Book Review: The Death and Life of American Journalism: The Media Revolution that Will Begin the World Again
By Robert W. McChesney and John Nichols, Nation Books, Hardcover, 2010, 318 pages, $26.95
I often feel there is something vaguely narcissistic about journalists who report on journalism. It seems kind of redundant, like a book reviewer who reviews books about... being a book reviewer. However, when a work comes along that is as timely, well written, insightful and needed as "The Death and Life of American Journalism," narcissism and redundancy are the last words that come to mind.
Drawing on their combined experiences as scholars and reporters, Robert McChesney and John Nichols waste no time getting to the heart of their topic. "Investigative journalism is on the endangered species list." The metaphor is an apt one. As the authors show convincingly, American newspapers once as plentiful as bison are disappearing from the landscape at an alarming rate. Even worse, the few news outlets that remain have shriveled to emaciated skeletons of their former selves.
McChesney and Nichols do not mince words describing what they feel this means for our democracy. "Journalistic attention to all levels of governance has declined to a fraction of what was understood as necessary just a generation ago." The authors go on to conclude, "Now for the first time in American history, it is entirely plausible that we will not have even minimally sufficient resources dedicated to reporting and editing the news and distributing the information and informed analysis that citizens require."
In presenting the reasons for journalism's demise, McChesney and Nichols trot out all the usual suspects: shrinking ad revenue, consolidations and mergers, cost cutting and downsizing.
They also analyze the effects modern phenomena such as the Internet have had on traditional newspapers. Together, they do a superb job of forensics. However, unlike many of their contemporaries, McChesney and Nichols do not engage in much finger pointing. For them, it matters less who or what, if anything, is responsible for journalism's demise. The important thing is, without it, our entire system of government is in dire peril. In their words, a world without true investigative journalism, would be "a world where what passes for news is largely spin and self-interested propaganda..." Furthermore, it would be a world "that spawns cynicism, ignorance, demoralization, and apathy."
One of the more compelling features of "Death and Life" is the attention it pays to debunking newspaper mythology. For example, the authors present ample evidence that the current "constrained understanding" of the role government should play in maintaining a vibrant press in no way reflects the intent of the authors of our Constitution. "By his fifth annual address, President Washington came out for free postage for newspapers through the mail, and even Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton, hardly a proponent of government deficit, conceded that a huge subsidy was necessary to spawn a viable press." Thus, despite modern corporate spin, "freedom of the press" was never intended by the founders to mean the government should play no role in nurturing and maintaining a diversity of opinions.
McChesney and Nichols do an excellent job of reporting on and analyzing the crises that face our modern newspaper system. What separates this book from other polemics on the topic, however, can be traced to its practical tone. The book contains little in the way of nostalgia. The authors eschew whining about journalism's plight. Instead, the book spends several chapters examining possible solutions to the problem. Many of their suggestions are quite provocative. For example: "It's time to recognize that all the evidence available to us at this point leads inexorably to one conclusion: having anything remotely close to a satisfactory level of journalism will require a large public subsidy." Far from suggesting a TARP style "newspaper bailout," however, they instead propose a broad range of government support for journalism, including everything from a "News AmeriCorps" program to subsidies for nonprofit news outlets and even using tax breaks and credits to promote "Low-Profit Limited Liability Companies," (L3Cs) whose focus would be providing the community with journalism rather than producing dividends for corporate shareholders. The authors' repudiation of the current failing business model for newspapers, together with their exuberant willingness to explore new ideas, is both infectious and energizing.
"Death and Life" presents exactly the sort of reasoned, logical and thought-provoking dialog that we as a country must engage in, if we ever want to address the problem of a disappearing American journalism--a danger that was clear even to the Founding Fathers, as the authors point to in James Madison's 1822 quote: "A popular government without popular information or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy or perhaps both."
Happily McChesney and Nichols are not content merely to sit and watch the play unfold. Instead, they present an honest, heartfelt, and impassioned call to action, drawing inspiration from the words of British Parliamentarian Tony Benn: "Chaos and crisis produce change. The reason we must be more active in turbulent times, more serious and determined, is because we know that change is in the offing but that we must make it a good change."