News in the Anthropocene Age
Like so much else, quality journalism may be on the verge of extinction
In a complex world, information is indispensable. “The way we see the world and act on it depends on the information we have,” explains the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). “This is why freedom of expression and freedom of the press are fundamental rights, and the free flow of ideas is a key driver of vibrant societies and human progress.” Yet even as life grows more complicated, consequential information gets harder to come by. Though people are fed vast amounts of content every day, much of it is the equivalent of fast food — empty calories of minutia and misinformation. Thus, they are starved for real news. But getting such nourishment is becoming onerous. The reasons are many, but the upshot is often the same — meaningful information is deteriorating or being denied.
So far in this century, censorship is thriving. During the past five years 85% of the world’s population have lived in places where open access to information has declined, as reported by the United Nations. These include not only those in poor and developing countries, but also in advanced economies like the United States, Great Britain, and Germany. Of the 180 countries and territories tracked by the World Press Freedom Index, more than half have lost ground in terms of press freedom.
Among the biggest losers is Israel, which has fallen to the 97th position. Once free and vigorous, its media sector has been severely constrained under the government of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. Himself a former communications minister, Netanyahu has overseen policies that limit free speech, especially after the October 7 Hamas-led attack.
Since then, more than 6,500 news items have either been partially or completely censored under the government’s “Swords of Iron” Israeli Chief Censor Directive to the Media. That is about four times more than before the war. Israel’s current communications minister Shlomo Karhl has also reportedly proposed legislation that would allow him to direct police to arrest and seize the property of anyone he believes has circulated “enemy propaganda” that would endanger national security and/or public order.
Not surprisingly, the Internet has been a favorite target of censors. To date, more than five million people in 77 countries have been denied online access, according to the Internet Shutdown Tracker operated by cybersecurity firm Surfshark. In China and Iran, for example, citizens have been unable to reach Facebook, YouTube or X (formerly Twitter) for more than a decade. Lawmakers in the U.S., Canada, and Europe are trying to restrict access to Chinese-owned TikTok, citing security threats. Governments around the world also regularly petition websites to remove their content. Since 2011, Google has fielded over 400,000 such appeals, with more than 60,000 in 2023 alone. X has also received scores of content removal requests. Yet despite declaring himself a champion of free speech, Elon Musk has complied with every one.
What the Market Will Bear
While politics has clearly been at the heart of a lot of this suppression, market forces bear much of the responsibility as well. Last year was the worst for the news business since the start of the pandemic. Over 130 local newspapers closed shop in 2023, the equivalent of more than two per week, based on a report by Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. And that may just be the tip of the iceberg. Researchers found 36 markets populated by “ghost newspapers”: publications with few if any staff and little or no original local reporting.
Scores of local newspapers, TV and radio stations have been snaffled up by conglomerates, hedge funds, and private equity firms that have hollowed them out for cash. Others relied heavily on Facebook and Google to stream millions of consumers their way without sharing in the billions of dollars of revenue procured; only to lose those same audiences when the online giants turned off the spigot. A survey of nearly 2,000 news and media websites by analytics firm Chartbeat found that overall social traffic from Facebook dropped 17% from a year earlier.
Consequently, fewer than half of U.S. counties have access to local news and information; many with large Black, Hispanic, and Native American populations. Citizens in these communities are less politically informed and less likely to vote, allowing governments and businesses to “conduct themselves with less integrity, efficiency, and effectiveness,” notes a study by Pen America.
Endangered Species
In this environment journalists are becoming an endangered species. Employment agency Challenger, Gray and Christmas calculates that the news industry lost an estimated 2,681 jobs in 2023. And the carnage has continued into the new year with at least 550 more professionals getting sacked in barely the first two months. “None of these journalists are losing their jobs because they were bad at being journalists,” says Casey Newton, founder and editor of the technology newsletter Platformer. “They’re all great at being journalists. It was just their boss woke up one day and said, ‘I don’t want to pay you anymore.’” Many journalists, however, aren’t waiting for the axe to fall. Research out of the University of North Carolina reveals that 70% of working journalists are burned out from increasing workloads and stagnating wages; and 80% of those have considered leaving their positions.
But though losing a job certainly hurts, it is still far less painful than the alternatives. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), some 367 newspeople were imprisoned in 2023. The highest number since CPJ started counting in 1992. China is the world’s worst jailer, followed by Myanmar, Belarus, Russia and Vietnam. Arrests by the Israeli government have spiked since October 7, putting it in sixth place with Iran.
The nation also stands out in another category. Of the 126 news media workers reported killed in 2023, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) reckons 72% died covering the war in Gaza, making it “more deadly for journalists than any single conflict since the IFJ began recording journalists killed in the line of duty in 1990.” Moreover, it comes at “a scale and pace of loss of media professionals’ lives without precedent.”
Sadly, attacks on journalist are not uncommon, especially if they are women. A 2022 survey of 714 female journalists in 215 countries by UNESCO and the Washington-based International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) found that nearly three out of four reported having suffered online abuse in their work. Seventy-three percent of participants said this included threat of physical and sexual violence; and 13% described such harassment against their children.
Just as regrettably, the survey revealed that some news organizations have punished women journalists who acted to protect themselves and their families. Seeing it as a public relations problem, companies’ reactions have ranged from discouraging employees from speaking out about their experiences to suspending or even firing them if they did so.
משוא פנים
To be sure, the news media also play a role in diminishing both the availability and quality of their product. A Pew Research study determined that fewer than half of adults in the U.S. believe news organizations cover issues critical to them. Just four-in-ten Black Americans see stories that are relevant to their lives, while Asians (38%) and Hispanics (37%) say the same. Only a slim majority (54%) of White Americans attest they generally encounter topics of importance.
Even when substantial amounts of information are provided, there are serious questions about objectivity. For a medium that has often been slammed for “bothsideism” (by this writer included), some reporting has been particularly skewed of late. Recently, staffers at CNN charged that the network’s coverage of the Israeli-Hamas conflict “amounts to journalistic malpractice,” asserting it is merely parroting whatever details the Israeli government provides while quashing Palestinian accounts. And they are hardly the only critics. Earlier, nearly 1500 journalists worldwide signed an open letter condemning Western newsrooms for having “undermined Palestinian, Arab and Muslim perspectives, dismissing them as unreliable and have invoked inflammatory language that reinforces Islamophobic and racist tropes.”
The dispute is much the same on social media where Human Rights Watch has accused Meta’s (formerly Facebook) moderation practices of silencing pro-Palestinian voices on Facebook and Instagram. On the flip side, Elon Musk has been lambasted for supporting an antisemitic tweet on his site that regularly hosts bigoted content, despite his claim he is “aspirationally Jewish,” with “twice as many Jewish friends as non-Jewish friends.”
Data also underscore more subtle evidence of journalistic bias, intentional or not. Quantitative analysis of over 1,000 articles published last year in the New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times, by the online news organization The Intercept, revealed considerable imbalance in how Israelis and Palestinians were covered. Though the number of Palestinians killed vastly outpaced those of Israelis, for every two Palestinian deaths, Palestinians were mentioned just once, while for every Israeli death, Israelis were mentioned eight times — a rate of 16 to one. Moreover, as the killings of Palestinian increased, reports of their deaths all but disappeared. And the New York Times and Wall Street Journal have come under fierce criticism after columnist Thomas Friedman compared Arabs and Muslims to insects and spiders, and a Journal opinion piece labeled Dearborn Michigan “America’s Jihad Capitol.”
Losing Faith
Circumstances like these mar journalism’s already damaged reputation. Over the past several years, surveys have consistently shown that the public has largely lost confidence in the news media. When asked by Gallup, in October of 2023, if they trusted journalists to report news “fully, accurately and fairly,” only 34% of respondents answered yes, as against 38% who said no; the first time ever that more people discredited the news than accepted it. Although, as a group, Republicans have consistently been most distrustful, Democrats are closing the gap. Democrats’ overall faith in the media fell 12 points to 58%, with only 34% viewing newspeople as having “high” or “very high” honesty and ethical standards.
But it is not just trust the media is losing. Research by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism found that fewer Americans are following the news. Less than half (49%) of respondents say they are very or extremely interested in what is being reported, the first time in the survey’s history. What is more, 38% admit they sometimes or often avoid the news. The impact of which is becoming apparent. While their ratings typically rise during presidential campaigns, Fox, MSNBC, and CNN have lost an aggregate seven rating points so far this year. Traffic to websites has been trending down too since peaking during the 2020 election and the subsequent Capitol insurrection.
Among the reason for such disengagement are the media’s focus on conflict and its tendency to engender negativity and fear; what have become staples of reporting. Accordingly, journalism finds itself in a vicious cycle: news like this turns off audiences who, in turn, turn off the media, which then lay off journalists, resulting in the quality of news getting worse.
These are just some of the challenges confronting people in an ever more complex world. But whether vital information is denied, depreciated, distorted, or declined, it all begs the question: if news is reported and no one consumes it, is it really news?
