Lying by omission

Posted in Comment, Media, Society by david @ Apr 29, 2008

Surrounded by a generation who cannot conceive a world without TV or the internet I often wonder what their version of reality is. With book reading continuing to decline, particularly with young readers there seems to be a trend to more easily consumed information which carries the attendant risk of trivialisation. If, as also seems the case, young people are treating TV and internet web sites as substitutes for more traditional media then there are some serious issues of truth, the public record and the role of the mass media that need to be addressed.

One concern that arises from the digital age is whether the competition between media sources will lead to a more inquisitive and diligent “news” environment or will newsmakers simply take the easiest and most sensational option in order to be first to break a story. In other words, will the news become just another consumer item to be packaged in a certain way devoid of anything unpalatable to the tastes of the those footing the bill.

If the TV news experience is anything to go by, the signs are ominous. Television in particular is guilty of “lying by omission”. It isn’t that what you see on TV is a fabrication or not real in the sense of fantasy or fiction, but it is true that it is a medium created to entertain. At its core, TV is an entertainment medium and this simply fact underscores the way TV treats the material it publishes. If it fails to entertain viewers, they will seek alternatives. The threat posed by the internet is not only that it provides a serious alternative media form, but also it can repackage and deliver existing media in different and more entertaining ways, ways which fit the consumer lifestyle better than the time consuming process of reading a book (for example).

So how does TV lie by omission? The answer is, at a variety of levels. In the very first instance is the gathering of information or sources. TV news is usually a highly networked operation which relies on established sources of “news” for a certain amount of so-called “bread and butter” issues. Political reporting is one such example, the formula is reasonably well known and the availability of material is usually tailored to suit on-air requirements. Such arrangements naturally suit established players. In a similar fashion, the recent trend to more business reporting is similarly an easy option for news makers and of course professional sport only exists with the patronage of television.

In contrast, stories about the environment for example are much harder to make. They might require a dedicated journalist, with supporting crews and an ability to travel to the story, something that in this day and age costs a lot of money and returns a limited quantity of finished product. Not only is it expensive to produce nature stories and documentaries, there is the attendant risk that it will fail the test of entertainment, regardless of the informative value of the content. Anyone doubting this possibility need only look at the relative appeals of the various high rating television productions and a recent decision by the ABC to axe its natural history department.

The truth of the TV news machine is that, when reduced to its basic elements, it is very much a manufacturing process which costs money and returns a product, which is in the main, entertainment. As Chomsky observed, with big business now owning most of the media landscape, it stands to reason those footing the bill for making the news people see on TV expect to get a certain product, they are certainly not paying the bills to get investigative and groundbreaking journalism unless it fits their agenda. A case in point, in 2005 a senior producer and others were sacked after breaking a story in the US about president Bush’s military record. As George Monbiot observed in the Guardian, such stories are common and the treatment given to the Bush story is no different to many sensational “investigations” however the reaction certainly has precedent.

The inherit conformity in the TV media landscape is compounded by internalised processes. Production becomes a formula; acquire some half interesting idea that has worked in the past, gather certain acceptable images and sound bites, splice it together in a manner that people have come to expect and present it in a authoritive corporate style. The boundaries of acceptability are known and very few if any will test the limits. This methodology applies throughout the production cycle and it is this filtering that constitutes “lying by omission”.

How can we expect the internet do be anything different and what does this mean for society when our information sources are so easily and obviously manipulated?

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