The recent decision by the Chattanooga Times Free Press to discontinue hosting public comments on their online edition has sparked some very interesting debates around the purpose and role of news organizations and the responsibilities of journalists in our broader society.
One of my friends defended the CTFP decision, saying:
One of my personal heroes, Bill Moyers, has this to say:
As a culture, we do not value media literacy, meaningful public deliberation on difficult issues or challenging discussion from a variety of voices and a range of opinions. We are more likely to encounter pundits, who know so little about so much, simply humiliating one another on live television. We are provided a public discussion reduced to a narrow spectrum of voices and ideas offered from the same sources again and again. So the CTFP comment section represents the bastard child of the dominant public dialogue.
The internet is the modern commons. More than anywhere else, the internet provides a level field in which many people from a variety of viewpoints and a diversity of cultures, backgrounds, experiences, traditions, etc. can come together and share ideas, discuss issues, present information and argue their points. More often that not, however, it tends towards the creation of a rumor-mill wrapped inside of an echo-chamber permeated in hate and buried in ignorance. So the flame-wars drone on and very little is accomplished outside of hours wasted in front of a computer.
If we are going to deal substantively with our long legacy of white supremacy, reactionary mob politics, or good old boy backroom politics, then we need a pubic that can deliberate collectively, at length, and in-depth on serious questions. The racist comments on the Chattanooga Times Free Press website represent one very ignorant and very entrenched side of popular opinion in this area. But there is a significant difference between popular opinion and public judgment. Popular opinion is what is gleamed through the consistent, obsessive bigoted comments left over and over by a certain group of individuals. Public judgment is much more reflective and results when individuals desire to seek the greater good through the art of making collective decisions, developing productive relationships, and working through differences to achieve common aims.
The decision by the CTFP to shut down the comment section was made out of concern for the hate, ignorance and reactionary politics shown to exist in popular opinion, but they have done nothing whatsoever to go the extra-step of attempting to create a public commons structured around the pursuit of common goals by an informed and engaged citizenry. I hope they do, because the internet is a powerful force that could seriously democratize news by facilitating structured public spaces as well as invaluable links between journalists and private citizens seeking to cultivate an engaged public.
To quote another hero of mine, John Dewey:
UPDATE 1.3.2012: I wanted to make an additional point about Moyers' point that "the value of the press was predicated on the existence of the public, not the reverse."
I think that the idea of "the public" as opposed to "private citizens" deserves further clarification. As their is a profound difference between popular opinion (we can see the CTFP comment section as a kind of "poll" of the relative depth that racism is alive and well in our area) and public judgement, so too there is a difference between "the public" as related to just a group of people and "the public" as it exists in an organized society that is structured in such a way as to prioritize citizenship.
The book For Communities To Work makes this distinction very well:
One of my friends defended the CTFP decision, saying:
"I don't read the online TFP anymore for the same reason I don't watch Fox News or engage in conversation with my mechanic. It makes me mad. If your existence relies on me giving you money than you probably should heed my preference."I don't care to debate whether or not the CTFP decisions constitutes "censorship" or whether or not the decision was made because the reader comments made it more and more difficult for the Chamber of Commerce to deny that our city continues to foster a vicious and virulent stew of white supremacy. The questions I find most pertinent and compelling to examine is what is the role of the news in our society and what are the concomitant obligations and responsibilities of journalists to the greater good? According to my friend, the role of the CTFP is, in principle, to provide a product and as such it is subject to the law of supply & damand
One of my personal heroes, Bill Moyers, has this to say:
"In early America the printing press generated a body of popular knowledge. Towns were small, and taverns, inns, coffeehouses, street corners, and the public greens - the commons - were places where people gathered to discuss what they were reading... The public had no life, no social relationships, without news. The news was what activated conversation between strangers, and strangers were assumed to be capable of conversing about the news... the whole point of press was not so much to disseminate fact as to assemble people. The press furnished materials for argument - "information" in the narrow sense - but the value of the press was predicated on the existence of the public, not the reverse. The media's role was humble but serious, and that role was to take the public seriously."I do not believe that the Chattanooga Times Free Press's reason for existence should be to churn a profit. It should not simple serve as a bridge between advertisers and consumers. Managing Editor Allison Gerber admits as much when she candidly explains that the paper might actually lose revenue as a result of the decision to shut down the comment section, which she explicitly argues is a decision that represents the public's best interests. Putting aside the availability of any number of articles that pander to the local white supremacist constituency (who can forget the article on Obama possibly being a Muslim?), is the CTFP truthfully seeking to live up to its responsibility as our regions primary news organ and is it actually acting in the public's best interest? Is it taking seriously its role in shaping the opinions, attitudes and practices of private citizens and helping to facilitate their transformation into those of an earnest, informed and engaged public?
As a culture, we do not value media literacy, meaningful public deliberation on difficult issues or challenging discussion from a variety of voices and a range of opinions. We are more likely to encounter pundits, who know so little about so much, simply humiliating one another on live television. We are provided a public discussion reduced to a narrow spectrum of voices and ideas offered from the same sources again and again. So the CTFP comment section represents the bastard child of the dominant public dialogue.
The internet is the modern commons. More than anywhere else, the internet provides a level field in which many people from a variety of viewpoints and a diversity of cultures, backgrounds, experiences, traditions, etc. can come together and share ideas, discuss issues, present information and argue their points. More often that not, however, it tends towards the creation of a rumor-mill wrapped inside of an echo-chamber permeated in hate and buried in ignorance. So the flame-wars drone on and very little is accomplished outside of hours wasted in front of a computer.
If we are going to deal substantively with our long legacy of white supremacy, reactionary mob politics, or good old boy backroom politics, then we need a pubic that can deliberate collectively, at length, and in-depth on serious questions. The racist comments on the Chattanooga Times Free Press website represent one very ignorant and very entrenched side of popular opinion in this area. But there is a significant difference between popular opinion and public judgment. Popular opinion is what is gleamed through the consistent, obsessive bigoted comments left over and over by a certain group of individuals. Public judgment is much more reflective and results when individuals desire to seek the greater good through the art of making collective decisions, developing productive relationships, and working through differences to achieve common aims.
The decision by the CTFP to shut down the comment section was made out of concern for the hate, ignorance and reactionary politics shown to exist in popular opinion, but they have done nothing whatsoever to go the extra-step of attempting to create a public commons structured around the pursuit of common goals by an informed and engaged citizenry. I hope they do, because the internet is a powerful force that could seriously democratize news by facilitating structured public spaces as well as invaluable links between journalists and private citizens seeking to cultivate an engaged public.
To quote another hero of mine, John Dewey:
"The highest and most difficult kind of inquiry and a subtle, delicate, vivid and responsive art of communication must take possession of the physical machinery of transmission and circulation and breathe life into it. When the machine age has thus perfected its machinery, it will be means of life and not its despotic master. Democracy will come into its own, for democracy is a name for a life of free and enriching communion. It had its seer in Walt Whitman. It will have its consummation when free social inquiry is indissolubly wedded to the art of full and moving communication."
UPDATE 1.3.2012: I wanted to make an additional point about Moyers' point that "the value of the press was predicated on the existence of the public, not the reverse."
I think that the idea of "the public" as opposed to "private citizens" deserves further clarification. As their is a profound difference between popular opinion (we can see the CTFP comment section as a kind of "poll" of the relative depth that racism is alive and well in our area) and public judgement, so too there is a difference between "the public" as related to just a group of people and "the public" as it exists in an organized society that is structured in such a way as to prioritize citizenship.
The book For Communities To Work makes this distinction very well:
By a “public,” we at the foundation mean a diverse body of peopleThe Chattanooga Times Free Press, as an institution, should seek to serve citizens as public actors and agents for change in their communities, not as consumers, which is how my friend was conceiving of them in his remarks that they should "heed his preferences".
joined together in ever-changing alliances to make choices about
how to advance their common well-being. Communities must have
citizens who will take responsibility for what happens and who can
make sound decisions about their future. By an “engaged public,” we
mean a committed and interrelated citizenry rather than a persuaded
populace. There is an important difference between the two.
Members of an engaged public have decided among themselves on a
course of action and are political actors directly involved in making
changes; an engaged public owns its problems and its institutions. A
persuaded populace has been convinced by leaders to let them
implement certain programs. We found we had to make this distinction
because the term “public engagement” has been used to describe
a form of public relations aimed at gaining popular support for an
institution or a cause. Public engagement in community affairs is not
just a means of getting support for projects; it is an end in itself.