In this week’s discussion of governance and regulation, one item which stuck out to me was the idea of regulation of media. In what forms is it acceptable or unacceptable? Regulation comes from industry and societal values, but there was one component of regulation which I felt could be analyzed a bit more: financial contributors to media agencies.
Media is majority profit-driven. The focus in the 24-hour news cycle is how to keep viewers and make money to keep a show going, thus the sensationalized news that dominates channels such as CNN, Fox, and most national nightly news programs. The emergence of entertainment media programs on television is another form of sensationalizing news
Diversity of information is necessary to hold governing bodies accountable. The credibility of information is equally important. In today’s society, the convoluted structure of news corporations, organized both vertically and horizontally, and across products
Disney owns ABC, Comcast is about to merge with NBC, News Corporation owns Fox News, and each of these owns levels of productions of goods and services, in addition to their media outlets. Finding out who owns who, what is reported by each news agency, what products are shown favorably or unfavorably and how that relates to who owns the news agency, can be a complicated process, one which is sometimes intentionally done.
Thus, financial disclosure is incredibly important in determining the credibility of news sources, and is an element of regulation which I feel is not emphasized enough. The same thing goes for political leaders, who argue and make decisions that often reflect the interests of their investors, or those who have donated money to their campaigns, more so than their constituents.
Comedian Robin Williams suggested a solution for this issue in politics which I think can be applied to the media industry. He said that politicians should be more like NASCAR. Instead of Hugo Boss, perhaps it would be a better idea for politicians to wear suits of the logos and names of their “sponsors,” or campaign contributors, much the same way a race car driver would. Although politicians are generally required to list their contributors online, this type of requirement has a certain immediacy that’s lost in searching the virtual realm. Since this visual aid would have an enormous effect, I believe the same concept could be applied to media corporations and news shows on television. Imagine that during Glenn Beck’s hourly show, he is required to have, let’s say, all of his advertisers, and the contributors to News Corp., listed in a running band along the bottom of the screen. Would this make you more or less likely to find him credible? What if the same policy was applied Chris Matthews’ show?
Regulating the disclosure of financial information would lend credibility to news sources. This type of regulation is not the same as regulation of content, although it would probably have an impact on the content that’s produced. Once people know that one of your sponsors is a major pharmaceutical company, or your parent company (such as GE, etc), then it’s easier to see why some advertisements or some stories run over others in programming. Though this may be a simplistic idea, it still deals with an issue which affects the general public, and it should be dealt with, one way or another.
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