Stumbling and Mumbling: Why oh why don't we have a better press corps?

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September 06, 2006

Why oh why don't we have a better press corps?

Why is the MSM so obsessed with trivial speculation about Blair's depature, whilst being apparently uninterested in his thinking about serious policy? Tom, Andrew, Paulie and Antonia all rightly decry this bias, whilst Chris defends it. But no-one asks: why does it exist?
it could be, of course, that this is what their readers want. Maybe a dead tree sees its circulation rise when it leads on tittle-tattle, and fall when it leads upon serious policy analysis.
I'm sceptical. For one thing, this shouldn't explain the BBC's behaviour; we pay our licence fee for it to be independent of market forces, don't we? And for another, there are few controlled experiments here, to see whether there really is more demand for trivia than serious writing. And for yet another, we mustn't confuse a low short-run response for a low long-run one; maybe a dead tree wouldn't attract more readers if it led with one serious story, but perhaps a reputation for seriousness might gain readers over the long-run.
Here, then, are some other reasons for the MSM's bias to tittle-tattle.
1. Comparative advantage. One thing the MSM has that we don't is easy access to MPs. Its edge in analyzing serious issues is much smaller, or maybe zero. It therefore has a comparative advantage in relaying gossip from MPs.
2. Cost-cutting. It's expensive to hire serious writers, as these could earn a living elsewhere. But wannabee journos are ten-bob a dozen, and any of these can gather and rehash gossip, or just make it up.
3. Habit. The MSM reports Westminster trivia because this is what its been doing for years. Most of us do what we've always done, until we get a powerful reason to change. So far, gradually declining sales and profitability - which are due to several reasons - are not sufficiently powerful reason to change.
Readers too are creatures of habit; we buy dead trees first thing in the morning, when we're half-asleep. For this reason, it's hard for new entrants to break into the dead tree industry.
4. Risk-aversion. Management-heavy businesses - especially when they are in aggregate decline - are frightened of change, for fear of losing even more readers.
5. Self-referentialism. Journos judge themselves by journo standards. And to a journo, a good journo is one who gets exclusive stories from informed sources - flower show journalism. It's not someone who analyzes issues well - and it's certainly not someone who has any grasp of statstical inference.

September 06, 2006 in Dead trees | Permalink

Comments

Am I misreading you? "it could be, of course, that this is what their readers want. [of the dead tree press]" "we pay our licence fee for it to be independent of market forces, don't we?" Well, we do, but we also pay it to deliver what viewers want: hence Chris Moyles, EastEnders, etc. Are market forces the only way to deliver what the audience want?

I also disagree with point 1. If you have an edge in fact-gathering, you're a long way ahead in analysis, IMO.

But I'm fully behind you on 2. If I have anything against the MSM, cost-cutting is the root of my animus. Much less research; much more blather.

You're dear wrong (IMO) on point 5: there aren't enough scoops, and there is too much analysis. A good journo now is a commentator, not someone who breaks good stories.

I'd still like to see you in daily paper, mind.

Posted by: Backword Dave | September 06, 2006 at 01:43 PM

I also disagree with point 1. If you have an edge in fact-gathering, you're a long way ahead in analysis, IMO.

This is true. But also true are Chris' points 3 and 5. Wht is 1] fact finding anyway and 2] what is serious analysis?

To me, 1] is debatable as almost everything is derivative in journalism. Al Jazeera gets it from AP, who syndicated it from Reuters, who had an arrangement with the local press.

And is a scoop the only important thing? People bend facts to achieve that. How about interesting topics written with authority?

Posted by: james higham | September 06, 2006 at 04:46 PM

Congratulations on writing a sentence including "Blair", "thinking" and "serious policy". Very satirical.

Posted by: dearieme | September 06, 2006 at 05:48 PM

Dave, James - I agree that fact gathering puts you at a big advantage in analysis. But the MSM's fact-gathering expertise is limited. It's good at gathering anecdotes and (sometimes) talking to experts. But many journos' ability to gather hard statistics and interpret them is very limited.
How many of them, for example, are comfortable going through the US flow of funds data, or national accounts, or academic papers?

Posted by: chris | September 07, 2006 at 09:35 AM

I don't agree with your statement that 'no-one asks' why there isn't much respectable journalism out there. Pierre Bourdieu's book on TV and journalism asked - and made a fair fist at answering - exactly this question. I blogged it here if you'll excuse the self-linking - http://nevertrustahippy.blogspot.com/2006/08/moredieu.html

That said, if you haven't actually read it, you seem to reach similar conclusions to him in some ways.

One issue that Bourdieu comments on is interesting in itself though - you bring it up eliptically. He comments on the absurd nature of 'competition' between journalists.

The competition to get a story first (when all of your competitors can have it by the second edition) and the way that - in attempting to differentiate themselves from their rivals, newspaper editors strive to print almost entirely the same stories as their rivals - usually in a very similar way to their rivals.

Posted by: Paulie | September 07, 2006 at 04:08 PM

I've said it before - journalists are lazy. They are after headlines, and generate stories daily. Its far easier to write some piece of speculation than to write a decent analysis of a situation. And with the fast rate of depreciation in the stock of stories, its easy to forget mediocre stories or stories that weren't very accurate - as you can generate a fresh story the next day.

Some journos do good jobs, particularly those who have enough time in a specialism to know it well. This especially applies to things like political analysis. But as for things like science and economics, they are usually lacking.

Sometimes there's patches of good analysis and good honest journalism and dogged search for truths.

However - blogging seems little different to the mainstream press to me a lot of the time. Chris - your blog is rare in that it uses a lot of analysis and makes it into decent bite sized and digestable feature stories. Whereas many blogs are akin to commentaries in the dead trees in my view. Something which I wouldn't choose to do myself if I had time to write a proper blog.

Posted by: angry_economist | September 07, 2006 at 09:19 PM

Posted by: yuntrip | September 18, 2006 at 04:34 AM

Posted by: yuntrip | September 26, 2006 at 04:33 AM

thank you i like it

Posted by: 云南旅游 | January 17, 2009 at 05:51 AM

there are so much political interests in that kind of things so it is obvious that they have to give the point of view that it helps those that they want.

Stumbling and Mumbling

An extremist, not a fanatic

September 06, 2006

Why oh why don't we have a better press corps?

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