Previously, I discussed the role the average consumer plays in the creation of bad news, stating that, basically, consumers vote with their feet and that their actions are the reason why interesting (but non-impacting) stories are popular.  Today, I will focus my attention to the other side of the coin and examine the role the media and the 24 hour news cycle has on the creation of poor media decisions.

First, though, we need to ask why we are targeting the media in the first place and what news really is. News of any sort is information meant for public consumption – be it fluff pieces, or hard hitting expose’s. Until very recently, news also came from specific sources that we like to classify as “traditional media” or media that comes from professional journalists. The key word here is professional – implying that someone is paid to collect raw information and put it into a narrative that can be consumed by the public.

Yes, this means that, at its heart, the news media (just like any other private company) is interested in profit, and unprofitable news organizations are soon out of business.  I will not put a value judgement on this, and I encourage the reader to do the same; but it is important to recognize this fact as we continue on.

Information is a powerful tool, it always has been and it always will be. Therefore the source of information can be powerful indeed. During the enlightenment, people came to realize that having only a few information sources (namely the state or the church) was a bad thing. Centralized information meant that it was easy to distort, lie about, or completely ignore events that were not favorable to the narrative the central source wanted to portray.  The democratization and decentralization of information was a great step forward in overall truth, and it is one of the principal reasons why the founders of this country wanted to ensure that media was free and open. Indeed, one of the staples of a modern democracy is a free press that can succeed or fail regardless of the state.

This brings us to the next fact about news – a well informed public is required for our government to work. Because of this fact, the media has often been called the fourth estate of government, providing a check and balance to the executive, legislative, and judicial branch. Because of this monicker, the media has a responsibility to report the events that are important, but not necessarily the most sexy.

Now, before I dive head first into what I am going to say next, I want to make it very clear that there are many good reporters out there who do work tirelessly to ensure that the public is informed of the world around them.  These reporters, I suspect, write for the same reasons most good amateur reporters (read bloggers) do – because they have a passion to inform, make people think, and provide people with the tools they need to navigate the world around them. Indeed, I respect many reporters both locally and nationally for not only the quality of their work, but the passion it takes to write it.

But the best reporters can still work for bad organizations, and these bad media companies are creating a serious problem when it comes to the creation of media that is worth consuming.

A bad editorial board will make good writers look bad because a bad editorial board will place a greater emphasis on placing sensational stories into the news that are high in entertainment value and low in societal value.Why? Because having the juicy details on a murder case or chasing after the next scandal sells.

But when does an editorial board go too far and degrade the system? As I said before, I don’t think it is a good or a bad thing that media is a profit seeking endeavor.  But I will now expand to say that a media outlet that is more focused on making a profit rather then truly informing is a bad thing. Companies should absolutely do what they can to stay in business and thrive – and that generally means that media outlets  need to have a sort of ratio between heartwarming and hard hitting stories.  I don’t have a scientific model, but I will say that we all know when that ratio has been exceeded.  At its most extreme you have the National Enquirer, but all papers fall on a continuum.  But, even if a news outlet is far from the extreme, many people can still tell when a paper is mostly junk designed more to sell adds than inform.

Think about it, we all have negative words associated with this type of media: Morning Zoo’s, Shock Jocks, Rags, Trash TV, and Junk Mail are all forms of media that are designed more for profit and less for information.  When this media model is used, bad things can happen.

This can be evidenced by the recent downfall of the News Of The World.  After a run of nearly 170 years the paper fell because reporters and editorial boards were so focused on selling papers and less on providing information that they tapped into the cell phone records of murder victims – not celebrities or politicians (though this is just as bad), but everyday people. The desire to make a profit was so extreme that an institution consumed itself. In short, there are many in the media who are more concerned about making money than they are about informing the public.

Lets talk more about the picking and choosing of stories. Certainly there is no way for any media outlet to report every single news story that exists in the world, or the nation, or the state, or even in a particular community. But we must focus back on the ratio I stated above and how the potential desire for greed can cause legitimate news to either be distorted, downplayed, or out and out ignored.

Because not every story can be reported on, it is natural to pick the stories you think your consumers would like and then report on them.  But the profit motive also means that, not only do you have a responsibility to the by way of the fourth estate, suddenly you have to worry about advertisers – indeed, the principal reason Glenn Beck is off the air is because his advertisers abandoned him, not because he was necessarily too radical for his audience. If we take it a few steps back, suddenly we see that advertising (and more specifically consumerism) means that there can be a conflict of interest between a media outlet and the companies they receive their funding from.  As the saying goes, you don’t bite the hand that feeds you.

The result of this hard fact is that some stories are purposefully not reported; serious events could be taking place, but because no one wants to be out of a job, it is quite easy to turn the other cheek.  On the flip side, the potential for disinformation is far larger when this model is used. As an example, look at companies that damage the environment but also have influence on the media – stories are downplayed as much as possible and clever wordsmithing is used to either divert attention away from the event.  With the BP oil spill we saw this very event, where reporters were not allowed to get up close and when the media was able to report, numbers were severely underestimated.

So we have editorial boards that place too great an emphasis on feel good stories because they, like every business, want to make a profit.  Because they want to make a profit they attempt to make their advertisers happy.  But out of this self interest, we point our eyes towards the third reason why the media has been created the poor media environment we see today: The 24 hour news cycle.

Now the reason the 24 hour news cycle has created the poor quality of our media is due to the fact that the 24 news cycle requires news to work.  But, because you need to attract and retain consumers, you also have to work with the market forces I have discussed above, meaning that you need to entertain as well as inform. Because of this, only a certain amount of information can be reported in any given day that consumers will enjoy – to much hard hitting news and viewers turn off. So we need to create programs that claim to report news but consistently deliver fluff. We all know them: Nancy Grace, Sean Hannity, Ed Schwartz, Rush Limbaugh, the list goes on and on. Yes, information may be conveyed, but the focus, when you get right down to it, is entertainment.

But, you can’t be all fluff and still call yourself a news outlet. The problem, however, is that on any average day, there simply is not 24 hours (or 12, or 6) worth of news that consumers will reasonably report on.  If there were, news programs would not repeat themselves over and over again during the course of the day and so called “infotainment” shows would take up only a small portion of the total broadcast. It would not be necessary to have breaking news every thirty minutes to capture your attention, rather the news would be worth your attention.

But we are not confined simply to television and radio, with the advent of online media, print media too has to have breaking sections in order to ensure that readers click to their website – sensational headlines rule in a world where substance lacks.

And this is the final reason why the media are to blame for the downfall of quality media.  Legitimate information has been cheapened because it has been buried under mounds of garbage. The unnecessarily fast pace of media has combined with the deafening  noise of irrelevance to create a cacophony of non-applicable information that is designed to elicit emotion rather than debate.  It is now more difficult than ever to discover what information is important because it is mixed in with so much chaff. Indeed, the news programs and papers many respect today are limited to an hour, perhaps two, in order to focus attention on what matters most – in print, the stories that grace the front page are ones of importance – and the reporters ensure that they do a quality job, without sensationalism.

So, the media are responsible for the degradation of our news because of greed. This greed also means that editorial boards fear reprisal from advertisers.  Finally, in search for more eyeballs, the media constantly broadcasts – numbing people to the news and making it more difficult to discern what is truly important from what seems important right now.

I am not going to pretend that the news was perfect up until now. The stories of corruption, manipulation, and fluff go back as far as journalism itself, but what is different is that, in today’s world, there are so many opportunities to report things of worth. Furthermore, our greatly connected society means that now, more than ever, it is important to hear the stories of value as events around the globe and in our own back yard truly do affect our lives.  Finally, we all need to recognize that information is truly a commodity, one that can empower us to do great things.

We need to demand more from our media providers, because we simply can not function without quality information.

Click Here to Read Part I: The Consumers

Up Next: The Fairness Doctrine with guest blogger Dylan McDonnell