{"id":6864,"date":"2018-06-20T21:26:51","date_gmt":"2018-06-21T01:26:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.zephoria.org\/thoughts\/?p=6864"},"modified":"2018-07-21T21:30:29","modified_gmt":"2018-07-22T01:30:29","slug":"the-messy-fourth-estate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zephoria.org\/thoughts\/archives\/2018\/06\/20\/the-messy-fourth-estate.html","title":{"rendered":"The Messy Fourth Estate"},"content":{"rendered":"

(This post was originally posted on Medium<\/a>.)<\/em><\/p>\n

F<\/span>or the second time in a week, my<\/span>\u00a0phone buzzed with a\u00a0New York Times\u00a0<\/em>alert<\/span>, notifying me that another celebrity had died by suicide. My heart sank. I tuned into the\u00a0Crisis Text Line<\/a>\u00a0Slack channel to see how many people were waiting for a counselor\u2019s help. Volunteer crisis counselors were pouring in, but the queue kept growing.<\/p>\n

Celebrity suicides trigger people who are already on edge to wonder whether or not they too should seek death.<\/span>\u00a0Since the\u00a0Werther effect study<\/a>, in 1974, countless studies have conclusively and repeatedly shown that how the news media reports on suicide matters.\u00a0The World Health Organization has adetailed set of recommendations<\/a>\u00a0for journalists and news media organizations on how to\u00a0responsibly report<\/a>\u00a0on suicide so as to not trigger copycats.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>Yet in the past few years, few news organizations have bothered to abide by them, even as\u00a0recent data<\/a>\u00a0shows that the\u00a0<\/span>reporting on Robin Williams\u2019 death triggered an additional 10 percent increase in suicide and a 32 percent increase in people copying his method of death<\/span>.<\/span>\u00a0The recommendations aren\u2019t hard to follow\u200a\u2014\u200athey focus on how to convey important information without adding to the problem.<\/span><\/p>\n

Crisis counselors\u00a0at<\/span>\u00a0the Crisis Text Line are on the front lines. As a board member, I\u2019m\u00a0in awe<\/span>\u00a0of their commitment and their willingness to help those who desperately need support and can\u2019t find it anywhere else. But it pains me to watch as\u00a0elite media amplifiers make counselors\u2019 lives more difficult\u00a0<\/span>under the guise of<\/span>\u00a0reporting the news or entertaining the public.<\/span><\/p>\n

Through data,\u00a0<\/span>we can see the pain triggered by\u00a013 Reasons Why<\/em>\u00a0and the\u00a0New York Times<\/em><\/span>.<\/span>\u00a0We see\u00a0<\/span>how\u00a0<\/span>salacious<\/span>\u00a0reporting on method prompts people to consider that pathway of self-injury.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>Our volunteer counselors are desperately trying to keep people alive and get them help, while for-profit companies reap in dollars and clicks.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>If we\u2019re lucky, the outlets triggering unstable people write off their guilt by providing a link to our services, with no consideration of how much pain they\u2019ve caused or the costs we must endure.<\/span><\/p>\n

I want to believe in journalism. But my faith is\u00a0waning.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I want to believe in journalism. I want to believe in the\u00a0<\/span>idealized mandate of the fourth estate<\/span>.\u00a0<\/span>I want to trust that editors and journalists are doing their best to responsibly inform the public and help create a more perfect union.<\/span>But my faith is waning.<\/span><\/p>\n

Many Americans\u200a\u2014\u200aespecially conservative Americans\u200a\u2014\u200ado not\u00a0trust contemporary news organizations<\/a>.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>This \u201ccrisis\u201d is\u00a0<\/span>well-trod territory<\/span>, but\u00a0<\/span>the focus on fact-checking, media literacy, and business models tends to obscure three features of the contemporary information landscape that I think are poorly understood<\/span>:<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Differences in worldview are being weaponized to polarize society.<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. We cannot trust organizations, institutions, or professions when they\u2019re abstracted away from us.<\/span><\/li>\n
  3. Economic structures built on value extraction<\/span>\u00a0cannot enable healthy information ecosystems<\/span>.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Let me begin by apologizing for the heady article, but the issues that we\u2019re grappling with are too heady for a hot take. Please read this to challenge me, debate me, offer data to show that I\u2019m wrong.\u00a0I think we\u2019ve got an ugly fight in front of us, and\u00a0<\/span>I think we need to get more sophisticated about our thinking, especially in a world where foreign policy is being boiled down to 140 characters.<\/span><\/p>\n

    1.\u00a0<\/strong>Your Worldview Is Being Weaponized<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n

    I was a teenager when I showed up at a church wearing jeans and a T-shirt to see my friend perform in her choir.\u00a0The pastor told me that I was not welcome<\/span>because this was a house of God, and we must dress in a manner that honors Him.\u00a0<\/span>Not good at following rules, I responded flatly,\u00a0<\/span>\u201cGod made me naked. Should I strip now?\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>Needless to say, I did not get to see my friend sing.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Faith is an anchor for many people in the United States, but\u00a0<\/span>the norms that surround religious institutions are man-made, designed to help people make sense of the world in which we operate.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>Many religions encourage interrogation and questioning, but only within a well-established framework.<\/span>Children learn those boundaries, just as they learn what is acceptable in<\/span>secular<\/span>\u00a0society.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>They learn that talking about race is taboo and that questioning the existence of God may leave them\u00a0<\/span>ostracized<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Like many teenagers before and after me, I was obsessed with taboos and forbidden knowledge<\/span>. I sought out the music Tipper Gore hated, read the books my school banned, and tried to get answers to any question that made adults gasp.\u00a0Anonymously, I spent late nights engaged in conversations on Usenet, determined to push boundaries and make sense of adult\u00a0<\/span>hypocrisy<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Following a template learned in Model UN, I took on strong positions in order to debate and learn.\u00a0<\/span>Having already lost faith in the religious leaders in my community, I saw no reason to respect the dogma of any institution.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>And because I made a hobby out of proving teachers wrong, I had little patience for the so-called experts in my hometown.\u00a0<\/span>I was intellectually ravenous, but utterly impatient with, if not outright cruel to the adults around me.\u00a0<\/span>I rebelled against hierarchy and was determined to\u00a0<\/span>carve my own path<\/span>\u00a0at any cost.<\/span><\/p>\n

    I\u00a0<\/span>have an amazing amount of empathy for those who do not trust the institutions that elders have told them they must respect.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>Rage against the machine.<\/span>\u00a0We don\u2019t need no education, no thought control.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>I\u2019m also fully aware that you don\u2019t\u00a0<\/span>garner trust<\/span>\u00a0in institutions through coercion or rational discussion.\u00a0<\/span>Instead,\u00a0<\/span>trust often emerges from extreme situations.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Many people have a moment where they wake up and feel like the world doesn\u2019t really work like they once thought or like they were once told.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>That moment of\u00a0<\/span>cognitive reckoning<\/span>\u00a0is overwhelming. It can be triggered by any number of things\u200a\u2014\u200aa breakup, a death, depression, a humiliating experience.<\/span>Everything comes undone, and you feel like you\u2019re in the middle of a tornado, unable to find the ground.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>This is the basis of countless literary classics, the crux of humanity. But it\u2019s also a pivotal feature in how a society comes together to function<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Everyone needs solid ground, so that when your world has just been destabilized, what comes next matters.\u00a0<\/span>Who is the friend that picks you up and helps you put together the pieces?<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>What institution\u200a\u2014\u200aor its representatives\u200a\u2014\u200asteps in to help you organize your thinking?<\/span>\u00a0What information do you grab onto in order to make sense of your experiences?<\/span><\/p>\n

    Contemporary propaganda isn\u2019t\u00a0<\/span>about<\/span>\u00a0convincing someone to believe something, but\u00a0<\/span>convincing<\/span>\u00a0them to doubt what they think they\u00a0know.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    Countless organizations and movements exist to pick you up during your personal tornado and provide structure and a framework<\/span>.<\/span>\u00a0Take a look at how Alcoholics Anonymous works.\u00a0Other institutions and social bodies know how to trigger that instability and then help you find ground<\/span>.\u00a0<\/span>Check out the dynamics underpinning military basic training<\/span>.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>Organizations, movements, and institutions that can manipulate psychological tendencies toward a sociological end have significant power.\u00a0<\/span>Religious organizations, social movements, and educational institutions all play this role, whether or not they want to understand themselves as doing so<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Because there is power in defining a framework for people, there is good reason to be wary of any body that pulls people in when they are most vulnerable<\/span>.<\/span>\u00a0Of course, that power is not inherently\u00a0malevolent<\/span>.\u00a0There is fundamental goodness in providing structures to help those who are hurting make sense of the world around them.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>Where there be dragons is when these processes are weaponized, when these processes are designed to produce societal hatred alongside personal stability<\/span>.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>After all,\u00a0<\/span>one of\u00a0<\/span>the fastest ways to bond people and help them find purpose is to offer up an enemy.<\/span><\/p>\n

    And here\u2019s where we\u2019re in a sticky spot right now.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>Many large institutions\u200a\u2014\u200agovernment, the church, educational institutions, news organizations\u200a\u2014\u200aare brazenly asserting their moral authority\u00a0<\/span>without grappling with their own shit.<\/span>They\u2019re ignoring those among them who are using hate as a tool, and they\u2019re ignoring their own best practices and ethics, all to help feed a bottom line.<\/span>\u00a0Each of these institutions justifies itself by blaming someone or something to explain why they\u2019re not actually that powerful, why they\u2019re actually the victim.<\/span>\u00a0And so they\u2019re all poised to be weaponized in a cultural war rooted in how we stabilize American insecurity.<\/span>And if we\u2019re completely honest with ourselves,\u00a0<\/span>what we\u2019re really up against is how we collectively come to terms with a dying\u00a0<\/span>empir<\/span>e<\/span>.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>But that\u2019s a longer tangent.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Any teacher knows that it only takes a few students to completely disrupt a classroom<\/span>. Forest fires spark easily under certain conditions, and the ripple effects are huge.\u00a0<\/span>As a child, when I raged against everyone and everything, it was my mother who held me into the night. When I was a teenager chatting my nights away on Usenet, the two people who most memorably picked me up and helped me find stable ground were a deployed soldier and a transgender woman, both of whom held me as I asked insane questions. They absorbed the impact and showed me a different way of thinking.\u00a0<\/span>They taught me the power of strangers counseling someone in crisis.<\/span>\u00a0As a college freshman, when I was spinning out of control, a computer science professor kept me solid and taught me how profoundly important a true mentor could be.\u00a0<\/span>Everyone needs someone to hold them when their world spins, whether that person be a friend, family, mentor, or stranger.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Fifteen years ago, when parents and the news media were panicking about online bullying,\u00a0I saw a different risk.\u00a0<\/span>I saw countless kids crying out online in pain only to be ignored by those who preferred to prevent teachers from engaging with students online or to create laws punishing online bullies.<\/span>\u00a0We saw the suicides triggered as youth tried to make \u201cIt Gets Better\u201d videos to find community, only to be further harassed at school.<\/span>\u00a0We saw teens studying the acts of Columbine shooters, seeking out community among those with hateful agendas and relishing the power of lashing out at those they perceived to be benefiting at their expense.<\/span>\u00a0But it all just seemed like a peculiar online phenomenon, proof that the internet was cruel.\u00a0Too few of us tried to hold those youth who were unquestionably in pain.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Teens who are coming of age today are already ripe for instability.<\/span>\u00a0Their parents are stressed; even if they have jobs, nothing feels certain or stable.\u00a0There doesn\u2019t seem to be a path toward economic stability that doesn\u2019t involve college, but there doesn\u2019t seem to be a path toward college that doesn\u2019t involve mind-bending debt<\/span>.<\/span>\u00a0Opioids seem like a reasonable way to numb the pain in far too many communities.\u00a0<\/span>School doesn\u2019t seem like a safe place, so teenagers look around and whisper among friends about who they believe to be the most likely shooter in their community<\/span>.<\/span>\u00a0As\u00a0Stephanie Georgopulos notes<\/a>,\u00a0the idea that any institution can offer security seems like a farce.<\/span><\/p>\n

    When I look around at who\u2019s \u201cholding\u201d these youth, I can\u2019t help but notice the presence of people with a hateful agenda.<\/span>\u00a0And they terrify me, in no small part because I remember an earlier incarnation.<\/span><\/p>\n

    In 1995, when I was trying to make sense of my sexuality, I turned to various online forums and asked a lot of idiotic questions.<\/span>\u00a0I was adopted by the aforementioned transgender woman and numerous other folks who heard me out, gave me pointers, and helped me think through what I felt.<\/span>\u00a0In 2001, when I tried to figure out what the next generation did, I realized that<\/span>struggling youth were more likely to encounter a Christian gay \u201cconversion therapy\u201d group than a supportive queer peer.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>Queer folks were sick of being attacked by anti-LGBT groups, and so they had created safe spaces on private mailing lists that were hard for lost queer youth to find.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>And so it was that in their darkest hours, these youth were getting picked up by those with a hurtful agenda<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Teens who are trying to make sense of social issues aren\u2019t finding progressive activists. They\u2019re finding the so-called alt-right.<\/span><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    Fast-forward 15 years, and\u00a0<\/span>teens who are trying to make sense of social issues aren\u2019t finding progressive activists willing to pick them up. They\u2019re finding the so-called alt-right<\/span>.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>I can\u2019t tell you how many youth we\u2019ve seen asking questions like I asked being rejected by people identifying with progressive social movements, only to find camaraderie among hate groups<\/span>.\u00a0<\/span>What\u2019s most striking is how many people with extreme ideas are willing to spend time engaging with folks who are in the tornado.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Spend time reading the comments below the YouTube videos of youth struggling to make sense of the world around them. You\u2019ll quickly find comments by people who spend time in the manosphere or subscribe to white supremacist thinking.\u00a0They are diving in and talking to these youth, offering a framework to make sense of the world, one rooted in deeply hateful ideas.<\/span>These self-fashioned self-help actors are grooming people to see that their pain and confusion isn\u2019t their fault, but the fault of feminists, immigrants, people of color<\/span>. They\u2019re helping them believe that the institutions they already distrust\u200a\u2014\u200athe news media, Hollywood, government, school, even the church\u200a\u2014\u200aare actually working to oppress them.<\/p>\n

    Most people who encounter these ideas won\u2019t embrace them, but some will. Still, even those who don\u2019t will never let go of the doubt that has been instilled in the institutions around them.\u00a0It just takes a spark.<\/span><\/p>\n

    So how do we collectively make sense of the world around us?<\/span>\u00a0There isn\u2019t one universal way of thinking, but\u00a0e<\/span>ven the act of constructing knowledge is becoming polarized<\/span>. Responding to the uproar in the news media over \u201calternative facts,\u201d\u00a0Cory Doctorow noted<\/a>:<\/p>\n

    We\u2019re not living through a crisis about what is true, we\u2019re living through a crisis about how we\u00a0<\/span>know<\/span>\u00a0whether something is true.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>We\u2019re not disagreeing about facts, we\u2019re disagreeing about epistemology<\/span>.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>The \u201cestablishment\u201d version of epistemology is,\u00a0<\/span>\u201cWe use evidence to arrive at the truth, vetted by independent verification (but trust us when we tell you that it\u2019s all been independently verified by people who were properly skeptical and not the bosom buddies of the people they were supposed to be fact-checking).<\/span>\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    The \u201calternative facts\u201d epistemological method goes like this: \u201c<\/span>The \u2018independent\u2019 experts who were supposed to be verifying the \u2018evidence-based\u2019 truth were actually in bed with the people they were supposed to be fact-checking.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>In the end, it\u2019s all a matter of faith, then<\/span>: you either have faith that \u2018their\u2019 experts are being truthful, or you have faith that we are.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>Ask your gut, what version feels more truthful?\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    Doctorow creates these oppositional positions to make a point<\/span>\u00a0and to highlight that\u00a0<\/span>there is a war over epistemology<\/span>, or the way in which we produce knowledge.<\/span><\/p>\n

    The reality is much messier, because what\u2019s at stake isn\u2019t simply about resolving two competing worldviews.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>Rather,\u00a0<\/span>what\u2019s at stake is\u00a0<\/span>how\u00a0<\/span>there is no universal way of knowing, and\u00a0<\/span>we have reached a stage in our political climate where\u00a0<\/span>there is more power in seeding doubt, destabilizing knowledge, and encouraging others to distrust other systems of knowledge production<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Contemporary propaganda isn\u2019t about convincing someone to believe something, but convincing them to doubt what they think they know<\/span>.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>And<\/span>once people\u2019s assumptions have come undone, who is going to pick them up and help them create a coherent worldview?<\/span><\/p>\n

    2. You Can\u2019t Trust Abstractions<\/strong><\/h3>\n

    Deeply committed to democratic governance,\u00a0<\/span>George Washington believed that\u00a0<\/span>a representative government could only work if the public knew their representatives<\/span>.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>As a result,\u00a0our Constitution st<\/a><\/span>ates<\/a>\u00a0that\u00a0<\/span>each member of the House should represent no more than 30,000 constituents<\/span>.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>When we stopped adding additional representatives to the House in 1913 (frozen at 435), each member represented roughly 225,000 constituents.<\/span>\u00a0Today, the ratio of congresspeople to constituents is more than 700,000:1<\/span>.\u00a0<\/span>Most people will never meet their representative, and few feel as though Washington truly represents their interests.\u00a0<\/span>The democracy that we have is representational only in ideal, not in practice.<\/span><\/p>\n

    As our Founding Fathers knew,\u00a0<\/span>it\u2019s hard to trust an institution when it feels inaccessible and abstract<\/span>.<\/span>\u00a0All around us,\u00a0<\/span>institutions are increasingly\u00a0<\/span>divorced from the community in which they operate<\/span>, with often devastating costs.<\/span>Thanks to new models of law enforcement, police officers don\u2019t typically come from the community they serve.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>In many poor communities, teachers also don\u2019t come from the community in which they teach.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>The volunteer U.S. military hardly draws from all communities, and those who don\u2019t know a solider are less likely to trust or respect the military.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Journalism can only function as the fourth estate when it serves as a tool to voice the concerns of the people and to inform those people of the issues that matter<\/span>.<\/span>\u00a0Throughout the 20th century, communities of color\u00a0challenged mainstream media\u2019s limitations<\/a>\u00a0and highlighted that few newsrooms represented the diverse backgrounds of their audiences.<\/span>\u00a0As such, we saw the rise of ethnic media and a challenge to newsrooms to be smarter about their coverage. But let\u2019s be real\u200a\u2014\u200aeven as news organizations articulate a commitment to the concerns of everyone,\u00a0<\/span>newsrooms have done\u00a0a dreadful job<\/a>\u00a0of becoming more representative<\/span>.\u00a0Over the past decade, we\u2019ve seen racial justice activists challenge newsrooms for their failure to cover Ferguson, Standing Rock, and other stories that affect communities of color.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Meanwhile,\u00a0<\/span>local journalism has nearly died<\/span>.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>The success of\u00a0<\/span>local journalism<\/span>didn\u2019t just matter because those media outlets reported the news, but because it meant that many\u00a0<\/span>more people were likely to know journalists<\/span>.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>It\u2019s easier to trust an institution when it has a human face that you know and respect.<\/span>\u00a0And<\/span>as fewer and fewer people know journalists, they trust the institution less and less<\/span>.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>Meanwhile, the rise of social media, blogging, and new forms of talk radio has meant that countless individuals have stepped in to cover issues not being covered by mainstream news, often using a style and voice that is quite unlike that deployed by mainstream news media.<\/span><\/p>\n

    We\u2019ve also seen the rise of celebrity news hosts. These hosts help push the boundaries of\u00a0parasocial interactions<\/a>, allowing the audience to feel deep affinity toward these individuals, as though they are true friends.<\/span>\u00a0Tabloid papers have long capitalized on people\u2019s desire to feel close to celebrities by helping people feel like they know the royal family or the Kardashians.\u00a0Talking heads capitalize on this, in no small part by how they communicate with their audiences.\u00a0<\/span>So, when people watch Rachel Maddow or listen to Alex Jones, they feel more connected to the message than they would when reading a news article.<\/span>\u00a0They begin to trust these people as though they are neighbors. They\u00a0feel<\/em>\u00a0real.<\/span><\/p>\n

    No amount of drop-in journalism will make up for the loss of journalists within the fabric of local communities.<\/span><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    People want to be informed, but\u00a0<\/span>who they trust to inform them is rooted in social networks, not institutions<\/span>.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>The trust of institutions stems from trust in people<\/span>.<\/span>\u00a0The loss of the local paper means a loss of trusted journalists and a connection to the practices of the newsroom. As always,\u00a0<\/span>people turn to their social networks to get information, but what flows through those social networks is less and less likely to be mainstream news.\u00a0<\/span>But here\u2019s where you also get an epistemological divide<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

    As\u00a0Francesca Tripodi points out<\/a>, many conservative Christians have developed a media literacy practice that emphasizes the \u201coriginal\u201d text rather than an intermediary<\/span>.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>Tripodi points out that\u00a0<\/span>the same type of scriptural inference that Christians apply in Bible study is often also applied to reading the Constitution, tax reform bills, and Google results<\/span>.<\/span>\u00a0This approach is radically different than the approach others take when they rely on intermediaries to interpret news for them.<\/span><\/p>\n

    As the institutional construction of news media becomes more and more proximately divorced from the vast majority of people in the United States, we can and should expect trust in news to decline.\u00a0<\/span>No amount of fact-checking will make up for a widespread feeling that coverage is biased.<\/span>\u00a0No amount of articulated ethical commitments will make up for the feeling that you are being fed clickbait headlines<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

    No amount of drop-in journalism will make up for the loss of journalists within the fabric of local communities.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>And while the population who believes that CNN and the\u00a0New York Times<\/em>\u00a0are \u201cfake news\u201d are not demographically representative,\u00a0<\/span>the questionable tactics that news organizations use are bound to increase distrust among those who still have faith in them.<\/span><\/p>\n

    3.\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>The Fourth Estate and Financialization Are Incompatible<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n

    If you\u2019re still with me at this point, you\u2019re probably deeply invested in scholarship or journalism.<\/span>\u00a0And, unless you\u2019re one of my friends, you\u2019re probably bursting at the seams to tell me that the reason journalism is all screwed up is because the internet screwed news media\u2019s business model.\u00a0So I want to ask a favor: Quiet that voice in your head, take a deep breath, and let me offer an alternative perspective.<\/span><\/p>\n

    There are many types of capitalism. After all, the only thing that defines capitalism is\u00a0<\/span>the private control of industry<\/span>\u00a0(as opposed to government control).\u00a0<\/span>Most Americans have been socialized into believing that all forms of capitalism are inherently\u00a0<\/span>good<\/span>\u00a0(which, by the way,\u00a0was a propaganda project<\/a>)<\/span>.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>But\u00a0<\/span>few are encouraged to untangle the different types of capitalism and different dynamics that unfold depending on which structure is operating<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

    I grew up in mom-and-pop America, where many people dreamed of becoming small business owners. The model was simple:\u00a0Go to the bank and get a loan to open a store or a company. Pay back that loan at a reasonable interest rate\u200a\u2014\u200aknowing that the bank was making money\u200a\u2014\u200auntil eventually you owned the company outright.<\/span>\u00a0Build up assets, grow your company, and create something of value that you could pass on to your children.<\/p>\n

    In the 1980s, franchises became all the rage. Wannabe entrepreneurs saw a less risky path to owning their own business. Rather than having to figure it out alone,\u00a0<\/span>you could open a franchise with a known brand and a clear process for running the business. In return, you had to pay some overhead to the parent company<\/span>. Sure, there were rules to follow and you could only buy supplies from known suppliers and you didn\u2019t actually have full control, but it kinda felt like you did.\u00a0<\/span>Like\u00a0being an Uber driver<\/a>, it was the illusion of entrepreneurship that was so appealing<\/span>.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>And most new franchise owners didn\u2019t know any better, nor were they able to read the writing on the wall when the water all around them started boiling their froggy self.<\/span>\u00a0I watched my mother nearly drown, and the scars are still visible all over her body.<\/span><\/p>\n

    I will never forget the U.S. Savings & Loan crisis, not because I understood it, but because it was when I first realized that my Richard Scarry impression of how banks worked was way wrong.\u00a0Only\u00a0<\/span>two decades later did I learn to see<\/span>the\u00a0<\/span>FIRE industries (Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate) as extractive ones<\/span>.<\/span>They aren\u2019t there to help mom-and-pop companies build responsible businesses, but to extract value from their naivet\u00e9<\/span>.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>Like today\u2019s post-college youth are learning, l<\/span>oans aren\u2019t there to help you be smart, but to bend your will.<\/span><\/p>\n

    It doesn\u2019t take a quasi-documentary to realize that<\/span>McDonald\u2019s is not a fast-food franchise; it\u2019s a real estate business that uses a franchise structure to extract capital from naive entrepreneurs<\/span>.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>Go talk to a wannabe restaurant owner in New York City and ask them what it takes to start a business these days.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>You can\u2019t even get a bank loan or lease in 2018 without significant investor backing, which means that the system isn\u2019t set up for you to build a business and pay back the bank, pay a reasonable rent, and develop a valuable asset.<\/span>You are simply a pawn in a financialized game between your investors, the real estate companies, the insurance companies, and the bank, all of which want to extract as much value from your effort as possible.\u00a0<\/span>You\u2019re just another brick in the wall.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Now let\u2019s look at the local news ecosystem.\u00a0<\/span>Starting in the 1980s, savvy investors realized that many local newspapers owned prime real estate in the center of key towns.\u00a0<\/span>These prized assets would make for great condos and office rentals. Throughout the country, local news shops started getting eaten up by private equity and hedge funds\u200a\u2014\u200aor consolidated by organizations controlled by the same forces.\u00a0<\/span>Media conglomerates sold off their newsrooms as they felt increased pressure to increase profits quarter over quarter.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Building a sustainable news business was hard enough when the news had a wealthy patron who valued the goals of the enterprise.\u00a0<\/span>But the finance industry doesn\u2019t care about sustaining the news business; it wants a return on investment<\/span>.<\/span>\u00a0And\u00a0<\/span>the extractive financiers who targeted the news business weren\u2019t looking to keep the news alive.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>They wanted to extract as much value from those business as possible<\/span>.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>Taking a page out of McDonald\u2019s, they forced the newsrooms to sell their real estate.\u00a0<\/span>Often, news organizations had to rent from new landlords who wanted obscene sums, often forcing them to move out of their buildings.\u00a0<\/span>News outlets were forced to reduce staff, reproduce more junk content, sell more ads, and find countless ways to cut costs. Of course the news suffered\u200a\u2014\u200athe goal was to push news outlets into bankruptcy or sell, especially if the companies had pensions or other costs that couldn\u2019t be excised<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Yes, the fragmentation of the advertising industry due to the internet hastened this process. And let\u2019s also be clear that\u00a0<\/span>business models in the news business have\u00a0never been clean<\/a>.\u00a0<\/span>But\u00a0<\/span>no amount\u00a0<\/span>of innovative new business models will make up for the fact that you can\u2019t sustain responsible journalism within a business structure that requires newsrooms to make more money quarter over quarter to appease investors.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>This does not mean that you can\u2019t build a sustainable news<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>business, but if the news is beholden to investors trying to extract value, it\u2019s going\u00a0<\/span>to impossible<\/span>.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>And\u00a0<\/span>if news companies have no assets to rely on (such as their now-sol<\/span>d real estate), they are fundamentally unstable and likely to engage in unhealthy business practices out of economic desperation<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Untangling our country from this current version of capitalism is going to be as difficult as curbing our addiction to fossil fuels<\/span>.<\/span>\u00a0I\u2019m not sure it can be done, but\u00a0<\/span>as long as we look at companies and blame their business models without looking at the infrastructure in which they are embedded, we won\u2019t even begin taking the first steps<\/span>.<\/span>\u00a0Fundamentally, both the\u00a0New York Times<\/em>\u00a0and Facebook are public companies, beholden to investors and desperate to increase their market cap. Employees in both organizations believe themselves to be doing something important for society.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Of course, journalists don\u2019t get paid well, while Facebook\u2019s employees can easily threaten to walk out if the stock doesn\u2019t keep rising, since they\u2019re also investors. But\u00a0we also need to recognize that the vast majority of Americans have a stake in the stock market. Pension plans, endowments, and retirement plans all depend on stocks going up\u200a\u2014\u200aand those public companies depend on big investors investing in them.\u00a0<\/span>Financial managers don\u2019t invest in news organizations that are happy to be stable break-even businesses<\/span>.<\/span>\u00a0Heck, even Facebook is in deep trouble if it can\u2019t continue to increase ROI, whether through attracting new customers (advertisers and users), increasing revenue per user, or diversifying its businesses.\u00a0At some point, it too will get desperate, because\u00a0<\/span>no business can increase ROI forever.<\/span><\/p>\n

    ROI capitalism isn\u2019t the only version of capitalism out there.\u00a0<\/span>We take it for granted and tacitly accept its weaknesses by creating binaries, as though the only alternative is Cold War Soviet Union\u2013styled communism.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>We\u2019re all frogs in an ocean that\u2019s quickly getting warmer. Two degrees will affect a lot more than oceanfront properties.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Reclaiming Trust<\/strong><\/h3>\n

    In my mind, we have a hard road ahead of us if we actually want to rebuild trust in American society and its key institutions (which, TBH, I\u2019m not sure is everyone\u2019s goal).\u00a0There are three key higher-order next steps, all of which are at the scale of the New Deal<\/span>.<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Create a sustainable business structure for information intermediaries (like news organizations) that allows them to be profitable without the pressure of ROI.<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0<\/span>In the case of local journalism, this could involve\u00a0<\/span>subsidized rent<\/span>, restrictions on types of investors or takeovers, or a smartly structured double bottom-line model.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>But the focus should be on\u00a0<\/span>strategically building news organizations as a national project to meet the needs of the fourth estate<\/span>.\u00a0<\/span>It means\u00a0<\/span>moving away from a journalism model that is built on\u00a0<\/span>competition for scarce resources (ads, attention) to one that\u2019s incentivized by societal benefit<\/span>s.<\/span><\/li>\n
    2. Actively and strategically rebuild the social networks of America.<\/strong><\/span>Create programs beyond the military that incentivize people from different walks of life to come together and achieve something great for this country<\/span>.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>This could be connected to job training programs or rooted in community service, but\u00a0<\/span>it cannot be done through the government alone or, perhaps, at all<\/span>.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>We need the private sector, religious organizations, and educational institutions to come together and commit to designing programs that knit together America while also providing the tools of opportunity.<\/span><\/li>\n
    3. Find new ways of holding those who are struggling.<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0<\/span>We don\u2019t have a social safety net in America<\/span>.<\/span>\u00a0For many, the church provides the only accessible net when folks are lost and struggling, but we need a lot more.<\/span>We need to work together to build networks that can catch people when they\u2019re falling.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>We\u2019ve relied on volunteer labor for a long time in this domain\u2014women, churches, volunteer civic organizations\u2014but our current social configuration makes this extraordinarily difficult<\/span>.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>We\u2019re in the middle of an opiate crisis for a reason. We need to think smartly about how these structures or networks can be built and sustained so that we can collectively reach out to those who are falling through the cracks.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      Fundamentally, we need to stop triggering one another because we\u2019re facing our own perceived pain.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>T<\/span>his means\u00a0<\/span>we need to build large-scale cultural resilience<\/span>.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>While we may be teaching our children \u201csocial-emotional learning\u201d<\/span>in the classroom, we also need to start taking responsibility at scale.<\/span>Individually, we need to step back and empathize with others\u2019 worldviews and reach out to support those who are struggling.<\/span>\u00a0But our institutions also have important work to do.<\/span><\/p>\n

      At the end of the day,\u00a0<\/span>if journalistic ethics means anything<\/span>,\u00a0<\/span>newsrooms cannot justify creating spectacle out of their reporting on suicide or other topics just because they feel pressure to create clicks<\/span>.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>T<\/span>hey have the privilege of choosing what to amplify, and they should focus on what is beneficial<\/span>.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>If they can\u2019t operate by those values, they don\u2019t deserve our trust.<\/span>\u00a0While I strongly believe that\u00a0<\/span>technology companies have a lot of important work to do to be socially beneficial,<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>I hold news organizations to a higher standard because of their own articulated commitments and expectations that they serve as the fourth estate<\/span>.\u00a0<\/span>And if they can\u2019t operationalize ethical practices, I fear the society that must be knitted together to self-govern is bound to fragment even further.<\/span><\/p>\n

      Trust cannot be demanded.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>It\u2019s only earned by being there at critical junctures when people are in crisis and need help<\/span>.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>You don\u2019t earn trust when things are going well;\u00a0<\/span>you earn trust by being a rock during a tornado<\/span>.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>The winds are blowing really hard right now.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>Look around.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>Who is helping us find solid ground?<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      (This post was originally posted on Medium.) For the second time in a week, my\u00a0phone buzzed with a\u00a0New York Times\u00a0alert, notifying me that another celebrity had died by suicide. My heart sank. I tuned into the\u00a0Crisis Text Line\u00a0Slack channel to see how many people were waiting for a counselor\u2019s help. Volunteer crisis counselors were pouring […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[312],"class_list":["post-6864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zephoria.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zephoria.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zephoria.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zephoria.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zephoria.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6864"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.zephoria.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6864\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6865,"href":"https:\/\/www.zephoria.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6864\/revisions\/6865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zephoria.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zephoria.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zephoria.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}