Is Media Criticism Warranted?

James Cornelison
jc077713@ohio.edu
9/3 Makeup Blog

While there are going to be critics present in nearly any venue, a certain amount of grievances a public may have will be reflective of the culture. Most criticism may well indeed be mindless regurgitation of popular talking points that one has heard just as the reading suggests, but to an extent that is worth mentioning, media bashers have one leg for their opinions to stand on that is significant. Anyone being paid for their work has a certain obligation to their work. News media is a huge, barely quantifiable, multi-billion dollar industry. And the reason for that is because of the enormous influence and obligation they hold to the public.

For centuries people have understood what kinds of power are held by the voices of mass media. It has inspired idioms like the "fourth estate" and "fourth branch of government" and "the pen is mightier than the sword." Historically, tyrants and conquerors alike seek to control the flow of information because when you can control what the masses know, you can control what the masses think. It can be used to support an agenda without any consumer even realizing what is happening. Most of our greatest inventions and achievements have been in regards to media and mass communication: the Gutenberg Bible, the printing press, radio waves, and the internet.

It is for these reasons and potential influences that I would agree with some media bashers when they say that professionals in journalism should be held to a higher standard than some of our more labor-oriented counterparts. Sure there is money, corruption, special interest, bias, and misrepresentation in any and all industries. But few of them have quite as much of an obligation to the public as they do their employers and stockholders. In the U.S. Constitution, we have our First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and the press, however the document says nothing else about the media at all. Regardless of whether or not something is established as a privilege, a public utility, an expectation, a government program, or an ambition in the hands of private enterprise, the same ethical responsibility exists. The powers that control the media does not affect the power that media itself holds. 

It's impossible to please everyone and live up to high expectations. But just as the media is a watchdog for other powers, consumers should be a watchdog for the media. And a higher standard of objectivity and professionalism should persist, however futile, to give both a goal for media to reach, and a standard by which to measure the effectiveness of those who control our flow of information.