The complacency of the modern media to the power elite is and has become a truly disgusting and unnerving trend in our societal realm of discourse. We have watched as the watchdog of the powerful has become the guard dog of the privileged; as they walk right on in and strip all and every thing not nailed down. How and why has this occurred? This is an unpleasant truth to recognize, but one I think that all journalists are faced with in a real world scenario on a day to day basis.
Why do the journalists 'sell out' to the powerful? For power itself. Power comes in many forms, as we all know, it comes in the form of money, it comes in the form of access, friendships, higher levels of autonomy are granted the more complacent and less critical you become of the one you are watching; its easier to fuck someone when they don't think you're judging them constantly. As such we find that the media is under a certain level of pressure from the powerful, by the very offer of power itself, and can there by be corrupted by it. As we all know, their are two powers the media can possess, but they can only have one; not both. Either you will wield the power of the public, which oft comes with little but the warmth of self congratulation and the knowledge of doing one's own journalistic integrity; things which do not usually come with many friends in high places. Or the power of access and money, in societies where the government runs the media, flatter the government, in societies where capitalism and the profit motive reign, kowtow to the rich and the powerful for access and higher ratings. Each are corruptive influences that remove a certain level of objectivity.
As a journalist, the media in general, fear should be the thing the powerful should have in the back of their minds when you are around. They should be uncomfortable, if they have something to hide, and you should have the air about you of a bloodhound; searching for the truth, wherever it may lead. But under a system where money is the motivating factor of ones livelihood, it is the source of the money, in any system, that is most corruptive of all. Where are journalists getting the funds to pay their bills, Is it run for profit, is it run by the government? Thus, one can only surmise that all news, in the best case scenario, is and should be run as a non-profit enterprise. We cannot find ourselves dependent on persons whom are dependent on the same persons they are meant to be most critical of; not friendly.
In capitalist economies the profit motive has ruined objectivity and real investigative and in-depth journalism in favor of gossip and access to the powerful byway of softball questioning and flattering episodes of humanizing interviews with those with the most power over the weaker among us. This is both an offence and a disservice to the very concept of the media and the very profession of journalism. It has rendered both of these things into corporate propaganda machines tailor made to promote the irresponsible acts of journalistic negligence upon an unwitting public so as to prolong the redistribution of national wealth from the masses to the wealthy. As the process of journalistic watering down has continued the profession seems more and more to have the look and feel of reality television; with nothing but 'shock' and 'he said she said' types of gossip yellow journalism. This is how truth is reduced to disinformation and how peoples knowledge becomes confused by the perpetual white noise of incessant mediocrity and confusion. This byproduct of the profit motive upon the media, and thereby the masses, creates a grotesquely misshapen idea of what journalism even appears to be. In our profit motive news infrastructure have witnessed gross censorship of certain information. Opinions not conducive to the wealthy or the powerful, things that, if aired, would threaten access or money influx, are either briefly mentioned with a passing comment, or are not even acknowledged as having even occurred at all. This type of control over information brings society into a dangerously close proximity to a type of lifestyle that we have often seen in the nightmares of human history.
The profit motive must be removed from journalism, it has created a mass disinformation network the likes of which we have only seen in totalitarian regimes. Both, total government control and profit motive are not trustworthy means to allow journalism to exist; as it fosters the issues of money, access, and censorship. Under either the press feels the pressure to 'make nice' with those whom hold the reigns of power and attempt to garner trust; thereby corrupting their objectivity and their critical faculties that would inform them to inform the masses of any wrongdoing. This is a very important part of the system of society, when the press is corrupt, when it is broken, we cannot reform, we cannot bring ourselves even begin to speak about justice when we do not even know that injustice has even occurred or that it was even unjust to begin with; as the inquiry and the judgment/framing of the offence is the duty of the media.
As such, the media is required, should it wish to be an arm of human decency, to be a member of broader society; not an arm of the powerful few. The media is, and should be, the people, it should reflect their hopes, dreams, struggles and nightmares. A non-profit media seems requisite; as a self-righteous for profit media with the wings of justice seems to me to be either a fantasy or a brief anomaly in the practice of for profit industry. We must understand that corruption of ideals and decency never occurs instantly, that people do not often even notice their own moral and ethical capture at the hands of the powerful and uncaring system that lords over the human peoples of the world. The media needs be immersed in humanity, drowning in the morass of the human experience; that experienced reflected in the very suffering that we as humans wish to soon forget and push aside as reflecting upon it causes great discomfort. The media must be courageous and forthright enough to venture into those places long ignored, those places off the path, those places where eyes dare not, or do not, travel. They must be a light who chooses to wander in the darkest patches of our world, with intent, seeking out the blight and the sorrow, the pain and the rot, those places we've forgot; for in this atmosphere of spectacle and short attention spans we forget both the immensity of the suffering and the power we have to alleviate it. The media, journalists, artists, and the dreamers of the human experience, both perceived and real, are to be here with us, with the people, the masses, reflecting both the beauty of fantasy, but also the horror of reality and its ever present effect upon us all. They must be willing to suffer with the miserable, must be willing to discomfort the well to do, they must wish the hatred upon themselves of those with the most power, influence, and access in order to understand that to be with the public is, more oft than not, to be against the powerful. The media, the greatest threat to those in power, should be neither government nor corporate, must be an independent body of humanity. This is the mandate of the media, the commandment of knowledge, that truth has no price too great to pay for it and no one can keep it from us.
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