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Bi-Weekly Discussion - Press Freedom, News Quality & News Diversity

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Brian B.
Bi-Weekly Discussion - Press Freedom, News Quality & News Diversity

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We're currently hosting our discussions at Café Walnut, not too far from our summer meeting spot in Washington Square Park. The cafe is near the corner of 7th & Walnut in Olde City. The cafe's entrance is below street level down some stairs, which can be confusing if it's your first time. Our group meets in the large room upstairs.

Since we're using the cafe's space, they ask that each person attending the meetup at least purchase a drink or snack. Please don't bring any food or drinks from outside. If you're hungry enough to eat a meal, they have more substantial fare such as salads, soups & sandwiches which are pretty good and their prices are reasonable.

The cafe is fairly easy to get to if you're using public transit. With SEPTA, take the Market-Frankford Line & get off at the 5th Street Station (corner of 5th & Market), and walk 2 blocks south on 5th and then turn right on Walnut Street and walk 2 blocks west. With PATCO, just get off at the 9th-10th & Locust stop and walk 3 blocks east & 1 block north. For those who are driving, parking in the neighborhood can be tough to find. If you can't find a spot on the street, I'd suggest parking in the Washington Square parking deck at 249 S 6th Street which is just a half block away.

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PRESS FREEDOM, NEWS QUALITY & NEWS DIVERSITY

INTRODUCTION - A QUICK REVIEW OF THE "PUBLIC SPHERE" CONCEPT:

In the introduction section of the outline for our last discussion on the state of American universities, I talked about how academia and the news media make up a major part of what the political philosopher Jürgen Habermas calls the "public sphere" - i.e. areas in social life where individuals can come together to freely discuss and identify societal problems, and through that discussion influence political action. This notion of the "public sphere" as an integral part of liberal democracy is related to Karl Popper's idea of the "open society". As a philosopher of science, Popper considered all truth to be provisional & subject to revision, and thus he favored an “open society” where each citizen has the right & duty to engage in critical thinking on matters of public concern. Popper contrasted the “open society” with the “closed societies” of feudalism, communism, and fascism where the authorities determine the official “Truth” and it is relatively fixed and can’t be easily revised even when it’s manifestly wrong. We compared the “open society” to John Rawls’ concept of “reflective equilibrium”, which is the idea that a society can arrive at widely agreed-upon moral principles through public discussion & reflection. If this process is short-circuited by an attempt to impose moral principles from the top-down, it creates a risk that not enough of the populace will “buy into” the official morality and the public sense of a morally binding “social contract” will break down.

As we discussed last time, the classical liberal position is that critical thinking in the context of a university relies on both academic freedom and intellectual diversity, so that problems are considered from every angle and education doesn't devolve into indoctrination. To review that material, go here:
https://www.meetup.com/Philadelphia-Political-Agnostics/events/xvbrznyxkbdc/

(Note: We took a similar look at the role of the internet in a democratic society back in April of this year: https://www.meetup.com/Philadelphia-Political-Agnostics/events/xvbrznyxgbcb/ )

This discussion will look at the state of the American news media in the context of the role the "public sphere" plays in an "open society" characteristic of a liberal democracy. We'll address the issues of press freedom, news quality, and news diversity as they related to media coverage of current events in America. We'll look at the attempts of social scientists to measure press freedom & media quality, the recent debate over racial & political diversity in the media, and the common concerns about how increasing consolidation of media ownership & the decline of print newspapers may be negatively affecting our democracy.

A QUICK REVIEW OF OUR PAST COVERAGE OF MEDIA BIAS, PUBLIC TRUST IN THE MEDIA & THE ECHO CHAMBER EFFECT:

Please note that we covered several issues related to the news media in an earlier discussion back in January of 2017, and that material is worth reviewing since we'll cover some new ground in this discussion:
https://www.meetup.com/Philadelphia-Political-Agnostics/events/jlzgxlywcbcc/

Briefly, in that previous meetup, we looked at two major studies of political bias in the mainstream media that ended up with contradictory findings. Research by Tim Groseclose & Jeff Milyo indicated that 18 of the 20 major newspapers in America lean left and probably shift public opinion, whereas research by Matt Gentzkow & Jesse Shapiro indicated that the political bias of major newspapers reflect that of their local market and suggests they merely give their readers the stories and slant they want to maximize readership and profits.

We also looked at research by Noam Chomsky & Edward Herman that suggests that the mainstream media has a centrist/establishment bias, especially when it comes to American foreign policy. This aligns with some of Conor Freidersdorf's observations about the institutional incentives in the news media created by the fact that journalists often live and socialize in the same elite, center-left & center-right circles as the government officials they cover and thus are inclined to defer to them, especially in the realms of national security, law enforcement, and public safety.

We also looked at polls conducted by Gallup & Pew Research on asking America how much they trust the news media & whether they think it's biased. Gallup reported that based on their September 2016 poll Americans' trust in the mass media "to report the news fully, accurately and fairly" had dropped to its lowest level in Gallup polling history, with only 32% saying they have a great deal or fair amount of trust in the media. Gallup found that it's mostly Republicans fueling the drop in media trust. Democrats' and independents' trust in the media has declined only marginally, with 51% of Democrats and 30% of independents expressing trust. Over the past 20 years, Democrats have generally expressed more trust than Republicans in the media, although in 2000, the two parties were most closely aligned, with 53% of Democrats and 47% of Republicans professing trust. Republicans who say they have trust in the media has plummeted to 14% from 32% a year ago. This is easily the lowest confidence among Republicans in 20 years, and it mirrors the recent decline in trust of universities among Republicans since 2015.

Lastly, we looked at the oft-heard worry that search engine "filter bubbles" and social media "echo chambers" may be leading to an involuntary decline in the diversity of news sources that Americans are exposed to. A Facebook indicated that, on a social network like Facebook, 3 factors influence the extent to which we see cross-cutting news: (1) who your friends are and what news stories they share; (2) among all the news stories shared by friends, which ones are displayed by the newsfeed algorithm; (3) which of the displayed news stories you actually click on. The Facebook researchers concluded that the primary driver of the digital echo chamber is the actions of users—who users connect with online and which stories they choose to click on— rather than the choices the newsfeed algorithm makes on their behalf. While one might assume the Facebook study was merely slanted to make their company look innocent, subsequent studies of social media by Elizabeth DuBois & Seth Flaxman have tempered fears of "echo chambers" and indicated that the its effect is slight & counter-balanced by the wider availability of diverse perspective allowed by the internet. In fact, social media users appear to encounter slightly more cross-cutting news than non-users:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1369118X.2018.1428656
https://academic.oup.com/poq/article/80/S1/298/2223402

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DIRECTIONS ON HOW TO PREPARE FOR OUR DISCUSSION:

The videos & articles you see linked below are intended to give you a basic overview of the way scholars address the issues of press freedom & media bias. As usual, I certainly don't expect you to read all the articles & watch all the videos prior to attending our discussion. The easiest way to prepare for our discussion is to just watch the numbered videos linked under each section - the videos come to about 31 minutes total. The articles marked with asterisks are just there to supply additional details. You can browse and look at whichever ones you want, but don't worry - we'll cover the stuff you missed in our discussion.

In terms of the discussion format, my general idea is that we'll address the topics in the order presented here. I figure we'll spend about 30 minutes on each section.

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I. MEASURING PRESS FREEDOM:

  • ARE THE MAJOR FACTORS OF "PRESS FREEDOM" THAT REPORTERS WITHOUT BORDERS & FREEDOM HOUSE MEASURE TOO SUBJECTIVE, ESPECIALLY THE DIFFERENCES IN THEIR RANKINGS? DOES THE U.S. DESERVE TO RANK LOWER THAN MOST EUROPEAN NATIONS IN PRESS FREEDOM, OR IS THIS INDICATIVE OF SOME BIAS?

  • REGARDLESS OF THEIR FLAWS, DO PRESS FREEDOM INDICES STILL GIVE US A DECENT IDEA OF DIFFERENCES IN THE NEWS MEDIA'S ACCESS TO INFORMATION & ABILITY TO REPORT ON ALL ISSUES? IF NOT, HOW COULD THEY BE IMPROVED?

  • AS SOCIAL SCIENTISTS BEGIN TO EXAMINE PRESS FREEDOM INDICES, WHAT SORT OF CORRELATIONS SHOULD THEY LOOK FOR IN ORDER TO DETERMINE IF & HOW PRESS FREEDOM BENEFITS SOCIETIES? IS AN INCREASE IN PERCEIVED CORRUPTION AS PRESS FREEDOM INCREASES A GOOD OR BAD SIGN?

  • WAS PRESIDENT OBAMA BETTER OR WORSE FOR AMERICA'S PRESS FREEDOM AS COMPARED TO PRESIDENT TRUMP - AND WHAT SHOULD WE MEASURE IN ORDER TO DETERMINE THIS?

1a) NowThis World, "How Free Is Our Press? [in 2014]" (video - 2:42 min.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zb1flD_a8Vk

1b) Newsy, "What's Behind The Lower U.S. Press Freedom Ranking [in 2015]?" (video - 1:52 min.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3VPoFrasbI

1c) Rappler, "RSF: Trump, Russia, China media attacks 'threaten democracy'" (video - 1:09 min.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-CMSNJpjFQ

II. MEASURING NEWS QUALITY & ACCURACY:

  • DOES THE JKS STANFORD PROJECT TO MEASURE "NEWS QUALITY" WITH AN ALGORITHM SEEM HELPFUL, AT LEAST AS A QUICK HEURISTIC FOR DETERMINING WHAT'S PROBABLY TRUSTWORTHY & ABOUT HOW MUCH A NEWS REPORT COST TO PRODUCE?

  • DOES USING A NEWS OUTLET'S AGE & A JOURNALIST'S RESUME AS PART OF THE "NEWS QUALITY" ALGORITHM BIAS IT AGAINST NEW DIGITAL MEDIA OUTLETS & CITIZEN JOURNALISTS?

  • IF WE COULD DEVELOP ACCURATE NEWS QUALITY RANKINGS, HOW SHOULD THEY BE USED? SHOULD THEY BE MANDATORY & DISPLAYED NEXT TO EACH NEWS ARTICLE OR NEWS SEGMENT LIKE MOVIE RATINGS?

  • IS "PUNDITFACT" A GOOD GUIDE TO WHICH PUNDITS/NETWORKS LIE MORE, OR IS IT TOO SUBJECTIVE & MARRED BY SELECTION BIAS?

  • HOW COULD WE GET A MORE OBJECTIVE & MORE COMPREHENSIVE MEASURE OF NEWS MEDIA ACCURACY, GIVEN THE TIME-CONSUMING NATURE OF FACT-CHECKING?

2a) JKS Stanford, “The news quality scoring project” (1:22 min.)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LFhOHRNSdzI

2b) CNN, “Fact-checking the pundits” (video - 3:08 min.)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TIhIyVDgkSc

III. GENDER, RACE & POLITICAL DIVERSITY AMONG JOURNALISTS:

  • IS THE GOAL FOR NEWS DIVERSITY TO INCREASE A DIVERSE PUBLIC'S TRUST IN THE NEWS MEDIA, TO IMPROVE THE QUALITY OF THE NEWS WITH DIVERSE VIEWPOINTS, OR BOTH?

  • SHOULD NEWS AGENCIES ACT AS "GATEKEEPERS" & INTENTIONALLY EXCLUDE CERTAIN IDEAS FROM THE PUBLIC SPHERE? IF SO, CAN THIS BE BALANCED WITH VIEWPOINT DIVERSITY?

  • IS IT GENDER PARITY & RACIAL DIVERSITY AMONG JOURNALISTS MERELY A QUESTION OF JUSTICE (I.E. EQUAL OPPORTUNITY), OR DOES IT ALSO TIE INTO A NECESSARY TYPE OF VIEWPOINT DIVERSITY?

  • WHAT SHOULD BE THE GOAL FOR RACIAL DIVERSITY IN JOURNALISM: SHOULD NEWS ROOMS LOOK ROUGHLY LIKE AMERICA AS A WHOLE, OR LIKE THEIR SPECIFIC MEDIA MARKETS?

  • IS POLITICAL DIVERSITY AMONG JOURNALISTS AS IMPORTANT AS GENDER PARITY & RACIAL DIVERSITY IN TERMS OF JUSTICE AND/OR VIEWPOINT DIVERSITY?

  • SHOULD NEWS AGENCIES STRIVE TO BE POLITICALLY NEUTRAL & ONLY GIVE VOICE TO PARTISAN VIEWPOINTS IN OP-EDS?

  • WOULD HIRING MORE CENTRIST CONSERVATIVE PUNDITS (E.G. DAVID BROOKS) HELP WITH POLITICAL DIVERSITY IN THE NEWS MEDIA, OR WOULD CONSERVATIVE READERS MERELY DISMISS THEM AS "R.I.N.O.s"?

  • IS THE REAL PROBLEM IN TERMS OF POLITICAL DIVERSITY IN NEWS MEDIA A LACK ON ANTI-ESTABLISHMENT VOICES (E.G. SOCIALISTS, FEMINISTS, LIBERTARIANS, PALEOCONS)? WOULD ALLOWING MORE ANTI-ESTABLISHMENT VOICES BE BENEFICIAL FOR VIEWPOINT DIVERSITY OR DANGEROUS BECAUSE IT WOULD INCREASE OUR PERCEIVED POLITICAL POLARIZATION?

  • SHOULD WE CARE WHEN MAJOR NEWS AGENCIES FIRE JOURNALISTS OVER THEIR POLITICAL VIEWS, AS HAPPENED WITH KEVIN WILLIAMSON AT THE ATLANTIC? DOES IT MATTER IF INDIVIDUAL NEWS SOURCES DON'T HAVE MUCH VIEWPOINT DIVERSITY IF WE CAN GET IT FROM MULTIPLE SOURCES?

3a) Carlos Maza, "Why Should You Give A Shit About Media [Racial] Diversity?" (video - 3:29 min.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpEX24p7bmA

3b) Judith Miller, "Can You Trust The Press?" (video - 5:55 min.)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4B0HV_GQut4

IV. MEDIA CONCENTRATION, THE DECLINE OF PRINT MEDIA & THE RISE OF DIGITAL JOURNALISM:

  • ARE SCRIPTED NEWSCASTS INNOCUOUS OR DANGEROUS? IF THESE NEWSCASTS ARE HIGHER QUALITY THAN WHAT MOST LOCAL NEWS AGENCIES COULD PRODUCE ON THEIR OWN, IS IT STILL BAD FOR VIEWPOINT DIVERSITY?

  • IS ALL NEWS QUALITY ADVERSELY AFFECTED BY MEDIA CONSOLIDATION, OR MERELY LOCAL NEWS?

  • SHOULD THE GOVERNMENT FORCIBLY BREAK UP MEDIA CONGLOMERATES?

  • WILL THE DECLINE OF PRINT NEWSPAPERS ADVERSELY AFFECT OVERALL NEWS QUALITY, OR DOES IT MERELY SIGNIFY A TRANSITION TO ONLINE CONTENT? HOW MUCH OF THIS QUESTION DEPENDS ON AD REVENUE & SUBSCRIPTION FEES IN THE ONLINE DOMAIN?

  • WOULD ALLOWING SOME NEWS AGENCIES TO WORK AS NON-PROFITS HELP WITH THE NEW ECONOMIC PRESSURES THEY'RE FACING?

  • SHOULD THE GOVERNMENT SUBSIDIZE CERTAIN NEWS MEDIA AGENCIES? IF SO, SHOULD THIS BE CONTINGENT UPON THEM MEETING CERTAIN CRITERIA IN TERMS OF NEWS QUALITY, ACCURACY & DIVERSITY?

  • SINCE THE PUBLIC INCREASINGLY FINDS LINKS TO NEWS ARTICLES THROUGH SEARCH ENGINES & SOCIAL MEDIA, SHOULD COMPANIES LIKE GOOGLE & FACEBOOK BE TREATED AS PUBLISHERS?

4a) Ben Swann, "Reality Check: Media Consolidation & News Script Repeaters" (video - 5:09 min.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhRnIH9s96E

4b) Don Lemon w/ Leonard Pitts Jr. & David Sirota, “CNN: The Newspaper Industry in Decline“ (video - 6:19 min.)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=S9AtkO7eqIk

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Cafe Walnut
703 Walnut Street · Philadelphia, PA
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