The Sixth Estate Will Restore Hope To News Media

Dating back to the earliest concept of the United States of America, our founders designed a government that could mature through the friction of what they termed “checks and balances”.

These checks and balances aimed to hold all aspects of our government accountable. Although it’s proven difficult to create change from within our current system, the idea that accountability can encourage greater transparency and quality still holds true to this day.

Today, the Internet connects people all over the world to help hold government officials and corporate entities accountable for their actions. Websites like Rotten Tomatoes and Yelp allow the public to hold movies and businesses accountable, and online news is desperately in need of a comparable platform. An overwhelming majority of 18–49 year olds cite the internet as their main news source (71% of those 18–29 and 63% of those 30–49). This is astonishing considering the internet is now the Wild West of journalism. Online sources can range from individuals providing excellent investigative reporting to PR firms acting as the media arm of a company, making life difficult for anyone trying to inform themselves on the important issues of the day.

While gathering feedback prior to the launch of Credder, we noticed something troubling from the expressions of students, graduates, professors and journalists alike — a total sense of hopelessness. The same hopelessness many of us feel when deciding whether or not to exercise our right to vote.

I saw the same sunken eyebrows of hopelessness on the faces around me when listening to Mickey Huff passionately describe the disastrous state of news media at a San Francisco State University event. I could feel the people in the room asking themselves, “Does my voice really matter at the end of the day?” As a lone individual, I’m inclined to be pessimistic. But we have also seen how a single voice can sometimes inspire the roar of change.

After some thought, I’ve come to find a small sliver of hope. I say small because the solution will only work if the same people who today find their individual efforts fruitless, begin tomorrow to act as an empowered community.

Before I can attempt to ease our frustration with news media, we must first understand the roles of the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Estates.

The Fourth Estate

The Fourth Estate refers to print media, print journalism or the press. The term is attributed to Edmund Burke who used it in a 1787 parliamentary debate in Great Britain. The Fourth Estate was meant to work independently of the government in order to the hold the government accountable. The word “estate” refers to the Three Estates of The Realm, but in the United States the term is used to refer to a fourth branch of government. When this term was coined it only described print journalism, as online and cable news did not yet exist.

The Fifth Estate

The Fifth Estate has come to describe journalism from non-mainstream media outlets such as social media and blog sites. The Fifth Estate has not only become an extension of the Fourth Estate, but has opened the door for more individual viewpoints and reporting.

The Fourth and Fifth Estates have dramatically improved our society’s understanding of truth, reality, and awareness. The Fourth Estate has its own internal checks and balances (researchers, fact-checkers, and editors) to ensure the objectivity of a news story. Unfortunately, the Fifth Estate does not always put as much effort or resources towards verifying information. Instead, the Fifth Estate is mostly held accountable by us, the users. Monetizing our eyeballs is the main concern of most online news outlets, and this business incentive does not always result in high-quality journalism.

Some news outlets may try to capture our attention with objective truth-telling and investigative reporting. Websites with fewer resources may choose to write sensational, outlandish articles as they clickbait us into their vast nets of infotainment. Others still write stories meant to prey upon the confirmation bias of a particular subset of people, whether by political party, industry, social issue, etc.

Perhaps the most destructive consequence of the Fifth Estate is how easy it has become for a corporation to purchase, create, and therefore own the media. This allows a company to publish stories that promote its brand, spread propaganda, or misinform the public on a particular issue. In this ocean of online information, how is a person expected to distinguish between a good fish and a bad fish?

Before you feel defeated by the hopelessness of it all, allow me to introduce our silver lining…

The Sixth Estate

The Sixth Estate is an observer, critic, and counterweight to the Fourth Estate (The Press) and the Fifth Estate (Non-Mainstream Online Media).

Just as Rotten Tomatoes and Yelp have served as a feedback loop to improve their respective industries, at Credder we believe that online news is the next industry in need of mass accountability.

The long-term goal is for article reviews to serve as a form of consumer protection for online information while simultaneously helping online news outlets correct course. The ideal platform will create a level playing field so that an article by a lesser-known website or blog could battle big name outlets such as CNN and the NY Times, competing on objectivity alone.

Our only hope rests in each other’s willingness to contribute. The Sixth Estate will live and die by each person’s estimation of their own worth and ability to create change. We believe in the collective intelligence of the world and we believe the battle for The Information Age has just begun.

Please comment below with any questions, constructive criticism, thoughts, or topic requests in news media for us to cover in our next piece.