The poor status the media has in the eyes of the public is something that is widely known, satirised and passed on, like a fact of ‘idle talk’, as Heidegger called it. However, the viciousness of the media cannot truly be appreciated until one experiences it first-hand, as it were. And the Northern Rock crisis has certainly changed my perception of the media, and radically so. The alacrity with which the pressmen yearned to extort comments from the perplexed staff – who were misfortunate victims of circumstance – shocked me, as one wrong word from one of these employees – and the wrong word is precisely what a journalist will seek to latch onto and amplify – this wrong word could and almost certainly would cost that employee his or her job. His livelihood disposed of because of the rapacity of the press. The media is evil. The methods it uses in pursuit of material are an exaggeration of the effects of the ‘arms race’ of self-interest that we see everywhere in our civilisation.
On one side, we have the journalist, whose purpose is to bring news to the people. On the other side, we have the people, who endorse journalists in demanding news. That 6,000 jobs could be lost - which would exact irrevocable damage upon the economy of the North East of England, that is without doubt - is indeed a moral problem, but not morally urgent enough to invoke a moratorium on the dissemination of harmful news. After all, 'the people have a right to know', as they say. But it is not simply the 'ontological' aspect of the journalist's place in society that influences the way in which this crisis has been read to the public. Behind the journalist is the phenomenon of journalism - an industry, like any other. The purpose of this industry is to pursue its goal of reporting news. If one member of the industry refrains from reporting news, then another one will take up the task, having recognised that its competitor has voluntarily removed itself - in a manner of speaking - from the struggle for resources. Had all industry media refused to report on the situation out of a responsibility to avert crisis, then one or more of the fringe-industry 'guerrilla' media would have been provided with the platform it needed to penetrate into the mainstream and siphon off significant parts of the market share. I’m granted the example of the Drudge Report.com, which broke the story of the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal after the mainstream media demurred to run it. The mainstream industry consequently raises its hackles, just as every industry and business and employee and worker does when it is threatened by the possibility of being out-matched by a competitor.
The underlying fact that was recognised by Adam Smith at the outset of capitalism is that competition creates optimum efficiency. But the intensity of competition that reiterates optimum efficiency and the subsequent need to exhaust the potential of available resources – into which bland concepts we can insert the flesh-and-blood story of the funding crisis at Northern Rock – is raised to a tragedy.
2 comments:
Well, you did start that blog after all then!
As to your first, interesting post: I suppose that one must concur. But surely you knew that the media is "evil", indeed that capitalism itself is, almost by definition, "evil", if you insist to use that word. That is, you knew this before the Northern Rock affair.
It is, I suppose, a sad state of affairs. But, as you do point out, it is such a widespread phenomenon that there is very little to be done. After all, the banking business itself is a very vicious industry indeed, and certainly takes advantages of individuals.
So, what's the upshot? To the barricades? The individual always loses, but if (s)he acknowledges the system and in fact works for the "evil" body, then (s)he only gets what was coming anyway.
In the end I think we must weigh the plusses and the minuses very carefully: either we become rebels who will be suppressed (no matter how tempting it might seem, living the hippie-life in the forest will not get us very far), or we count our losses and try to make capitalism a bit more bearable.
You make a good point about the implication that capitalism is evil. That is certainly the popular view. For my part, I don't especially care to kick out against it, after all, what is the alternative? Improved medical care, better sanitation, welfare state, are all outgrowths of the system of capital which few would argue the value of. Going to live in a forest is what happens when you can't bear the contradictions of capital. I can bear them still, which is why I work in a bank and wear suits with a clear conscience!
What interests me in the NR crisis is the dialectic of the media and its subject-matter. Anyone who thinks that the press exists to bring objective news to the people is living in Aristophanes' Cloud Cuckoo Land. I doubt that anyone does. Nevertheless, watching the media-machine leap into action to tear the bank apart that provides work and life to so many people and families is quite disturbing. When you attack a person's character, you damage his pride. when you attack a person's livelihood, you destroy the foundation upon which he has built his life and around which he has built his responsibilities - responsibilities to his family and community. Destroying this foundation provokes deep and everlasting hatreds. By all means, report that the bank has made some risky business decisions, for which it should perhaps receive its desserts, but to endanger the livelihoods of so many people puts the journalist in a very precarious situation. One could say that it justifies like-for-like retaliation. However, this isn't a moral problem vis a vis the individual's right to act in an evil or destructive way, because it is clearly not the case that somebody has chosen to act outside the boundaries of acceptable conduct. I am trying to say that the structure of the economy - which is like an arms race to stay ahead of the pack by innovating and therefore testing the very bounds of good taste and morality - this structure forces industries and individuals alike to come into destructive spirals of conflict, especially in a culture in which tolerance and mutual assistance are given as standards of good conduct - values which are enforced by the media, no less!
As for a solution, I wouldn't say 'To the barricades' - I'm not interested in mass political action here. I reject the notion that we're being persecuted. In fact, I reject that this crisis has thrown up a problem that must be solved. Nevertheless, I think that it throws some interesting moral cases into the public eye.
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