I guess I suspected something was awry over the last few months. Too many reruns were being broadcast as if the budget for field reporting was shrinking. Even when they did broadcast new episodes, the most recent airings lacked the panache of their predecessors. It had gotten to the point where I didn't even bother watching, figuring there would be nothing new or groundbreaking to behold. Well, others must have shared my displeasure and contributed to the show's decline in ratings because now, PBS' NOW is off the air.NOW is just the latest casualty in an increasingly beleaguered journalism industry. While its story is not unique--I recently lamented with a colleague on how small the LA Times paper had become--there was still something special about NOW's approach to journalism that, for me, will leave a huge void in its absence.
The press is often referred to as the "fourth branch of government" or the "fourth estate." Its perceived role as the fourth branch of government stems from the belief that its responsibility to inform the public is crucial to a functioning democracy. The notion of it being the "fourth estate" emphasizes its independence from the three official branches of government. With its lack of critical reporting during the run up to the Iraq War, we've seen the press act very much like a neglectful fourth branch of government, parroting whatever the White House press secretary chose to answer during his controlled press conferences. The country could have benefited greatly from a "fourth estate," scrutinizing the government's actions and exposing the manipulation of facts that led to the general acceptance of its actions.
That the press should act as the fourth estate seemed to be the ethos underlying NOW's brand of reporting. NOW quickly gained a reputation for focusing their critical eye on the powers that be, exposing government corruption and politicians' neglect in their responsibility to serve We the People. NOW unflinchingly called out corporations' collusion with the government in "Trivializing Corruption" and revealed the self-serving practices of corporations that fund ballot initiatives in "Taking the Initiative." They reported on laws that deliberately marginalized underserved segments of the electorate and explained how our national subsidies often contribute to the poverty of developing nations. I believe it was NOW that first taught me how the rising cost of health care affects jobs and the economy and that military officials are allowed to foist their recruitment efforts onto schoolchildren because of a provision in No Child Left Behind. They even took a critical look at themselves (as members of the media) in questioning the press' neglect in asking the tough questions during the months leading up to the Iraq War and in discussing media reform in general.
To be sure NOW wasn't the only purveyor of whistle-blowing investigative journalism. But they did have a way of breaking down the details of a story: providing the background, historical context, and political and financial motivations behind an initiative as well as the conflicts of interest surrounding the perpetrators profiting from passing or blocking the initiative. They even seemed to exercise journalistic integrity by revealing their own potential conflicts-of-interest, disclosing if an interviewee was affiliated with PBS or one of its funding sources. Now it seems we only have the likes of Frontline to look for such in-depth reporting, and even they sometimes seem to be headed for trouble with their infrequent reporting. (For that matter, NPR's website often seems to be featuring more blog posts and less audio pieces. I hope that's not an omen. Sigh...)
As NOW's original host Bill Moyers described: "Americans are saturated with events in the headlines, but in this pounding news cycle it is hard to grasp the bigger picture and the larger forces driving daily developments. NOW will report on the reality behind and beyond news-making events." Unfortunately, with NOW's demise, Americans will have one less news source to distill the behind-the-scenes details of the events that affect our lives. With the industry-wide struggle of news organizations in general, the onus increasingly falls upon us to do the in-depth investigation that gives us the nuanced understanding of our world.
Do I have faith that we'll pick up the slack? Well, maybe if I were convinced that people had the desire to learn about their world I could muster up a modicum of optimism. Unfortunately, if a glimmer of hope ever emerges, it gets immediately crushed by statements such as the following from the comments section of an On Point program discussing a virtual game called "Worlds of Warcraft":
Sigh.... Jim, while it's true you don't get to interact with people while listening to the news, you still benefit by learning about the world you're actually living in! And instead of focusing all your energy on some contrived fairy tale land solving nonexistent problems, you can learn about the problems that exist in the real world and--oh I don't know--solve them instead!
Along with this gaming-is-more-interactive-than-TV-and-the-news argument were a lot of comments aimed at dispelling the gaming-people-are-nerds myth or that viciously defended this lifestyle by calling the naysayers "judgmental hypocrites" who likely waste our time watching T.V. or reading fiction. Other comments centered on the benefits of communicating and "working" with people all over the world. Not one of the game's defenders addressed the comments that questioned the amount of energy and electricity wasted while playing these games or those that remarked on how improved the world would be if all the time and money spent on gaming were harnessed into eliminating society's ills. Why were these questions ignored? Because--at the risk of generalizing--these are the kinds of people who largely don't care about the real world and they don't want to acknowledge or address the real suffering going on in it. The following comment sums it all up:
To avoid my usual digressions, I'll ignore the anti-"it takes a village to raise a child" sentiment of this argument and focus on the "it makes me sick to see what this world has become" statement. This bury-your-head-in-the-sand mentality is the main reason why any grown person would ever want to spend hours a day everyday immersed in gaming, virtual reality, or any other form of mindless entertainment. Unfortunately, recreational activities are on the rise in every demographic in America, so much so that there are now college degrees for game design and development. This, taken together with the decline in newspaper subscriptions and public radio contributions, suggests that more people would rather pay to bury their heads in the sand than consume news that might upset, yet inform them. In the end, this "see no evil, hear no evil" attitude is the wrecking ball that is slowly demolishing the fourth estate. And the demise of the fourth estate, in turn, can only mean dire consequences for democracy itself. For in the words of Thomas Jefferson: If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was and never will be.
