are all complicit in a finely orchestrated global conspiracy, and Hanlon’s Razor, which says never to attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
Journalists might succumb to personal biases. They might succumb to group-think in their own newsrooms. Sometimes, they’re just plain wrong. They don’t, as a rule, march to the tune of financiers or evil powermongers, however.
The vast majority are too independent minded to follow a “narrative”, and frankly, too busy to be part of a global conspiracy.
[Image: People photographing people. Modified from original photograph by See-ming Lee. Used under CC BY-SA 2.0 licence]
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR.
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