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Introduction: Visions of a virtuous media

The Grand Canyon is too small to contain all the pearls clutched recently in discussions regarding the importance of press freedom. Faced with a charlatan entertainer disguised as a President, or vice versa, many in the media have been compelled to return to their dusty Media Studies textbooks and remind themselves and others of the role of the Fourth Estate in a robust democracy. Throughout history, countless scholarly and enlightened renditions of this role have been proposed. As journalism scholar S. Coronel put it in The Role of The Media in Deepening Democracy, “Democracy requires the active participation of citizens. Ideally, the media should keep citizens engaged in the business of governance by informing, educating and mobilizing the public.” She continues, “The media can promote democracy by among other things, educating voters, protecting human rights, promoting tolerance among various social groups, and ensuring that governments are transparent and accountable.”

Thomas Jefferson simplified the exercise significantly by famously proclaiming that, should he be confronted with a choice between a government without newspapers and newspapers without a government, he would not hesitate to choose the latter. The essence of elementary freedoms as that of speech and thought is embedded in open networks of information and communication. In addition, the data that fills these networks — text on a newspaper, or articles on an online publication — must be held to high standards of objectivity and ethics; as the theories go. Yet, despite the theories, lofty ideals and grandiose proclamations, such media remains ever so elusive, with a majority of Americans agreeing that the U.S media does a disservice to democracy.

True purpose: Truth-technicians

To reconcile this paradox, another must be evoked. Eighteenth-century philosopher David Hume described in On the First Principles of Government a perplexing truth:

“Nothing appears more surprising to those who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye, than the ease with which the many are governed by the few; and the implicit submission, with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers.”

Hume was kind enough to resolve the paradox:

“When we enquire by what means this wonder is effected, we shall find that, as force is always on the side of the governed, the governors have nothing to support them but opinion. It is, therefore, on opinion only that government is founded; and this maxim extends to the most despotic and most military governments, as well as to the freest and most popular.”

In other words, opinion control is a pre-requisite for any power system, including highly orchestrated oligarchies such as ours. In this context, far from upholding democratic ideals, the valiant and intrepid media mutates into a tool to maintain uniformity and compliance. As Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky describe in Manufacturing Consent, such thought control is even more critical in freer societies such as the U.S, wherein the ruling class cannot simply resort to control by open violence and dictation. As explained in Part I of this series, the ruling elite must exercise control over the political, economic and social spheres by design. The media plays a critical role in enabling this control, routinely minimizing or eliminating ideas and stories that challenge conventional thoughts; hence supporting the state, corporations and other actors such as the euphemistically called Intelligence Community. This is not invariable. To the contrary, a robust democracy can enable a free and substantive media, and the media can return the favor so democracy can sustain itself. On one hand, this seems like a virtuous cycle; yet on the other, it is a chicken-and-egg problem. Today’s media requires deeper analysis to resolve the problem and spring forth action.