I include a section on the media in my critical thinking class and have, over the years, pointed out the ever-increasing media consolidation. One of the major consolidators is Sinclair Broadcasting Group, which own almost 200 local stations and is poised to expand this ownership. One obvious concern about media consolidation is that, by definition, it puts more and more control of the news into fewer and fewer hands. This reduces the options of news consumers and increases the chances of biases dominating the news. This should, obviously enough, concern people on the left on the right—there is no monopoly on bias or media ownership by the left or the right.
It might be objected that consolidation is not necessarily a bad thing, and, in fact, it has some benefits. For example, a large corporation can fund investigative journalism in a way that small operations cannot. As far as the concerns about consolidation, it could be claimed that this is only a problem when companies use their control in nefarious ways, something they surely would not do because of, perhaps, the free market. The easy and obvious reply is to point out what critics of the “liberal media” have been saying for years about the bias in media. This bias is, obviously enough, not limited to the left-wing media, as demonstrated by Sinclair’s heavy-handed, Russian style exercise in compelling local anchors to read a script denouncing their fellow journalists.
Deadspin created a video collage of the anchors reading from their script for the corporation, which would have been hilarious if it were a parody and not reality. While some have attacked the stations and anchors that participated (not all of them did), this is clearly unfair. If the anchors believed what they read, then they should not be condemned for being “cowards.” If the anchors did not believe what they read, they should no more be condemned than should hostages forced to read the propaganda of their captors. While Sinclair did not threaten to fire a gun at the employees if they did not comply, there is the clear threat of being fired for not doing what the owners say. While some might still call them cowards for not risking their jobs to take a principled stand, this is a great deal to expect from a person in the economic system we live in. While they obviously would not be killed, being out of work is seriously harmful in the United States. Naturally, anyone who criticizes them as cowards should give serious thought to whether they would risk their job to take such a stand. It can, of course, be claimed that the employees were really not at risk of any reprisals and that the worries of the workers are based on delusions. However, the evidence seems to show that many of the anchors felt compelled to read the script. I turn now to the matter of compelled speech.
The subject of compelled speech has figured prominently in some recent court cases. One involves the baker who has argued that being forced to bake a wedding cake for a same-sex couple would be compelled speech. Another features a compelled speech argument against compelling employees to pay fees to unions offset the costs of representation. In these cases, the general argument is that the right to free speech includes the right against compelled speech and thus forcing the baker to bake the cake or the employee to pay fees would be wrong. If this argument has merit, it would also seem to apply to the Sinclair case: forcing employees to engage in compelled speech by reading the script would be wrong.
The easy and obvious counter to this is to point out that the 1st Amendment forbids Congress from making any law abridging the freedom of speech. It says nothing about employers restricting, punishing or compelling their employees regarding speech. Workers, to paraphrase Oliver Wendell Holmes, do have a constitutional right to talk politics, but no such right to keep their job. As such, Sinclair compelling its workers to speak seems to be perfectly legal. Sinclair is not unique in this—companies do compel workers to engage in partisan political activities and, ironically, do so under the protection of their own free speech rights. There are also those who claim that this practice of compelled speech is standard in the industry, insisting that what Sinclair did was no big deal, because what about CNN and MSNBC? The fact that it is legal does not, of course, entail that it should remain legal. After all, discrimination and sexual harassment by employers used to be not be illegal, but now are. As such, laws could be created protecting employees from compelled speech. However, there would need to be a compelling reason for such laws.
One obvious argument can be built around the professional ethics of journalists and editorialists. Journalists, as the Sinclair script notes, should not be pushing a biased agenda or engaging in false news. They should, of course, be presenting the truth and making it clear where the facts end, and opinion begins. If an employer compels a journalist to advance a biased agenda or present fake news, then this would be a violation of professional ethics.
While editorialists are in the business of presenting opinions, they are supposed to present their honest opinions and make it clear where their opinion ends and the opinion of another begins. As such, compelling them to express views that are not their own would also be a violation of professional ethics. Compelling journalists and editorialists in this manner would be somewhat analogous to the owner of a hospital compelling doctors to lie to patients, so they could make more money with unnecessary treatments. Both are clear violations of professional ethics.
One might object that as paid employees, they are obligated to speak as their employer requires. If they do not like the work they do, they can quit. The easy and obvious reply is that there is already a job whose professional ethics requires that the employee do just that: the paid spokesperson. If a media employee is to be compelled to speak, they must be properly identified as paid spokespeople and not wear the false mantle of being a journalist or editorialist.
There are legitimate concerns with how laws to protect professionals from compelled speech would be crafted and some might claim that this would be too hard or too harmful to employers. However, protecting professional ethics and preserving the moral right against compelled speech is no harder than crafting other laws and balancing harms. It must also be noted that such laws would need to be narrowly written to protect employees from certain types of compelled speech while avoiding harming the legitimate interests of employers. Since corporations are incredibly devoted to free speech rights, their moral principles should compel them to get on board with protecting the free speech rights of the people who work for them. To do otherwise would be inconsistent and hypocritical. Unless, of course, corporations are a better sort of people than real people.
Somewhere, Ted Baxter is smiling.
I guess I am missing the point. The problem is that news readers were forced to do advertisements for their stations? How is this different from NPR hosts talking about how great NPR is and asking you to donate?
I would put the anchors in the same category as TJB – they’re not journalists exercising their right to express their thoughts and opinions, they are “news readers”, hired for their good looks and apparent credibility (or, as so many are wont to criticize Fox, their sex appeal).
Comparing this to the baker is not an accurate analogy – it would be more correct if it referred to a Christian employeeof a baker, who refused to do his employers bidding. He might have a civil case against his employer for discrimination, but as an at-will employee, it would be a very difficult case to make. The owner of the bakery is the object of reprisal from the government.
If this were truly a compelled speech issue worthy of First Amendment scrutiny, it would have to be that Sinclair and/or other news outlets were being compelled by the government to say, or refrain from saying, specific things. If they wish to collude with each other and promote similar ideologies with the exact same wording, they are free to do so. And I can watch Fox, and you can watch NPR, and we can all hear what we want to hear.
The second episode of “Black Mirror” is a fairly extreme (and rather trite, IMO) example of this.
You write that journalists should not be pushing a biased agenda, but that is unavoidable given that a biased agenda is built in to the business model of all ad supported media, a bias for drama. Drama is used to build audience, and the size of the audience determines the ad revenue.
This bias for drama has troubling real world consequences. As example, every time there is a terrorist attack any where in the world no matter how small the terrorists receive millions to billions of dollars worth of free advertising for their cause. The media gets the drama they need to build ad revenue, and the terrorists get tons of free advertising. This is the partnership which fuels terror and keeps it going.
The media report on these events as if they are objective outside observers, when really they are key players in the terror event. Without the media and their need for drama there would be dramatically fewer terror events, and dramatically fewer victims.
Donald Trump is president because he is a ruthless business man from New York city, the media capital of the world. From that experience he understands that media is not a public service, but is instead a corporate enterprise whose bottom line goal is generating profits. Trump feeds the media the drama they need to grow their profits, and they reward him with round the clock coverage of his every thought. Even liberal leaning outlets like NPR played the game, with every other story being about Trump since he began to run for office.
We have Donald Trump in our life for the same reason we have terrorists. The media bias for drama.
Here’s a great example. Do you remember the preacher in Florida who threatened to burn the Koran? His church was less than a mile from my house. He was a complete absolute nobody who made his living selling used furniture on eBay. His church had less than 50 members. And he received international news coverage. Here’s why. He understood the game. He provided the drama, and the media rewarded him by making him famous.
I have to go now. I’m going to go burn the phone book on my front lawn while wearing a clown costume. Look for me on the evening news!
I would reply that good journalism is not inconsistent with having a for-profit news system. But, if you are right and it is not, that would seem to be a clear condemnation of the for-profit news system. At least for those who value truth.
Truth is relative. Media bias can be consistent with honest journalism – I have no doubt that both NPR and FOX believe, to at least some extent, that they are presenting the truth in an honest, unbiased way. I’m certain that both the NRA and the anti-gun lobby believe that they are telling the truth, as are those who report on their activities.
I don’t know how many times, in how many ways I can say this – but it is up to us to look at both sides objectively and be very careful before believing what we see, hear, or read. You have said it yourself – that in order to think critically we have to ask the tough questions – i.e, “what are some other possible motives for that story, or that opinion, or that point of view?
And you have said this too – that just because a news program or publication is motivated by profits does not in any way prove or even indicate that it is wrong, or that it is lying. I would say that there is an equal, if not greater probability that a news source that stems from the government is agenda driven and less than completely true. Do we not roll our eyes with great suspicion when Sara Sanders gets up in front of a microphone? What’s she hiding? Why has she chosen those words?
According to research by Tali Sharot (a neuroscientist) and others, we tend to respond more positively to emotion rather than reason. I’ve posted this before – it’s why a single image of a bleeding African American youth lying on the sidewalk will garner more support for gun control than hundreds of pages of shooting statistics will do for the NRA. We also tend to regard statistics in support of our cause as being more true that statistics that contradict us – even in the face of a kind of inverse validity. And finally, the more we inherently trust a source – regardless of whether or not that source warrants our trust – the more we are inclined to believe it. Trump supporters, therefore, will be more inclined to take Sara Sanders’ words as being more true than those who don’t support Trump – and the opposite was true when it was Josh Earnest.
The for-profit news system is not to be revered or condemned as much as it is to be understood,and taken at face value. Individual reportage is not to be believed or disbelieved, but taken as part of an entirety, and understood within that context. And, maybe most important, it is vital to know that just because a for profit system is known to be biased, that does not in any way mean that a non-profit news system is any less so. Armed with that knowledge, and committing ourselves to critical thinking, we may be able to glean a little truth from all the facts.
Since making my earlier post, I dug around and found the text of this “forced speech”. Talk about a completely overblown non-issue! It’s an AD PIECE. “Here at [our station] we are proud of the work we do”.
News shows depend on ratings, and one way to get ratings is to advertise, and that’s what they were doing. I listen to talk radio on both sides, and on almost every show on any given station, the host will read an ad piece from one of their sponsors, in tacit endorsement of the product. Are they “forced” to do this? Only to the extent that as an on-air personality it is part of their job, and they are paid for it.
Every single line of the text is absolutely true – and what it does NOT do is name names.
“some media outlets publish these same fake stories… stories that just aren’t true, without checking facts first.
Do we dispute that? Does that not happen on both sides? Did they specifically “call out” their competition?
“At KOMO it’s our responsibility to pursue and report the truth. We understand Truth is neither politically ‘left nor right.’ Our commitment to factual reporting is the foundation of our credibility, now more than ever.
But we are human and sometimes our reporting might fall short. If you believe our coverage is unfair please reach out to us by going to KOMOnews.com and clicking on CONTENT CONCERNS. We value your comments. We will respond back to you..
OMG – now THAT is a TRUE threat to free speech! Imagine – actually inviting your audience to contact you if they believe your coverage falls short of the ideals they promise!
Here’s the full text of the ad.
Nor is the fact that all those who are making a big deal of this are saying the same thing about it. What’s that about? If the left-wing had any cojones at all, they’d listen to the broadcasts and present well-thought-out, cogent, valid arguments as to why and how the stories that are presented fall short of the ideals, and contact management as they have been invited. But that probably takes too long – it’s easier to spread innuendo and misleading headlines on Facebook (wait … isn’t that part of the problem?)
In 2004, my wife and I were in the market for a new car. We decided that we wanted to get a Ford Escape Hybrid, for reasons that don’t really matter here. We went to a Ford dealer, and the salesman talked us out of the hybrid, making a series of very reasonable points. As careful shoppers, we decided to see what they had to say at another dealership.
Surprisingly (at the time, but not now), the salesman said the EXACT SAME THING. It was an obvious script. He made the same points, in the same order, saying the words as though they were his own. It was a company line, handed down from the top to all the dealers, because there isn’t as much profit in a hybrid as there is in a gasoline engine.
I’ve read many articles about this issue, and they almost all spout the same thing – that it’s a “conservative leaning” network, it’s a “Trump-supported” network, it’s “spouting what we hear from Trump” blah blah blah. But the text could be used, word-for-word, without a single change, on ANY station ANYWHERE no matter WHAT the political bent is.
My favorite article is here:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/sinclair-executives-quietly-apologize-to-anchors-from-that-infamous-video
One anchor said, “There is no remorse from the corporate leaders who will continue peddling their politics and quest for profits by any means necessary.”
Sorry, pal. That’s called “Capitalism”. When you are an employee, you support your employer. When have you ever heard a McDonald’s burger flipper say that – “There is no remorse from the corporate leaders who will continue to peddle fat-laden poison for their quest for profits …” unless they are on the way out the door. No, they are eager to be chosen to stand in front of a camera in their brightly colored uniforms, saying, “You deserve a break today!”
My first reaction was a bit of outrage. That Deadspin video is creepily Orwellian.
Then I looked into it.
Employers sometimes being corporations is irrelevant here. The mention of corporations is nothing more than a red herring. Exactly the same mechanism would be in play in the case of someone working for an individual. If Saul Goodman, Esq. hires a junior associate and tells him to introduce an ad spot with “… and here’s the legallest eagle in Albuquerque”, we have the same situation, as far as compelled speech goes. All references to “corporations”, from the title to the last sentence, should be replaced with “employers”.
As DH has already pointed out, there is no constitutional issue, since the government is not compelling the speech, and employees can walk away any time. However, as you pointed out, this can impose a significant cost on the individual.
Compelled speech is very common in nomal employments. It is not confined to professional spokespeople. Many, probably most, salespeople are required to work from a script, certainly on cold calls and response lines. The scripting for customer service and technical support people can be quite complex, and must be followed precisely. Receptionists, hotel staff, aircraft pilots and flight attendants, even police are required to say certain things under certain conditions while working. It is widely understood that speaking for the employer is a part of many jobs, and such cases are not generally considered an infringement of free speech, even in the non-governmental context.
While the Deadspin video was very well presented, similar videos could be made of cops Mirandising arrestees, technical support talking customers through diagnostics, cabin staff demonstrating lifejackets, pilots welcoming passengers, and so on, which could look equally creepy and Orwellian with enough production. It is a very professional emotional appeal, but has nothing substantive to say about compelled speech.
Do news anchors act as journalists, or as spokespeople in the US? Some of both, I think. They do deliver promotional messages for their stations, and no doubt some are more journalists than others. The scene from “Broadcast News” flashed through my mind: “I say it here, and it comes out there” as the anchor repeats what he hears in his earpiece. I tracked down the actual message. There is no political content. There are two phrases that might be considered to be denouncements, but I consider that characterisation a stetch: “some media outlets publish these same fake stories… stories that just aren’t true, without checking facts first” and “some members of the media use their platforms to push their own personal bias and agenda to control ‘exactly what people think’”, followed by a contact point to communicate any concerns the viewers might have with their own content. This feels more like talking down the competition in a promo spot than denouncing colleagues.
The general question of whether and under exactly what conditions the state should use its coercive power to punish employers who require their employees to engage in specific speech, or to avoid saying specific things, as part of their employment is complicated by the wide variety of jobs people accept. Requiring specific religious or political speech would often be considered unreasonable, but not in the case of a church congregation hiring a pastor, or a congressional campaign hiring fundraisers.
And then we have the question of specific wording as against general message. It’s certainly easier to lampoon multiple instances of a specific speech, but it is just as much compelled speech to assign, say, a CNN reporter to dig up some dirt for talking points in a hit piece on a Trump appointee, even if the wording of the message is delegated to the individual.
The setting of broad editorial and political policy by large news organisations is a concern, but this is an example of advertising rather than policy, and is well inside the norms for speaking on behalf of an employer.
Submitted for your consideration:
I’ll leave it to college professors and such to find the reference. I do wish to call attention to the first word, the subject as it were. These things really are not that hard to understand. The damn thing wasn’t written in Greek, FFS. And yet the same argument keeps coming up, over and over and over again. Any thoughts on why this might be?
Well, Mike pointed it out in the post, DH pointed it out, I pointed it out, and now you’re pointing it out. I don’t think it has been overlooked.
Mike typed the words. Mike has been typing those words for over a decade now. That doesn’t mean squat. It’s just typing. The so-called intellectual twists and distorts or totally ignores the meaning of the words to pretend that the words don’t mean what they mean. As I said, they ain’t in Greek. Why is this so hard? Yes, rhetorical question which I now have to answer…because certain people do not respect the meaning of words. So let me ask in this context, any thoughts on why this might be?
Already made that point right in the post.
The fact that it is legal does not, of course, entail that it should remain legal.
Please explain then, what is your point? It’s the First Amendment in the Constitution. By the very nature of a “Constitution” the only way you make such a thing illegal would be to repeal the First Amendment. You contort and obfuscate this issue every couple of months or so. Sometimes its of the “Corporations are not people so they don’t have rights” variety. But it’s always something. The amendment is right there in very clear English. Do you propose repealing it or not? Yes or no. Don’t just type a bunch of words and run away from their meaning. I mean, of course you can, but don’t expect to be taken seriously as a “philosopher” or thinker. Nor as a teacher. Actually, I don’t really care what you would/should expect either except that as per usual, my point boils down to this…
You are entitled to your political beliefs, you are entitled to say any damn thing you wish and I for one will defend your…well, not to the death for you…not gonna die on your hill…maybe for someone else…but I will come close….just that death is asking too much…of me….for you….;)… right to express them. But you make your living on the taxpayer dime, supposedly as a critical thinker.
As someone else here once said (my parentheticals) I would contend that you know damn well what you are doing…. Your sin(s), your lie(s), is/are of omission – and you know you have an audience (of students) willing to be convinced. This you have no right to. Specifically, you have no right to politicize in such a manner that exposes your obvious, unfettered bias and still expect to hold a job, employed by taxpayers.
Were someone to do a hit job on public education, especially in the non-STEM areas, taking a similar approach, the same kind of cheap shots, as Deadspin did, you’d be crying foul yourself.
Sooo….First Amendment, keep it or throw it out? What’s it gonna be?
Mike’s point is not about the First Amendment though. I got so caught up in the wrongness of identifying corporations with employers that I didn’t distill it out clearly either.
Mike’s question, as I read it, is this: We consider compelled speech bad enough that we forbid the government to compel or suppress speech. Why don’t we also forbid employers to compel or suppress speech? It is a coherent question. I don’t think it’s terribly cogent, but it is clear.
I’m sure others could give a better answer, but my quick take is:
1. We forbid the government to compel or suppress speech primarily because we want to limit the power of government, which vastly exceeds that which any private employer can have. An employer’s power to compel is limited by the ability of employees to change jobs.
2. Employees speak for their employers all the time, in many contexts, not just as formal presenters or spokespeople. Every employee talking to a customer or vendor is, with greater or lesser authority, speaking for the employer. Every supervisor directing a team internally is speaking for the employer. Since the employees are speaking for the employer, the employer must be able to direct what is said on their behalf. Indeed, even government receptionists are directed how to answer calls, police are directed what to say in certain situations, and so on.
Mike’s point is not about the First Amendment though. I got so caught up in the wrongness of identifying corporations with employers that I didn’t distill it out clearly either.
You know, I did the same…sort of. I was starting from there to eventually drive to the point I will make below. What happened was I started on the post, got interrupted with real work, and lost my intermediate point. I had planned to kind of troll my way to it but at this point, I’m sure it would get ignored anyway…so…
Mike’s question, as I read it, is this: We consider compelled speech bad enough that we forbid the government to compel or suppress speech. Why don’t we also forbid employers to compel or suppress speech? It is a coherent question. I don’t think it’s terribly cogent, but it is clear.
What I planned to drive to is how exactly would forbidding employers from doing so work? The employer has no power, such as the state has, to compel someone against their will to do something. People do quit jobs, though most with similar morals never take such jobs in the first place, because an employer is asking them to do something to which they object. These “newsreaders” as we are calling them can go work somewhere else if they don’t like it. Or they can refuse to go on the air and actually read this. I haven’t followed this nonsense closely enough but have ANY of these Sinclair employees objected to doing so? Without even so much as an objection from the Sinclair employees themselves, this whole argument is itself even more wrong than what Sinclair has done. Who is Mike or anyone else to compel the Sinclair employees to object to doing their jobs? It’s all nonsense on stilts.
But more so to where I was planning to go with this…In what way does the government forbid employers from telling their employees how to do their jobs without stomping on the First Amendment rights, amongst others, of the employers. Obviously there are some restrictions on what an employer can demand of an employee but those all have compelling legal ramifications. You can’t tell an employee to break an existing law, for instance. But even more to the point here, how does Sinclair even make its statements without the employees who are paid to talk for them do that talking. You are effectively walking on the First Amendment rights of the corporation. But of course that brings us back to how Mike refuses to accept that corporations have any rights whatsoever. It’s his base argument in these discussions that comes up every couple months, someone here (less often me these days, thanks to you and DH) points out the illogic, Mike either pretends to kind-of agree or pretends not to notice the objection, a couple months go by and it’s the same damn argument all over again.
Coffee Time – Love the reference! Just finished Season 3 of “Better Call Saul”, it inspired me to watch “Breaking Bad” again. I met Michael Slovis a few years ago, he told me that the best part about that show (Breaking Bad) was that it was an entirely moral show – everyone in the show at some point got what they deserved.
Very true. I loved the story of the brothers. One of the great modern TV series that merits rewatching!
WTP, the Reply link to you doesn’t work for me, so sorry to post this out of line.
Mike either pretends to kind-of agree or pretends not to notice the objection, a couple months go by and it’s the same damn argument all over again.
My theory is this.
Some people get the feeling “This is bad. Somebody should Do Something about it.”
Now, when I say “some people” I am exposing the poverty of human language and the thinking beneath it. What I actually mean is that there is a human response that leads to the feeling “This is bad. Somebody should Do Something about it” and all or almost all humans get it, but some more frequently and more strongly than others. Doubtless the variation could be traced back to a combination of genetics and culture if we knew enough.
Anyway, I take that as simply an observed behavioural response in humans. We can’t help it. It’s in our nature, like eating or sexual preferences.
It certainly has led to many improvements in the quality of human life. However, the impulse is unthinking, like hunger or desire. It leads to a feeling of indignation or outrage, but not easily to critical thinking or planning. It always leads to a wish for change, but without an equal motivation to work out the implementation and implications of that change. In fact, there is negative motivation to discover data or work out implications, because those might contradict the initial belief and cause unpleasant cognitive dissonance.
People who get these feelings a lot, who are bothered by them, can easily talk or write about them. That’s a low-effort response. It explains a lot of Twitter! Perhaps it scratches the itch for some.
When I become dictator of the world, I will enact a free speech policy that declares that anyone is free to complain about anything, so long as they publicly archive data supporting their claim, detailed specifications for the laws and actions required, and an impact statement laying out all effects of the law or action. Of course, others can file opposing briefs with equal detail. If I keep the website to do all this slick enough, perhaps they won’t notice that I’ve retired to Tahiti and am not doing any actual dictating.
But enough daydreaming. Until the happy day when people are required to investigate complaints before making them and take responsibility for defending the measures they propose, we will continue this back and forth of A saying “that’s bad” and B responding “maybe, but look at the alternatives, which are worse”. It does at least provide a cheap form of entertainment, and sometimes does lead to good changes.