First Person: Sam Simon

HOPE FOR A RETURN TO PUBLIC INTEREST IN MEDIA, by Sam Simon

In an op-ed published November 14, in the Washington Post, Ted Koppel cries over spilt milk. In the face of the growing popularity and broader public influence of cable “opinioncasters,” and this is his list, Glenn Beck, Keith Olbermann, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, Rachel Maddow and Chris Matthews, Koppel sheds tears over the loss of the old traditional network news operation. Where-oh-where are the heirs to the old greats “Walter Cronkite, Chet Huntley, David Brinkley, Frank Reynolds, Howard K. Smith” and – though of course he didn’t say – Ted Koppel himself?

While longing for the days when the three major, traditional, television networks invested in on-the-ground newsgathering from around the world, he acknowledges the economic reality of the new business model for television. It is true that at one time broadcasters were heavily regulated by the Federal Communications Commission and that their investment in news operations was considered part of the ‘quid-pro-quo’ for the Federal broadcast license. Broadcasters were at one time considered “trustees” of the public airwaves with an obligation to operate them on behalf of the listener and viewer in the public interest, convenience and necessity.

With the development and growth of cable television, which was exempted from such public interest regulation, the over-the-air broadcast industry has steadily faced a loss of audience share and advertising dollars. The revolution of even newer technologies today, including especially internet-based information delivery, the broadcast industry has simply exacerbated the slide into the abyss of an “anything goes” industry – over-the-air and cable – that is characterized not just by the growth of platforms for outrageous opinionators from Rush Limbaugh to Glenn Beck, but also by the reality-TV phenomena that also uses pretend “reality” as if it were real for entertainment purposes.

Koppel concludes his Washington Post piece with the discouraging note: “That’s the way it is.” He offers us no hope for a brighter future. Yet, he also acknowledges that the “need for clear, objective reporting in a world of rising religious fundamentalism, economic interdependence and global ecological problems is probably greater than it has ever been.”

While I agree with Koppel’s observation that the need for high quality, fact-based journalism that educates and empowers an informed citizenry, I do not share in the fatalistic view that there is nothing to be done. I believe we are sitting at a far end of a pendulum swing that holds market-based solutions as the holy grail of public policy. We are living in an era of “anything goes” media because it is what the “market” wants. And what we are getting, as Koppel points out, is exactly that – anything is going.

The need for the pendulum to begin to swing back from the ultimate “market based” approach to a more “values based” media system is urgent. While Koppel bemoans the loss of high quality, fact-based news and information programming, he doesn’t talk about the risks and costs associated with a failure to restore some semblance of public-interested, reliable and trustworthy news and information.

An informed citizenry has always been viewed as essential to a well-functioning democracy. The “big lie” societies end up in deep trouble with the worst examples including those where racial and religious hatred become official policy; or, short of that, Government simply turns a blind eye to injustices and inequalities.

I do not have a silver bullet nor do I know the “solution.” Unlike Koppel though, I don’t believe “that is the way it is” and that there is no hope. There is hope. In part it also lies in a growing resurgence in values-based approach to public policy. I look at books like Jim Wallis’ Rediscovering Values and the work in the business community toward “Conscious Capitalism” as evidence that there is a growing larger movement toward a new ethical and values framework for our society.

In addition, there is a new interest in rewriting the communications laws that date back to 1934, and there is an opportunity to reimagine the public interest standards of public responsibility in light of 2010 technologies and society. It will take strong public advocacy on behalf of meaningful and useful standards that will guide the development and investment in new forms of news and information gathering and dissemination.

In part, however, a better future lies in the work of groups like IVOH. IVOH’s commitment to expand awareness of the choices those in media make that raise public trust, generate constructive meaning, and amplify human hope, enhancing humanity's capacity for life-promoting action can in fact lead to more fundamental change in the large structure and performance of our “main stream media.”

A major challenge for the future is to create a new culture of media responsibility. Those involved in the media at all levels need to reawaken to their responsibility to serve the higher public interest. This reawakening requires work at all levels, from the IVOH summits at Peace Village to public education and advocacy on Capitol Hill on behalf of the interest of the listeners and viewers.

I recall a day in the late 1970’s when I was testifying before the Senate Commerce Committee Chaired by the late Senator Barry Goldwater. The hearing was on the efforts by the Broadcast industry to convince Congress to deregulate and repeal various public interest obligations such as the Fairness Doctrine. As a Ralph Nader backed advocate back then, one would think my voice would not resonate with arch conservative Senator Barry Goldwater. The Broadcast industry was arguing that they didn’t need rules or regulations to force them to “serve the public interest, convenience and necessity” because that was the business they were in and if they stopped doing that they would lose in the market place. My response was that this might indeed be true of the generation of broadcast managers and owners that had grown up in, and been educated on the Communications Act of 1934, that proclaimed their business to be operated in the public interest. But if the law were changed, the current managers and owners would retire, quit or be fired and replaced by a new set of managers and owners who will grow up in an era where the media is viewed as just another appliance — “a toaster with pictures.” (Words from former FCC Chairman Mark Fowler.) And if that happened, I said, any sense of obligation to anything other than the bottom line would soon disappear.

To my surprise, Senator Barry Goldwater said my comments were very thoughtful. He seemed to actually be concerned, that I might have been right.

And indeed, if I might say, now that we are in that place I predicted some 30 years ago, I do have hope we have seen the bottom of that abyss and are ready to move to higher ground. We understand that the “market place of ideas” is not what ideas earn profits, but rather that there are forums and public commons for reasoned dialogue and debate, where disagreement and conflict are the kind that are civil and that the resolutions mean all sides are better informed and more open to different perspectives.