The New York Times is not just a newspaper—it’s an institution that holds a special place in American culture. For me, The New York Times reminds me of lazy Sundays spent with my parents, coffee and a bagel. It’s an emotionally connected news source. Perhaps that’s why it was so personally upsetting when the paper published an op-ed written by Russian President Vladimir Putin criticizing American society.
American media is the connection between the government and the citizens. There is a deeply held assumption that when a news source reports on legislation, or a court decision, or a human-interest story, they are doing so out of a responsibility to their audience. When I get a CNN update sent to my phone, I feel as though I’m the last link in a direct chain from the perpetrators and victims, to law enforcement, to political officials, to CNN, to me. It’s comforting to think that a broadcast is true and relevant. But that’s not necessarily the case.
Government officials and politicians have the same expectation for media. When the president holds a press conference he relies on news sources to report what he said and help convince the public that what he said is right. The debate that happens in media from station to station and viewer to viewer is a part of that expectation. Essentially, American media are the middleman between government and the citizen. Without that connection, our current form of government is impossible.
American media – namely Time Warner, Viacom, Comcast, Walt Disney Company, and News Corporation – are all publicly traded companies. That means that their sole obligation is to their stockholders and that their sole purpose is to gain the largest readership and make as much money as possible.
But there emerges an impossible conflict: the emotional relationship the reader feels and the practical necessity the government feels directly contradict the profit driven motives the corporation feels. That’s why sensationalism and the 24-hour news cycle have developed—not because news sources are trying to fulfill an unwritten obligation, but because news sources are trying to make a profit.
It’s hard to accept that when I open the New York Times and pull out my favorite sections that I’m just a customer. But that’s exactly how I felt when I read Putin’s article. Now I rationally know that his piece was hypocritical, misplaced and a laughably pathetic attempt at a power play and there’s a large part of me that urges me to simply roll my eyes. However, I still feel slightly lost knowing that my Sunday ritual isn’t obligated to me as the reader.
I had a similar reaction after reading New York Times Public Editor Marget Sullivan’s defense of the decision to publish Putin’s article. There is absolutely no rational reason why a profit driven company should apologize to its readers about one of the most circulated, most read and most talked-about articles it’s ever published. In her response Ms. Sullivan writes, “whether you agree with it or not, whether you approve of Mr. Putin or not, it could hardly be more newsworthy or interesting”. And while I can almost taste that Sunday bagel in my mouth, I absolutely agree with her. The New York Times has no obligation but to print whatever they think will bring in revenue, and that’s exactly what the Putin article did. However, that doesn’t explain the huge public outcry against the New York Times for the publication.
NBC’s Chuck Todd is experiencing a similar public relations nightmare after his comments concerning the media’s role in publicizing the Affordable Care Act. Again, I find myself agreeing with Todd. It isn’t his obligation as a journalist to convince the public of various political objectives. His job as a journalist is to report the news in a manner that garners the highest ratings. Unfortunately, the rational approach hasn’t quite reached the 150,000 people and counting who’ve signed a petition to tell Todd “correcting political misinformation and lies is a part of [his] job description”. That’s a lot of people who actively believe that news sources have a formal obligation to the public to report in a specific manner. So even though I share the emotional sentiment, I find myself agreeing with the journalists.
I can also see the point-of-view of foreign newspapers that publish criticisms of America. Interestingly, The Moscow Times has a slew of articles condemning the United States such as an op-ed about American foreign policy that has very similar themes to that of Putin’s article. Not only does the American public not know about that article but it also wouldn’t cause the same upset as Putin’s piece in the New York Times. Essentially, the content of the news report or editorial doesn’t matter to the American citizen. There are entire books written about American foreign policy – many of which are negative and highly critical. There are news broadcasts everyday about declining American prestige in the world. Somehow, the American people accept them both. The content is important but it’s not the reason the American public reads the news. It’s as though the act of trying to be informed is more important than the information itself.
The methods through which we’re informed and the process of becoming informed make us feel like successful members of a thriving democracy. So when an article is published in a way that makes us question the method through which we’re being informed, it makes us question our process of becoming informed. It makes us question our democratic process because we can no longer trust the mainstream means of communication between the government and the citizenry.
Yet again, the troubling paradox in American society arises. The government cannot communicate with the citizenry and the citizenry cannot stay informed when they no longer trust the channels for that exchange. I’m not proposing a solution—frankly, I don’t know if there is one besides a state sponsored news source. But I do believe that there has to be a way for democracy to function in the age of mass media; we just have to find it.