Nothing, not even news, can be exempt from accountability
In the dynamic between an individual person and a news organization, there are few actual mechanisms for the person to hold the news organization accountable for its conduct. The cancellation of subscriptions or donations is, in most cases, the only avenue through which a person's objection to the institution's conduct will be registered. Public criticism by an individual is insufficient in the face of a publisher with dramatically more reach and influence.
If a sheriff misbehaves, there's an election. If a police department is problematic, there's a city council, which can also be held accountable through elections. Same with judges, school boards, hospital boards. There are governing bodies. Businesses can be boycotted. You can stop shopping in one place and likely get what you need from another. You can change service providers depending on availability. Products can be returned. Refunds can be pursued. In more severe situations, lawsuits can be filed. Investigations can be held by relevant authorities.
When it comes to news organizations though...it's difficult isn't it? How do we hold them accountable for conduct we do not agree with? We don't need or want any of the accountability mechanisms noted above. Yet, there must be something.
Accountability is not a foreign concept to journalists. It is part of the very core of journalism. Nothing and no institution should be exempt from accountability including the institutions that facilitate it. ("That which can be destroyed by the truth, should be." - PC Hodgell)
Keep in mind, for all my critique, I am fervently on the side of creating, sustaining and protecting systems of news and information. But I will not be so ardent in my support for such that I can or will ignore how it's accomplished. I critique what we do and how we do it because news and information matters.
Over the past few days I've watched many journalists say that we should not cancel our subscriptions to organizations like the Washington Post because it won't affect change and it will "only hurt the journalists who work there." This has been oft been coupled with the refrain that we need journalists working for the Washington Post.
Do we? Good journalism is not unique to the Washington Post. Or the L.A. Times. Or the New York Times. Or any other specific organization. Their historical reach and influence is unique, but not necessarily the quality of their work.
Do not confuse what can be accomplished with a higher level of resources as a unique level of quality that can only happen in a specific place or organization.
Billionaires want to believe they are more smart and more special because they have more money and more resources. News organizations can make this same mistake.
If you venerate an institution to the point where you refrain from holding it accountable, what are you teaching it but that it can do what it wants without consequence?
Keep in mind also that this argument, that we need journalists in these organizations in order to do the kind of journalism that will preserve democracy, isn't a particularly compelling argument as journalists are already in these organizations doing the absolute best they can with what they've got available to them and we are, nonetheless, a week a way from finding out whether we're going to have a democracy, a fascist dictatorship or a chaotic court mess and civil unrest. This system is already not working so continuing to pressure individuals to push their dollars into the status quo isn't all that reassuring as a plan.
Setting aside that people have absolutely any and all right to decide what they will or won't support with their limited resources, with all due respect, the employees of any news organization do not have to work there. A shortage of jobs is not a mandate to work for an institution that is failing in its duties. This is true for any field and there is not an exception for journalism.
Nothing changes until we make change.
If you cannot use the only lever available to you to hold accountable the other more powerful actor in any given dynamic, you are more akin to a hostage than any other kind of participant.
If you are discouraged from using your lever of accountability because it will have a negative impact on the members of the more powerful actor when it is an institution, you are being asked to have more care for those within an institution causing harm than they have for those harmed by their institution's actions.
The very nature of consequences is that they exist to discourage the continuation of undesirable behavior. Consequences, like intentions, cannot and will not always be constrained in their impact to only those directly responsible or targeted.
Something that the field of journalism is still in denial about, despite years of layoffs, constriction and struggle, is that there will be no painless transition from our current commercial media system to a better system. This evolution is and will continue to be challenging beyond all estimates or predictions we can make. It is also essential.
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People talk of how to build trust between communities and news organizations and how important it is. The very notion of trust requires the ability to hold accountable the party that breaks the trust. If you are guilted and discouraged from doing so, it was never trust in the first place. It was, and is, manipulation.
Heather Bryant
The cancellation of subscriptions are very much like the cancelled endorsements themselves. The subscriptions probably aren't going to change that much and the endorsements weren't going to change the outcome of the election. But both are critical expressions of values and expectations at a profound moment in modern history.
How many lines does the owner of an organization have to cross before continuing to support the organization becomes untenable?
To put it another way, for all intents and purposes, the Republican Party of old is dead. It has been taken over and fundamentally compromised to its roots by first the tea-party and then MAGA. Old school Republicans within it have deluded themselves in thinking that they will reclaim and rebuild any time soon. Few have truly walked away and started on building something new. How much difference is there between them and the part of journalism still scraping away inside the shuddering journalism institutions that are falling short of what we need from them because their leaders are choosing not to evolve or are subjected to the whims and desires of owners who simply do not share any genuine concern for the civic mandate of a dedicated and functional press?
It is a mistake to be so focused on the nobility of one's goals as to be blind to the reality of how we are trying to achieve them and how much we tolerate in their pursuit.
"We're not fascist appeasers, we just have to work for them and continue to support them because there aren't any better options" is not a compelling argument nor a legacy to be proud of.
