Journalism is beneath Bullshit Mountain.
And it’s going to kill us.
“What is wrong with this country is not that we face problems that we have not faced before. We face a deficiency in our problem solving mechanism and the reason we face difficulty in our problem solving mechanism is that a good portion of this country has created an alternate universe.” — Jon Stewart
Stewart calls this alternate reality, this place where these people live, Bullshit Mountain. It is my contention, and quite possibly Stewart’s, that news media, and by extension, journalism is the number one enabler of Bullshit Mountain. They enable Bullshit Mountain to exist through abuse of a position of responsibility, greed or corruption, and no real rules.
In his final TV address to the nation Stewart explained that “the best defense against bullshit is vigilance.” Well, who is responsible for this vigilance? The answer is journalists and by extension, the news media. The journalist code of ethics from the Society of Professional Journalists states that journalists are to be “vigilant and courageous about holding those with power accountable.”
We, the public, depend on journalists’ vigilance to inform our opinion, so we as a group can hold our governments and corporations accountable. We are dependent on journalists. There are good journalists out there, but they’ve been buried beneath an avalanche on Bullshit Mountain, created by corporate news media in effort to maximize profits.
We have to try harder.
Too many journalists have abdicated their responsibilities as watchdogs for the public good. Our number one defense is corrupt and defunct. It has become our greatest weakness. Don’t believe me? Even the most powerful man in the world, President Obama, arguably the single most important person to be held accountable, thinks journalists aren’t doing their job.
“Our democracy depends on a well informed electorate.” — U.S. President Barack Obama
Politics aside, the president is right despite his administration being the least transparent in modern history. Again, we, the public, are dependent on journalists. In this press conference Obama also said, “the electorate would be better served if we spent less focus on the he-said-she-said, back-and-forth, of our politics.” He’s pointed out one of the symptoms of Bullshit Mountain — corruption or pure greed.
He went on to say, “a job well done is about more than handing someone a microphone; it is to probe, to question, it is to dig deeper.” In a way, this is like Darth Vader telling the Empire that the rebels aren’t trying hard enough.
It’s going to kill us.
It’s clear that journalists in power, with no real rules in place, have abdicated their watchdog responsibilities. News media has the lowest approval rating ever, at 6%, just higher than Congress’ 4% — who, BTW, are kings and queens of Bullshit Mountain. This disregard for responsibility has literal deadly consequences, not only to the quality of our democracy, but to our personal health.
In 1997, journalist Jane Akre had written a report on a growth hormone linked to cancer used by Monsanto for a Fox affiliate news station. She claims she was fired in 1998 after Fox executives forced her to change the story up to 80 times due to pressure from Monsanto, and in the process incorporating false news that the Fox affiliate “forced” her to report and she planned to take it to the FCC. She filed a lawsuit against the Fox affiliate. Fox was never implicated in the ruling, but she was awarded a large sum after the court ruled she was a whistleblower and as such her rights were violated.
You’re probably saying, wait it sounds like she was vindicated. Well, not quite.
In 2003 an appellate court ruled in favor of the Fox affiliate. Stating that the FCC’s false news provision, which is supposed to prohibit the distortion of news, is a guideline and not law. She was, therefore, not a whistleblower. The FCC agreed on the grounds that navigating the First Amendment is tricky among editorial disputes and will only investigate claims when substantial proof of intent to deceive is provided.
What does this mean? How is this going to kill us?
Okay, Fox or its affiliate were never charged with misinformation and never admitted to such; however, the ruling sets a precedent that suggests it is okay to present distorted or false facts as true under the First Amendment. In the case of Jane Akre and the Fox affiliate, it is okay to spread distorted info about a harmful potentially cancer-causing hormone. In other words, Bullshit Mountain is oozing garbage, and it’s legal.
This demonstrates the deficiency in our problem solving mechanism that Stewart pointed out and Obama alluded to. News media can do or say nearly whatever they wish, even when it’s potentially harmful, as long as there is no evidence of its deceitful intent. And there’s nothing you can do about. The journalists in power who have abdicated their responsibilities are corrupted by profit and more power and are beholden to no real rules.
It is up to us.
The real responsibility in the end falls on us, the public. We may be dependent on journalists’ vigilance, but they are dependent on our support. We support their networks by tuning in every day or by reading their articles online. We support them when we fail to question the content of their stories or their stake-hold in the narrative they provide.
We must organize and make a collective effort to stop supporting corporate media, or at the very least, begin supporting more independent media. We must dig the good journalists out of the avalanche of Bullshit Mountain. If we don’t, it’s going to kill us.
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I’m Marck Ernest Thornton. I’m passionate about writing, interactive and digital media, social justice, journalism and design. You can ask me to work with you, invite me to speak at your event, or grab a coffee if you’re in Berlin. I’m excited to hear from you!
