I started writing this diary several times and never quite thought it made the bar. But all this hubbub over the AP got me to thinking about this again.
Fox News is a problem. It's the point of the spear of the right-wing smear machine and a propaganda outlet for the Republican party. It's painful to watch and it's frustrating to watch them lie with inpunity.
But the AP, a once-proud organization that still provides a valuable service today, is much more dangerous and insidiuos. I'll say something nice, first: A lot of the reason we know about various incidents happening across the world is largely due to the AP. Because it's so pervasive and comprehensive, we have a tremendous access to information we wouldn't otherwise have. That's the good part.
Here are a few of the problems:
- It's vast size and lack of competition gives it too much control over our information. It's nearly a monopoly and there is no question it has a stranglehold on the debate.
- It's seen as the determiner of "what is news". If it's on the AP, it must be important. And if it didn't go over the wire, it must not be newsworthy. So you get some of the various stories we're seeing now (Hillary supporters will destroy the convention for example) take on credence that exceeds their real importance.
- The AP's framing can be hard to shake. For those who have worked in newsrooms as I have, you may have seen how the AP wire works. I'm sure it's changed a lot since the days I used it, but imagine a list of headlines and the list slowly moving down your screen as new stories are added to the top of the list. There are various categories, so you, as a copy editor (who also lay out news pages), can grab stories from whatever category you need. Need some interested news nuggets to fill page 3's news briefs? Just click over to a category that interests you and pluck away. I remember one of our copy editors grabbing anything that had sex, penis or similar words in it just to "spice" up his news pages. That was years ago, so things have probably changed a bunch since then. But the point is the phrasing of those headlines that scroll down your screen often find their way into publications reworded only slightly or not at all. And those headlines can often include framing that helps drive narratives. A story might become "Obama lead slips to 10%" when if you read the story the correct headline should be something like "Obama lead remains in double digits." (Made up example, obviously.) What then happens is that phrasing carries through to TV newscrawls, Internet readers, newspaper headlines and the like. I believe this is why we got a narrative like "what can't Obama put Hillary away?" during the primary when in reality, the story was either "what is Hillary staying in for?" or "Why can't Hillary take the lead?". Note that we win some and we lose some in this scenario, but it only becomes dangerous when it's such a dominant news source (see first bullet).
- Too much AP = too few reporters. While an earlier diary talked about the high expense of AP content and how it was hurting newspapers' bottom lines, I submit the bigger problem is the opposite. My personal experience was working for a small newspaper chain that after being purchased by some clueless new owners, began supplanting their strong, local reporting team with AP content. The newspaper quickly became a front page that was a mix of AP and local news and an inside that was (no exaggeration) literally nothing but AP and ads. The paper immediately took on a sterile, tired feeling. Like reading a paper in a waiting room for the 3rd time because there's nothing left to do. So my point is that while AP content may be expensive (and I have no idea what it costs), it's a CHEAPER way to fill column space than bringing on full-time staff to fill the same amount of space. Sadly for them, readers also saw no value in the product they were producing and that chain is now nearly defunct.
- Political reporting has died on the vine. When I started out as a journalist, I had big dreams of covering D.c. politics. It's what I loved and was fascinated by it. During the 90s when I was getting my start, newspapers were figuring out that they could check off the "politics box" for their readers by picking up some AP and saving a ton of money vs. paying a person to go work a beat in a city clear across the country. Thus, reporters doing first-hand work from Washington are pretty much all either broadcast, AP, magazines, foreign reporters or work for one of the few remaining big papers in the country. That's why a lot of the news we get lacks any clarity of what is really going on -- think of some of the recent coverage of the filibuster threats for example. You get a general idea of what's going on, but you don't gain any real understanding.
- Fairness or covering your bases? The AP (in general) does try to be fair. Or at least historically did. It seems like some of the more offensive behavior has coincided with Rupert Murdoch's involvement, but I'll leave that to others to analyze. What is more troubling is that the AP's notion of balance is too often getting a quote from both sides and presenting them as equal in terms of fact. The AP will rarely call someone out for total bullshit. It's this total lack of backbone that is most frustrating to me at least.
Just a few examples of why the AP is a problematic organization. It desperately needs competition and we all need to have our radar up until alternative sources begin to rise and bring things back into balance.
I could go on, but tired now. Heading to bed...