Peter Daou is certainly right to point out the ways in which the "storylines" are more important than the individual stories. I think he might be focusing a bit too heavily on the individuals and the personalities involved (The Chris Matthews, the Judith Millers and such). It might be wise to focus a bit more on the driving causes. To take a page from Darwin, we should understand the media not as a set of individual actors and players but as a population of competing organizations. To understand why the MSM plays such a conservative role, we should look to the underlying pressures that form its competitive business environment.
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The driving force behind media behavior is the share price of media corporations. To meet a constantly rising bar of shareholder expectations and to keep an increasingly skeptical cadre of analysts happy, media corporations must relentlessly engage in a two pronged strategy of cost reduction and revenue enhancement (as is the case for any modern corporation). Cost reduction means increased efficiency of staff (which might include such measures as RIF's and a corresponding increased workload for the organizational survivors) and decreased overhead. The reason there are so many "reality" shows, American Idol-type programming and derivative game shows is they are cheap to make - no stars, very little cost for writers, etc. They help a network reduce its costs. Within this scheme, news is just another commodity. IN an ideal world (from an analyst's perspective) it should be cheaper to "make" the news each quarter.
On the revenue side, there is a simple picture with some complicated details. The simple picture is that the more viewers (or listeners) a program secures, the higher the advertising revenue from that program. The more nuanced details include market segmentation and variability in audience profitability. Some audiences spend more, some less, and the advertiser's obvious goal is to expose the individuals who spend a great deal to his or her message. If you think about the news as just another low-budget reality show, what kind of programming do you want to have to draw in a) the greatest number of viewers in an absolute sense and b) the greatest number of viewers in the group of high discretionary spenders? You want lots of Natalie Hollaway, lots of "shock and awe," lots of constant anxiety over the next terrorist attack. You want the audience's experience of the news to feel like a real world version of the series "24."
The dynamic is Darwinian. One sleek new media creature comes along and draws a great market share with twenty-four hour fear, greed and anxiety. This network programs short, easy to digest stories because such stories are competing with cheap reality shows for audience attention. They succeed by making the news as simple as possible. They paint a nice clear picture of the world, black/.white, good/bad, us/them because that's what kind of narrative sells. The product is profitable - inexpensive and addictive. What's a better reality show than reality? They take the profit from this programming and they use part of it to siphon off the best talent from their competitors, thus reinforcing their competitive advantage.
The environment is incredibly competitive. Once the market sees a profitable experiment, there is always strong pressure to follow suit. CNN becomes more and more Fox-like with each passing year. Nightly news broadcasts are subject to the same pressures. Chris Matthews isn't a cause - he's a symptom. He is not blameless, but he should be seen in context: an affluent employee of a network running scared.
I'm not saying much that Howard Beals hasn't already said, but we'd be wise to remember his words as we look for solutions (if you want to see them written down, take a look at Digby's home page). I'm very optimistic about a solution space, but I wanted to start a dialogue on the nature of the problem before talking about some of the ways in which the dynamic can be changed. I'd welcome your thoughts.