What a difference a couple of months makes. When I first drafted my concept for this post, "fake news" was not a....thing; and the war on the press waged by our President-elect had not yet manifested itself. I will not speak to either of these topics, instead staying with my original intent, which is again aimed mostly at local and regional television, radio, and print media. As consumers, we need to hold our local outlets responsible for their conduct and priorities.
Seek responsible advertisers. Just as the consumer has a choice in which companies he or she wants to do business with, so networks and newspapers can choose which advertisers reflect socially and environmentally responsible ethics, while making quality products or providing quality services. The media endorse certain businesses through an agreement to allow them to advertise. At the same time, the press is the first line of defense for consumers in the face of inferior products, services, and ethics. This responsibility should extend beyond reporting product recalls and indictments of CEOS, and investigative reporting that exposes wrongdoing. The media must decline advertising revenue from such businesses.
Empower consumers. The above paragraph demonstrates how the media can empower consumers, but they also need to be more creative in how to do so. Maybe the new version of "reality television" will be to follow lab workers at the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Bringing back Mythbusters couldn't hurt anything, either. The challenge lies in making informative material entertaining. Right now we have a surplus of "empty calories" of entertainment with no purpose other than escapism.
Increase public service announcements. The Ad Council is one of the most underrated, underutilized, and no doubt underfunded organizations in the U.S. Go to their website and you will see some public service announcements you recognize, and an awful lot you have never seen before. That is probably in part the fault of your local media. Ask them to print and air more of these. Meanwhile, suggest your own issues to the Ad Council, and include resources where they can learn more and get ideas for building a message campaign. We cannot make a difference if we are unaware of issues, or do not know where to go to help change a situation.
Diversify for real. The media is getting better at projecting ethnic and lifestyle diversity that reflects our evolving cultural makeup, but that is not what I mean by "diversify." The media is the most glaring example of what comedian George Carlin described as the "illusion of choice." Think you have a huge number of choices in your cable or satellite television package? Think again. Most of those "networks" are subsidiaries of an enormous conglomerate. The "Disney family of networks," for example. There is constant duplication of content, and most of the new or live content is going into the networks you must pay for access to. Meanwhile, the newsstand is full of self-help, diet, food, celebrity, and "lifestyle" magazines, most of which are light on content and heavy (literally) in advertising.
Be Your Own Media. Back in the day, you could produce your own television show through public access, a community-based resource that allowed citizens to learn television production skills and use studio equipment free of charge to air their programs. By 2009, public access had largely faded away or, more to the point, been driven into the ground by media corporations eager to again turn everything into a profit-making venture. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) largely endorsed this, as it has endorsed the mega-mergers that have left consumers with fewer and fewer media choices. Today, YouTube and its descendents have become the new personal channels; and blogs have become the new printed media, albeit you have to print them yourself. Most of these personal endeavors are not local, either, and that is what public access was all about. It may be time to resurrect that medium.
Consumers are increasingly left to their own devices in assessing what is truth, what is fiction, what is propaganda. I wish I could see it getting better, but for the time being we must practice mindful consumption of what passes for information. We must view everything through the filtering question of "who benefits from this?" Follow the money, indeed.
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