This Week: The First Rough Draft of History

"Quote" of the Week: Less spending means fewer jobs.

The Year's Top News Stories

Looking Back On Today: What are the Big Themes?

Greetings,

Wisconsin. Libya. Japan. I'm not talking about any of these things this week. But my plan for the next issue or three is to scan recent news and point out some of the more interesting, useful, or bizarre items that have been seen there. I've got a pile of clippings that have been piling up while I talked about The Commons, Deficits, and this week's thoughts on how to organize the news itself. Big items, long articles.

Coming up: Small items, short articles. Fun!

See ya soon,

Nygaard

"Quote" of the Week

In a story about secret "gotcha" videos and public broadcasting in the NY Times of March 12,
a spokeswoman for Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, the Republican majority leader uttered this nonsense:

"Congressman Cantor has been working to find ways to cut spending so that people can go back to work."

For the record: Less spending means fewer jobs.

The Year's Top News Stories

At the end of every year we hear about the selection of The Year's Top News Stories. Looking at the 2010 selections, I got to thinking about the nature of the Top Stories and how they get to be on the list.

The most well-known list of The Year's Top News Stories (TYTNS) is probably the Associated Press. Their list of TYTNS for 2010 looks like this:

#1 was the Gulf Oil Disaster, followed in order by Health Care, the US Elections, the US Economy, the Haiti Earthquake, the Tea Party Movement; the Chile Mine Rescue, Iraq, Wikileaks, and Afghanistan. Top runners-up were "Arizona's enactment of a tough law against illegal immigration, the European fiscal crisis, a Supreme Court ruling freeing corporations and unions to fund election ads targeting candidates, floods in Pakistan that affected 20 million people, and the volcanic eruption in Iceland that caused trans-Atlantic air travel chaos."

That's not a bad list—better than the average year, I think. Yet there's a lot wrong with it and, as I considered what it was that I thought was wrong with it, I began to consider how we could take an entirely different approach to the news, one that would result in a better list, and at the same time might show the way to the development of a more useful news system. Those of us who are trying to help build such a system are always interested in that!

The First Rough Draft of History

People often say that journalism is "the first rough draft of history." If that's true, then what would future historians think if they focused on this list of TYTNS for 2010? Was the Chile Mine Rescue a history-changing event? I don't think so, although it was no doubt widely followed. And what of some major stories that don't appear in the Top Ten, or on the list of runners-up? Stories like Climate Change, and Inequality, and Civil Liberties, and our declining Social Health?

It's clear that The Year's Top News Stories are selected somewhat arbitrarily (by vote of the members of the Associated Press), but it seems like the inclusion decision boil down to ratings, or more broadly the overall "popularity" of the stories. Put crudely, a top story is one that "sells papers," which is another way of saying that a story's elevation to "top story" status is determined, in large part, by The Market.

There must be a better way to make a list of The Year's Top News Stories. Doncha think?

What if we were to design a media system that consciously chose to define The Year's Top News Stories by considering how effectively they help us understand the history that we are in the process of making? The next article explores this idea.

Looking Back On Today: What are the Big Themes?

I've just suggested that the selection of The Year's Top News Stories is largely determined by The Market. Such selections happen after the fact—that is, at the end of the year in which the stories appeared. But the before-the-fact decisions about what gets into the news cycle in the first place are also heavily influenced by The Market. This dynamic contributes to a high level of ignorance among U.S. news "consumers," and for a simple reason: The news items that draw the largest numbers of viewers—and thus draw advertisers, and thus become eligible for "top story" status—are not necessarily the news items that best help us understand our world. This is hardly a controversial point, and the failure to address it says much about the priorities of those who run our media system. Or, rather, it says much about the system itself, and the priorities that it mindlessly enforces in the service of profit.

What if we were to choose our Top Stories—and not just after the fact, but also before we went out to cover them—by taking a different approach entirely? What if we were to project ourselves into the future and imagine that we were historians looking back on the media of today? What would historians of the future consider today's Top Stories?

If I were such a historian, I would start by trying to see some major themes. Looked at in this way, I think that a story would be judged to be a "Top Story" to the degree that it illuminated the themes that a future historian of the United States might consider to be the major themes of the era. Imagine a history book about the early 21st Century. What Big Themes might merit their own chapters? A few chapters in the (well-written) histories of the future might include:

* Inequality and Resource Allocation
* The Decline of the U.S. Empire
* The State of U.S. Democracy
* Climate Change/Humans and the Environment
* The Evolving State of Capitalism
* Social Health

These "chapters" can also be thought of as the "beats" which reporters are assigned to cover in an ongoing way. Corporate news organizations typically have a "City Hall Beat," and a "Sports Beat," and a "Business Beat," and a few others. What if we had an "Inequality Beat" and an "Empire Beat," and a "Social Health Beat"? Which stories on each beat would our reporters best track down to compose the "first rough drafts of history," the 2010 and 2011 versions?

1.
Inequality and Resource Allocation: An understanding of how a society divides up its wealth is fundamental to understanding that society. As we write this chapter of our future history, we would look for stories that tell us how the wealthiest country in the world is dividing up its wealth, and why. We would report on the winners and the losers, and how they got to be winners and losers. We would report on how the society's leaders and institutions are responding to these issues.

How has current reporting been doing in this area? There have been numerous stories reported in the corporate media that have shed light on this issue, including reports on municipal, state, and federal budget deficits and the political responses to them. However, if we had a "Resource Allocation Beat" reporter, he or she would have been regularly reporting on the activities of labor unions and other ways that non-millionaires in this country have organized themselves to claim a fair share of the nation's wealth. If such reporting were the norm, the recent uprising in Wisconsin would be much less surprising to people. And, come to think of it, if such reporting were the norm, the general awareness of growing inequality would be more widely shared and the uprising might well be even bigger than it already is!

2.
The Decline of the U.S. Empire: The period that began after World War II has been called The American Century. That's because the U.S. emerged after WWII as one of the world's SuperPowers, and became The World's Only Superpower—or what some have called a "Hyperpower"—after the fall of the other superpower, the USSR. Is The American Century ending? Our Empire Beat reporter would be looking to answer that question.

There has been scanty coverage of the decline of the Empire in the corporate press. The issue is more openly debated elsewhere.

The historian Alfred McCoy, in a December 5th article on the website TomDispatch, writes that "If Washington is dreaming of 2040 or 2050 as the end of the American Century, a more realistic assessment of domestic and global trends suggests that in 2025, just 15 years from now, it could all be over except for the shouting." McCoy is hardly the only analyst who speaks of the decline of the American Empire. When framed in this way, are there stories in the mass media that help us understand a) whether there is an Empire; b) whether it is declining or not, and c) what might be coming next? I think there are.

As I wrote back in Nygaard Notes #444, "today's Empire relies on a general acceptance of, if not the legitimacy of the Imperial Order, at least the inevitability of that order." The decreasing acceptance of that legitimacy is revealed in many news stories, from the rise of rival economic powers, to the movement away from the dollar as the world's reserve currency, to the increasing rejection of "The American Consensus" in Latin America. The declining importance of the nation-state and the increasing importance of a trans-national class of global elites can be seen, beneath layers of confusing misconceptions, in stories of the privatization and corporatization of traditionally-public spaces.

The March 14th issue of TIME Magazine featured a debate on its cover. On one side was "Yes, America Is in Decline." On the other side was "No, America is Still No. 1." Never mind that both could be true (that is, "America" could still be "No. 1" and could also be in decline). At least they're considering that the era of the U.S. Hyperpower may be over. If only TIME had a reporter assigned to the Empire Beat...

3.
The State of U.S. Democracy: While the corporate media often focuses on democracy, it typically limits its investigations to elections and other "official" means of having input into the institutions of governance. The outrage that has marked the response to recent attempts to eliminate labor union bargaining and other powers is testament to the awareness among the general public that democracy is more than elections. A Democracy Beat reporter would look for stories that show the myriad ways in which democracy in this country is being strengthened, and the ways in which it is being weakened.

Some stories that illuminate this theme did appear on the AP "Top Stories" list, such as "U.S. Elections," and the runner-up story about the Supreme Court rulings about corporate money in political campaigns. But there are other important stories in this realm that did not appear on the AP list, including stories about the erosion of, and attacks on, long-standing rights such as privacy rights and freedom of association. Current attacks on unions and organizing rights in Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio and elsewhere would also fall to the reporter on the "Democracy Beat."

Other stories that deserve attention here, and that have been under-reported in the corporate press, would be stories having to do with secret surveillance, ongoing torture and abuse in Guantanamo and elsewhere, and the numerous developments in the Global War on Terror as it plays out domestically in policing and "security" policies.

I'm really dreaming now, but a Democracy Beat reporter in my newsroom would also be assigned to cover social and political trends like movement building, grassroots organizing initiatives, resistance and protest, and solidarity activities. Wisconsin, anyone?

4.
Climate Change/Humans and the Environment: Whether human-induced or part of the natural cycle of climate, things are changing, and changing fast. Climate change was mentioned in many news stories in 2010. But the fact that this was not a "Top Story" in 2010 is as damning an indictment of the corporate media as one could imagine.

5.
The Evolving State of Capitalism: Here's another beat where we would find coverage of the uprising in Wisconsin. Actually, here is where we would have already found a lot of coverage of the various factors that explain what is happening in Wisconsin. Things like the decades-long decline in average wage levels, corporate bailouts, and the relationship between corporate profits and the loss of jobs. Longer-term trends, such as the increasing financialization of our economy and the increasing share of the economy that is made up of consumption (instead of production), are things that sometimes get mentioned in the media but are poorly explained. Yet these are the sorts of things that make a society unstable. Economic crisis... Egypt... Tunisia... The Capitalism Beat reporter is on it!

I would also assign to my Capitalism Beat reporter stories that illuminate the ongoing loss of The Commons, the subject of several recent Nygaard Notes issues. Stories about privatization and the de-funding of public services would be covered here, as well as developments in trademark and copyright law, and Internet Neutrality.

The State of Capitalism in the early 21st Century would no doubt be a long chapter in the histories of the future, so modern newsrooms should have a well-staffed Capitalism Beat.

6.
Social Health: While "the economy"—that is, the health and vibrancy of our economic lives—is a Top Story in the United States, our Social Health—the measures of health, well-being, happiness, and other non-economic parts of our lives—is not even discussed in an organized way. It's not for lack of stories. Statistics, reports, and billions of anecdotes are available on a wide range of social indicators, such as teen suicide, incarceration rates, poverty, inequality, education, wage levels, infant mortality, life expectancy, drug use, crime, housing affordability, and countless others. The Social Health Beat would provide an ongoing look at "how we're doing" as a nation, outside the realm of wealth and Gross Domestic Product.

I have discussed this idea on a number of occasions in these pages. A good place to start if you're interested might be Nygaard Notes #85, September 8, 2000: "Toward a National Social Report: History and The Grassroots."

**

In conclusion, I'll just add that this "historical chapters" way of thinking about and organizing "the news" is useful not only to editors and reporters, but also to news "consumers." I always counsel people to take a pro-active approach to the news, rather than letting corporate media set our mental agendas. That is, an empowered media-watcher will formulate his or her questions before reading the newspaper, then read (or watch) the news in order to find the answers to the important questions.

The "historical chapters" approach can serve as a practical technique to help you formulate your questions. What if you opened the newspaper looking for news on "Inequality and Resource Allocation"? You might well find numerous stories that illuminate this issue, although they will often be buried on the inside pages. Then you can put them on your mental "front page." Sometimes you won't find any stories of importance to you. That's when you turn to Nygaard Notes (or other "alternative" news sources) that more closely reflect your values. The news system that I want to see is one that not only writes a "first rough draft of history," but one that helps people more effectively participate in making that history.