When Walter
Lippmann wrote his seminal work Public
Opinion, the world had just
of out of World War 1, what some considered to be the war to
end all wars. The printed
come newspapers was the predominant source of information in
the world and the information
was largely controlled by the information that journalist
could obtain through various, yet limited
sources. Fast forward 90 plus years to 2014, society has
seen a massive growth in social media
and a rise in citizen journalism through blogs and other
social media. This trend, while questions
arise of the quality and reliability of the information, has
been important in the nature of news
and the availability to citizens. The nature of news has
become more democratic in the last 100
years.
Walter Lippmann
(2012) quoted, “All the reporters working all the hours of the day could
not witness all the happenings in the world” (Lippmann,
2012, p. 257). In a July 10, 2014 report
by Pew Research Journalism Project (accessed 9/23/14) noted
1592 journalist cover the 50 state
houses in the United States and of those 1592, only 741 are
full time. During the survey period
from 2003-2014 there was a decline of 35% or over 160
full-time journalist covering state
house. For the purpose of the Pew survey state house
reporters “are defined as those physically
assigned to the capitol building to cover the news there
from legislative activity to the governor’s
office to individual state agencies” (accessed online
9/23/14). The significance of these statistics
is in the effect that having less full-time reports has on
the nature of the news and the coverage
available; less coverage at a state level, leaves more information
in the hands of select few who
can control what is reported. However, the greater concern
is the quality and depth of the
reporting (accessed 9/24/14).
There is a second important point to be made
about the nature of news and that is: what
is news and what is news worthy? A dilemma faced by news
editors today, but on less of a scale
than in 1921 because common citizens have taken matters into
their own hands and drive what is
newsworthy. The availability of social and digital media contribute
wholly to this paradigm shift.
Lippmann (2012) noted, “The point is that before a series of
events become news they
have usually to make themselves noticeable in some more or
less overt act. Generally too, in a
crudely overt act” (258). A perfect example of this news
making comes from the recent wave of
NFL domestic violence cases that have been in the news in
2014 and the corresponding news
coverage and fall out that has ensued.
In February
2014, Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice was alleged to be involved
in an altercation with his then fiancée Janay Palmer in an
elevator in Atlantic City, NJ (since that
altercation, Rice and Palmer have been married and both have
spoken on this issue in the public).
As the NFL and the Baltimore Ravens become aware of the
story, both organizations decide to
allow due process run its course and let all the facts
become known before leveling punishment
on Rice. There was a sentiment of public outrage at how the league
and the Ravens handled the
situation. Advocates against domestic violence made there
push in the media, common citizens
concerned with domestic violence, corporate sponsors made
their opinions known. By
September, the league and the team were forced to admit
mistakes and suspend Rice indefinably
and release him from the team respectively.
How this
situation differs from similar reporting from 20 or 30 years ago is the extent
with which the news spreads and the access people have to
news. In 1921, newspapers were the
primary source of news, and by the time a story was reported
and the paper delivered, at least a
day had passed. Digital media has reshaped the nature of
news and the news making and
reporting paradigm.
George
Brock in his 2013 book Out of Print:
Newspapers, Journalism and the Business
of News in the Digital
Age, describes the current state of journalism.
“News and
journalism are in the midst of an upheaval. These changes, which have begun but are certainly not finished,
force assumptions and practices to be rethought form first
principles.
Journalists find themselves at an inflection point. The internet [sic] is not
simply a
new publishing system, allowing faster, wider distribution of material
assembled
and edited
as it has always been. The changes wrought by digital technology are
transformative
and not adoptive: they require journalism to be rethought. In different
societies
these changes will work through in
different ways and at varying speeds. But
the overall
direction is plain: old habits of though and behavior have to be remade for the
new
conditions” (p. 3).
Lippmann recognized that only the elite few held the power
to media and could drive public
opinion. Editors of newspapers at that time had to use the
best source information possible to
gather information that may become a story in their papers.
Agencies like the Associated Press or
Reuters News Service acted as agents for papers having
people in prominent locales to gather
news; Lippmann (2012) called these people “watchers (p.
257).
With the
advent of the Internet, news services still play a large role in stories that
are
printed, but a new and true wave of democracy has taken
over; a rekindling of social capital. No
longer is the specialization of journalism school a
requirement to be a reporter. The average
citizen with access to Facebook, blogs, Twitter, and a host
of other social media mediums are the
news makers and creators. It was the public-at-large that
drove the Ray Rice story; it was
bloggers who led to the resignation of Senator Trent Lott as
majority leader in 2002 over
comments made during the 100th birthday
celebration of colleague Senator Strom Thurmond that
had hints of racism. It was three lawyers from prestigious private
practices who had an interest in
public affairs and writing, who created a blog and
ultimately played a significant role in Dan
Rather’s resignation from the CBS Nightly News. These
stories did not take shape until the
common public, “someone [who could] protest, somebody
investigates, or somebody publicly
…makes an issue of them.” (Lippmann, 2012, p. 261). This is
not someone from the major
newspapers or the major television networks, but someone
with the ability to research through
the Internet and use personally created mediums (e.g. blogs)
to drive the story.
It is these
examples that Lippmann (2012) would argue were missing from the elite and
centralized control of information and that control that
drove public opinion. Consequently,
Lippmann knew the answer, whether he knew his prophecy, his
“picture in his head” would be
reality. “The audience must participate in the news, much as
it participates in the drama, by
personal identification (p. 269).
The late
1990s began a revolution in the nature of the news paradigm. The Internet is
largely to thank for that. Consequently, where we go from
here is hard to tell. But the time when
newspapers and the elite could manipulate public opinion is
slowly being eroded by a more
informed, more willing private citizen.
