Third Way: How Money Influences The Media
Bloomberg / LEREXIS
For many, the Trump Presidency cast a dark shadow over the United States. During his four years in office and the campaigning before them, the current lame-duck ushered in an era of intense distrust, anger, and identitarianism. For news outlets, however, the Trump presidency has been a boon for ratings. Increased polarization has pushed cable news viewers towards either Fox News or CNN and MSNBC. "Digital native news" platforms, or those born on the internet, grew quickly in 2016 and then steadily as politics figured more into people's daily lives. From small blogs to mainstream news outlets, Trump has caused news traffic to skyrocket.
At first blush, that seems to be sanguine. Increased traffic means more people reading the news (or at least skimming it), which in turn means that the news media is fulfilling its role as an informer and political socializer. This is partly true, as the increase in political coverage has increased voter engagement according to a survey done by Pew Research Centre, a pollster. Nonetheless, increased traffic due to polarization carries with it far more damaging repercussions. It incentivizes the news media to publish more radical and incisive pieces to appeal to a certain ideological audience, increasing traffic and developing political echo chambers. This, as the recent storming of the capitol, has shown, is exceedingly dangerous. The incentive for news corporations now is to keep consumers happy rather than explicitly inform. Political echo chambers can also emerge from paywalls, which reserve more intellectually stimulating articles for subscribers. The commercial incentives to publish opinionated takes and use paywalls are contributing factors in the dilapidation of the American media ecosystem. News publishers need to change their financial schemas to avoid these partisan lures, but, ultimately, Americans need to be more acute about what they read.
It is undeniable that increased polarization and the rise of politics as entertainment have helped boost revenues for news corporations. In 2017, the "Trump Bump" shot up the use of news apps by 7 percentage points. The Trump Bump has remained steady throughout Trump's presidency, and is reflected in the increase of Americans who pay for online news, which increased by 6% in 2017 and has remained at stable 16% as of 2019. Both liberal and conservative news outlets have benefited from increased viewership, as distrust in mainstream media has pushed conservatives into right leaning news and increased liberals trust in the media itself. The New York Times is perhaps the newspaper which benefited the most from this, becoming profitable in 2019. As ad-revenue to declines the Times, with a bump from COVID-19 coverage, has accelerated its already rising digital subscription numbers.
Despite the increase in ratings, other United States newspapers have also experienced a decline advertisement revenue. This has driven papers to rely more on their readers for revenue. A reliance on readers changes the general strategy of the media from kowtowing to advertisers to playing towards readers. That explains an increase in opinion coverage, as readers spend more time reading opinion pieces over fact-oriented news. As readers seek catered coverage of issues, news outlets become further incentivized to appeal to the predilections of their viewership or risk losing their traffic to other more left or more right platforms. Losing subscribers is a serious threat for mainstream news outlets, who now have to compete with thousands of smaller ones. As Ezra Klein wrote in a Vox article, "the local business model was predicated on dominating coverage of a certain place; the national business model is about securing the loyalties of a certain kind of person."
The ongoing generational shift plays into who news outlets appeal to as well. Millennials are now the largest generation in the United States, making up the biggest share of the labour force and United States consumers. Being more liberal and more diverse than their predecessors, millennials prefer news that suits their left-leaning beliefs. Since millennials make up the majority of some outlet’s audience, mainstream media publishers feel compelled to move to the left in order to retain their readers. This gives millennial the power to direct the conversation played out in the media. It also puts millennials in opposition with the older, whiter electorate that Fox news caters towards. As the generational gravity gradually changes, conservative publishers like Fox will likely find their commercial viability waning, yet their continual soar in ratings indicates that this change will not come in the near future.
News publishers submitting to partisanship has potentially devastating repercussions on politics in the United States. A 2017 study by Gregory Martin of Emory and Ali Yurukogu of Stanford found that the political position of a cable news channel has a measurable effect on viewers. Only a slight increase in Fox news watch time pushes viewers ideology to the right, resulting in an increase in the Republican vote. In a Foreign Affairs article, Isabel Sawhill remarked that "should dark money or rising concentration in cable news programming further enhance this influence, control of the media could come to determine elections. Already the evidence suggests that the news media are largely responsible for the increasing polarization of the public." Ideologically driven news, in other words, could undermine democracy by exploiting and unfairly influencing viewers.
Number of news organisations that people regularly pay money to
Voter partisanship is also linked to a decreased exposure to alternate perspectives. Publishers that use paywalls contribute to this, as readers become less willing to pay for quality news if paywalls block them. The number of paywalls has jumped in recent years. The Times used to provide readers with 20 free articles, but now offers a measly five. According to a Nieman Labs report, in 2019, 76% of news publishers were putting most or nearly all of their content behind paywalls. As paywalls rise, interest in paying for them has remained low. Even the wealthy and highly educated, the group, which is the most likely to pay for news, is interested in only subscribing to one news publisher. Many cannot easily afford the $17 dollar a month fee of the Times and getting an adequate amount of news from a variety of perspectives would cost almost triple that amount. An even greater danger from paywalls comes from the type of material they block. More complex and intellectual takes in the news are behind paywalls, and while those that appeal to wonks in the field need subscription-based services to survive, larger companies, such as The Atlantic, are preventing citizens from digesting complex perspectives that sharpen their political knowledge. In a 2018 AFP article, journalism professor Damian Radcliffe and digital media analyst Rebecca Lieb spoke of a coming divide between those with access to quality news and those forced onto free news. Paywalls push readers to less factual news sites, where they can become mired in conspiracy theories or misinformation.
The power of increased partisanship, one which is deeply connected to news financing, is already on display in local news, where conservative operatives have outsourced news production to workers in the Philippines and AI which produce right wing articles. Although many quality news publishers fall center-left on the spectrum, they face steep competition from more polarizing publishers. The incentive to follow in their lead not only goes against the purpose of the media as an institution, but damages American democracy, as the media becomes a persuader rather than an informer.
Taking The Price Tags Off
There are some potential solutions to the commercial polarization of the media. One involves changing the way paywalls are customized, increasing reader engagement by providing free access to important and thoughtful political articles. This, of course, does not solve the paywall problem, but tempers the brain drain that comes from total exclusion by a quality news site. Another option sees the news media making the case for subscription clearer, lowering the price of the paywall while trying to make the news favorable to a broader population. In the past this solution would have fared better, but as was discussed above, appealing to a select audience is more profitable in the technological age than appealing to a wide range, making general news less marketable. This is also the reason why the progressive idea of radicalizing the news further is a barmy solution, as it continues to incentives media companies to turn rage into dollars rather than provide more complex, and boring, but truthful, pieces.
Out of all news publishers, one has managed to stay successful, keep readers engaged, and provide quality intellectual news all while being a non-profit. The leviathan that is NPR has cruised to popularity in the past decade, and there is good reason for their success. Most saliently, they provide quality news for free. Still, there is the issue of a partisan skew.
Above all, NPR's finances make them top tier among news outlets. As a non-profit membership organization, NPR relies heavily on donations from readers and dues from member stations around the country. These member stations actually produce lots of content for NPR, which itself is not a radio station, but distributes content to other local radio stations. A small part of their funding comes from federal funding, initiated by President Lyndon Johnson's creation of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in 1967. A more massive chunk of NPR financing comes from corporate sponsorships, which NPR journalists have no choice in selecting, therefore limiting conflicts of interest. NPR provides the list of their corporate sponsors in their annual report, being extremely transparent about where they get their funding. NPR also has wine clubs, coffee clubs, and other smaller sources of revenue that allow it to stay independent and survive as a non-profit.
NPR also dominates the news market in audio journalism, specifically podcasting. As of writing, six of NPR's podcasts are in the top 20 best podcasts (seven if you include RadioLab by New York Public Radio, which is a member station). "NPR News Now" is the second most listened to podcast behind the Times' flagship podcast, "the Daily", which provides more opinionated takes on the news. Other podcasts like Planet Money offer a broad swathe of stories while keeping listeners entertained and encouraging individual donations for NPR. The spread of individual NPR member stations is also a way of combatting the encroachment of those like Brian Timpone, who seek to polarize and turn a profit from local news, as federally funded local NPR stations provide quality reporting that NPR can distribute to its members.
That is not to say that all news should be replaced by NPR or NPR style outfits. Nor is it to claim that NPR has solved the problem of partisanship in the media. There is a glaring problem regarding NPR's perceived leftist bias, with conservatives have been railing against since the public broadcaster's conception. This is still a challenge for NPR, as the publisher does appeal to more Democrats and progressives than conservatives. A donation-based system also requires NPR to appeal to its listeners, meaning they also are pulled by the generational gravity towards the left. Yet even if some feel that a conservative opinion section should be added to NPR's diverse range of coverage, the public broadcaster still serves as a model for what good news can look like. It is fiercely transparent about its funding and easily accessible to listeners around the country, characteristics which should make it more trustworthy to Americans. NPR even went after the Times for problems of bias and transparency in the paper. Indeed, surveys conducted in 2012 found that those who listen to NPR over Fox or CNN were better informed about current events, showing that the public broadcaster has done what it should as a media outlet. Even though NPR has a political bias, it can be easily remedied by diversifying one's news diet to account for the ideological tugs that pull media publishers one way or another.
Undeniably the news has become an ideological force. Partisanship, driven by the need for revenue, has clear and obvious effects on voters, meaning the news responsibility of informing the public has become a whole lot more serious. As for-profit-news grows to dominant the media industry and turn a profit, it is the prerogative of readers to look for sources who have to appeal less to commercial interests and instead provide, as best they can, the facts and the truth. Above all, the best solution to commercially driven partisanship is becoming a tougher customer; seeking out news outlets that provide factually corroborated information and being critical of their political leanings. Combining NPR with a subscription to the Wall Street Journal, for instance, could provide a satisfactory feed of accurate news. This requires citizens to be picky about what they devote their attention to, and quality papers that seek to enlighten rather than earn to take down paywalls and restructure their financing. As the latter seems like a far distant goal, the only concrete option for readers is to be wary of what money drives the news they read.
