{"id":19790,"date":"2018-04-05T12:15:12","date_gmt":"2018-04-05T16:15:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=19790"},"modified":"2018-04-05T12:15:12","modified_gmt":"2018-04-05T16:15:12","slug":"sinclair-and-bezos-media-ownership-and-media-bias","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=19790","title":{"rendered":"Sinclair and Bezos: media ownership and media bias"},"content":{"rendered":"

These two stories ran on the same page of the print New York Times on April 2: “Sinclair Videos Renew Debate Over Media Ownership<\/a>” and “To Trump, It\u2019s the \u2018Amazon Washington Post.\u2019 To Its Editor, That\u2019s Baloney<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

Both articles are about possible bias in powerful, for-profit media companies. Donald Trump has opinions on each case. He thinks that Sinclair (which owns 193 local TV stations) is a “far superior” media company that is being smeared by liberals. But he suggests that the “Fake News Washington Post [is] being used as a lobbyist weapon against Congress to keep Politicians from looking into Amazon no-tax monopoly.”<\/p>\n

I start with the opposite assumptions: Sinclair is a creepy would-be monopolist, while the Washington Post<\/em>\u00a0holds power accountable. I’m no fan of Amazon, but I assume that Jeff Bezos’ investments in the Post<\/em> strengthen democracy by enabling the newspaper to do more investigative reporting. I see two threats to the First Amendment: Sinclair’s goal of owning more than 200 local TV stations, and a president–who sits atop a regulatory state–threatening the owner of a newspaper.<\/p>\n

But imagine that you admired Trump rather than despising him (as I do). You might then reverse the polarity. The biggest threat might seem to be\u00a0the billionaire with the national newspaper. You might be a little cynical when the Post<\/em>‘s executive editor, Martin Baron, says, “There isn\u2019t anybody here who is paid by Amazon … Not one penny.\u201d Technically true, but Bezos, who makes his money from Amazon, bought the Post\u00a0<\/em>for $250 million, and, “Buoyed by [these] new resources, it has added more than 200 newsroom employees.”<\/p>\n

I want to control corporate influence on politics, but when people point out that newspapers also influence politics, and they are corporations (or owned by corporations), I cry “First Amendment!” When Rupert Murdoch builds Fox News, I see a billionaire colonizing the public sphere, but when Bezos expands the Post<\/em>, I am grateful to him.<\/p>\n

It’s important to be principled, not arbitrary or reflexively partisan, in making such judgments.<\/p>\n

The economics are complex. You can make money selling news that you don’t agree with, or lose money by selling views you like. (Generations of owners of The New Republic<\/em> will testify to that.) There is evidence of media effects: news companies change public opinion. But consumers also choose which news to buy and thereby affect the production of news.<\/p>\n

The sociology is complex. Sinclair Broadcast Group is a publicly traded company that maximizes returns for its shareholders. It is also an organization with a CEO and other leaders who have leverage over the shareholders. And it employs reporters, who can be understood as members of a profession that is committed to the public good. It would be naive to ignore the corporate structure, but cynical to ignore the professionals. An anonymous anchor interviewed by Maxwell Strachan said<\/a>,<\/p>\n

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most of the people who are commenting on this have never even watched our local newscast. … They see that we\u2019re a Sinclair station. They assume what they want to assume about it. But we produce good news here. Sinclair does not tell us what to cover, who to talk to, or what to say in terms of local coverage. Our local news, it doesn\u2019t have bias. If people are looking for it, they won\u2019t find it. So don\u2019t call me a zombie. I do damn good work on a daily basis and anybody in my community would tell you that.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

Whether he is right or not, his point that many critics have never watched a Sinclair Station’s local newscast applies to me.<\/p>\n

Finally, the politics is complex. I have no doubt that Donald Trump is a terrible leader, but I choose to consume news that mostly reinforces that view, and I rarely delve deeply into the other side. We should make judgments and take a stand. Forming a judgment is not a form of bias. But we must recognize our fallibility.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, you can’t render appropriate judgments without taking a closer look at both the products of these companies (Are their stories any good?) and the detailed ways in which they work. I presume that the Post<\/em> has a strong firewall between its business operations and its newsroom, but that is an empirical assumption that can be tested. I find this kind of language in Sinclair’s employee handbook<\/a> disturbing: Sinclair “may monitor, intercept, and review, without further notice, every employee\u2019s activities using Company\u2019s electronic resources and communications systems.\u201d But I don’t know whether anything similar applies at the Post<\/em>.<\/p>\n

All of this plays out in a marketplace. We’d like journalists to have market power over their employers. But for newspaper reporters, the market is terrible:<\/p>\n