Why the News is Turning People Off

According to writer Kirk Johnson in today's New York Times, people just can't keep up with the news. Johnson writes:

Many Americans find themselves scratching their heads about America’s military intervention in Libya, and part of the reason, they say, can be summed up in one word: overload.

In a four state series of interviews, the Times discovered that the onrush of information about Japan, Afghanistan, Iraq and now Libya has left most people confused about it all.

Part of it, according to the Times is that Japan has more relevance for Americans. An obscure corner of North Africa is just not on peoples' agenda. And the Pew Research Center found that while only 5% of Americans are keeping up with that story, 57% of those surveyed have been closely following the Japanese earthquake and tsunami reporting.

A recent study by the French government found that the amount of content produced by all media has been growing at a rate of 10% every year since 2000. At the same time, the number of people consuming information has remained relatively static, if not in a slight decline. Some people interviewed by the Times said that there is so much "stuff" out there, that they can't take it in and are not following the news as much as they once did.

Compassion fatigue? I think it's more like "information deflation." The value we once placed on information becomes less as the amount of information increases.

This is also a media version of Gresham's Law.

Sir Thomas Gresham was a 16th century British financier who stated that the value of all money declines, when some money is suspect. He was referring to the possibility of counterfeit coinage devaluing all money.

The same is true with information: if there are doubts about the value of some media, all media becomes tarnished. When there is so much information in circulation, and some of it quite dubious, the public starts to doubt whether once trustworthy sources are still worth spending time with.

On the Libya story, despite the good work of some mainstream media organizations, the increasing presence of poor quality journalism from tabloid newspapers and broadcasters tends to diminish all media in the eyes of the public.
 

Government Funding: A Blessing or a Curse?

Would NPR and the public radio system be better off without government funding?

The short answer (but not the most complete answer) is no. NPR might survive without the 1-2% of its budget that comes from receiving grants (for which it must compete) from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

But the small and mid-market stations would be seriously crippled. The stations receive on average around 10-13% from CPB. In less populated areas of the country, that number could rise to between 30-40% as stations in places such as Alaska, Oklahoma and Wyoming just don't have the philanthropic base that stations in Los Angeles and New York can draw upon.

If Congress is serious about abandoning the heartland to religious broadcasters and mass produced centralized programming with no local content, then NPR needs to make sure that the consequences of de-funding are understood. Congress and by critics of public broadcasting need to know.

For the sake of argument, let's imagine that the public radio system had to compete with commercial broadcasters for a diminishing number of advertising dollars. What would the impact be on NPR content?

There is no doubt that the news and information programs would be thinner. Much thinner. And the ability of local economic and political interests to influence the content would be stronger.

But it could be argued that already happens.

When the second Palestinian Intifada began in 2001, NPR came under unrelenting pressure from pro-Israeli media watchdogs. In particular, CAMERA (Campaign for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America) raised regular objections to NPR's coverage. NPR took the criticisms seriously. Some changes were made. There was more transparency about the processes. But the commitment to covering the story did not change.

CAMERA then switched tactics, and went after NPR member stations. Being based in Cambridge, MA, it was particularly focused on WBUR in Boston. The CAMERA campaign was successful for a time, and WBUR lost around $1million in donations in one year.

To NPR's credit, it continued to report the story, even as it took an increasingly number of criticisms from CAMERA and its allies. Some of the criticisms were fair. Many were not. CAMERA saw this as an opportunity to raise support for its cause and to raise a considerable amount of money at NPR's expense.

It was not a pleasant time to be either the head of news or the ombudsman at NPR. I was both during this period.

Slightly desperate, I asked a colleague at CBS News how they were handling the criticism. His response: "It's not a problem for us. We don't cover this story. We don't want the aggravation." CBS would report the occasional suicide bombing. They rarely covered the story in the Palestinian Territories.

Eventually, the Intifada and CAMERA's criticisms ended. WBUR returned to successful fundraising.  NPR continues to cover the Middle East better than ever.

The lesson I draw from this experience is this: NPR was committed to reporting this story and to answering the critics. NPR's President at this time, Kevin Klose was a great defender of NPR's journalism, while also being a tough internal critic. We were determined not to be intimidated.

And NPR could not have done this if it had been dependent only on commercial sources of revenue. The balance among public, philanthropic and corporate funding isn't always an easy way to run this enterprise. But it works as long as the vision is there.

And the willingness to occasionally punch above your weight.

De-Funding NPR: Just Political Theatre or Something More?

The US House of Representatives did it.

In H.R. 1076, they voted along party lines not only to forbid NPR from receiving any federal funding. They also voted to stop any public radio station from using federal funds to purchase NPR produced programs.

It's unlikely that the Senate will approve the bill when it is sent up for approval. That should kill the motion entirely. In the unlikely event that the Senate (with its Democratic majority) loses its collective senses and agrees to de-fund NPR, there is still a line item veto that President Obama has said he will use.

But from what I hear from colleagues inside NPR, this has deeply shaken the morale of people who work in public radio.

It shouldn't. Support for public radio is wider and deeper than what one highly ideological if appallingly ill-informed legislative gesture can undermine.

Some of this is simply transference: I'm told by a psychotherapist of my acquaintance that it often happens. One person's fears are transferred onto someone else, or onto another idea or institution as a way of compensating for a sense of deep powerlessness.

There is a lot of change in America and the way it once was, is simply not the way it now is. The ability of the media to explain and clarify is now much more muddied and obscured. Journalism has lost its once valued goal to provide community and context. Those that still do it (like NPR) are now seen as failing because they refuse to provide simple answers, aka, "informational comfort food."

When I worked for NPR, I had the privilege of being invited by a couple hundred member stations to come and visit. I met with their journalists, spoke to their listeners on open line shows and then, met with them too, in face-to-face town hall meetings. Some were pretty raucous.

This was during the two Bush administration terms of office. Anxieties were still high and tension was in the air. It was right after 9/11, the Palestinian Intifada was at its height, the war in Iraq was freshly raging and the political tone everywhere was harsh, to say the least.

But what I found from meeting with thousands of people in more than 40 states, was that whether folks were left, right or center, they valued NPR. They didn't always agree with it, but they were glad it was there because it treated them like citizens and grown-up citizens, at that.

I have to believe that despite today's rhetoric, much of that willingness to support NPR remains. It won't be easy, but it is now up to the next generation of NPR management to find the right mix of support from to create a bully pulpit that will allow NPR journalism to continue.

It's shattering to read the statements made by some members of the House of Representatives today. But it's worth taking these elected representatives at their word. The challenge now for NPR is to partner with the best of the American journalistic, cultural and political life to push back against those who are afraid of something as basic and as honest as public broadcasting.

As someone observed, NPR is not used to fighting back. But it needs to do so now with passion and with urgency and with more than tote bags.

Who will speak up for public radio?

The Stumbles of Two Public Broadcasters

Vivian Schiller

One insider described the recent missteps at NPR as leaving the impression that it's become "the Charlie Sheen of broadcasting." Ouch.

Under the presidency of Vivian Schiller, NPR has found itself dealing with a series of gaffes that have added up to a large and ongoing public relations mess.

Schiller came to NPR two years ago from NYTimes.com, and seemed like a good fit at first. But from the member stations' point of view, she seemed less assured when it came to balancing the complexities of a membership organization. She may have paid lip service to the role of the customers - in this case, the 700 + stations that air NPR content and who pay program fees and membership dues. But the feeling outside of Washington, DC was that she just didn't get just how nuanced, complex and important that station relationship can be.

And inside the news organization with many strong and competing cultures (aka the "tribes"), Schiller was also seen as someone who valued the NPR website (which is excellent, by the way) over the program and radio elements.

Combine all that with two high profile dismissals that evoked the third rail of race: the highly regarded trainer/producer Doug Mitchell was laid off and commentator Juan Williams was summarily fired for statements he made on Fox...it seemed only a matter of time before Schiller would run out of room and the NPR board would run out of patience. VP of News Ellen Weiss was fired after the Juan Williams fiasco and some at NPR felt that she took the fall for a decision made up the line.

Recent threats of budget cuts to public broadcasting have had the member stations openly worried that the NPR president should have done more to dissuade the cutters in Congress.

The last straw came when the head of fund raising, Ron Schiller (no relation) was punked by James O'Keefe in a case of truly malicious, conservative entrapment. R. Schiller was invited to lunch with members of a purported Muslim foundation offering NPR a $5 million grant (which was never accepted).

At one point, Schiller "took off his NPR hat" and then went to town on Tea Party conservatives, Jews in the media and other bits of red meat so dear to conservative opponents of NPR. An example of hubris and foolishness (doesn't anyone at NPR perform some due diligence on prospective donors?) on his part. He paid the price by being fired twice in one week - once from NPR and then from the Aspen Institute which originally agreed to take him off NPR's hands. 

When Schiller's table talk was posted on Youtube yesterday, the NPR Board fired Vivian Schiller today. Presumably the previous embarrassments didn't help. Despite all these recent p.r. disasters, NPR's audience continues to grow.

Kirstine Stewart

Meanwhile the CBC has just sent out an all staff memo announcing a massive shift in managerial responsibility.

Under the leadership of Kirstine Stewart, the recently appointed head of CBC Radio, Television and Online, the managerial changes concentrate on categories like sports on which there will be heavy emphasis. The memo mentions "commissioned and scripted programming," "studio and unscripted programming," and other categories that will likely sound odd to non-CBC-ers as examples of a large management structure that seem to pay less attention to product and more to process.

It's too soon to say whether these changes will work at the CBC. The public broadcaster has had some successes with its entertainment shows but on the information side, the ratings have been poor. CBC Radio still does well, but resources have been shifted to help out the priorities in television and radio staffers are anxious (as usual) about the changes.

The CBC is also a large and complicated operation also with many warring tribes. Stewart will have her work cut out for her.

Some initial observations: like NPR, CBC has its political opponents also on the right and who also believe that public funding of public broadcasting is inherently wasteful. For the CBC to proffer a large and somewhat obscure managerial structure at a time when impressions are also important, this could appear to be the act of someone with little regard for appearances.

The role of news and information at the CBC seems clearly to be in decline. Or at least less of a priority than in years past.

Even more astonishing is the complete absence of any mention of the recently revamped CBC website which now looks extremely good. But in the Stewart document, CBC’s online strategy is very hard to decipher. "Inside the CBC," the official blog, has gone silent for two months, with no explanation.  CBC.ca has no links to Facebook, Twitter, etc., making it one of the few information web sites in the world that doesn't.

As someone who follows these things observed, "Blogs and social media represent open, two-way communication but CBC seems more comfortable behind cloistered walls, like a true state broadcaster."