IT MIGHT appear strange that the media people who complain most volubly about the decline in media standards are often the ones vehemently resist any suggestion of external regulation. As they fume and froth about the state of modern media, they seem to drive them further into their a apoplexy is the notion that something might actually be done.
What do they expect to occur? Do they think that, as the result of their pointing out the blitheringly obvious, the sombre men in suits who control the media are going to raise their hands and shout "Stop!"?
Do they believe that, as a result of a column or a radio programme, the smuthounds of the gutter press will fall to their knees and ask God to help them mend their ways? Do they expect that the press baron in his mansion will beat his breast and resolve that he has made enough money from the pain of his fellow human beings?
It is hard to believe that such a hope is what moves them to lamentation.
In truth, they have no purpose or remedy other than the public washing of their hands. This is partly because they do not wish to be seen to be rocking the media bandwagon with more than a minimum of force, and partly because they do not want to compromise their own public image as defenders of "freedom". It has not occurred to them that freedom is not a straightforward business.
The modern media maintain control over all meaning, and one of the primary meanings they dictate is the meaning of freedom. We are led to "know" that freedoms in various areas - personal, public, individual, collective, economic, social - are uniformly virtuous and compatible. In truth, each freedom is qualified by the extent to which it places limits on others. Some freedoms, if allowed to trespass on others, rapidly turn into the antithesis of freedom.
This suggests that some form of ethical paradigm needs to be applied, to carry out the highly imprecise work of judging how various freedoms are to be balanced with one another. Specifically, it would seem to suggest some external way of regulating the media on behalf of the wider society.
SUGGESTION of any form of regulation, but in particular external forms, is anathema to virtually all media interests. At the question of regulation, the same people who have been wringing their hands about the descent into the gutter will emerge to warn about the imminence of totalitarian control. Appalled by the alleged threat to freedom, they will speak darkly of the dangers of outside interference in the "free" media.
How is it possible for intelligent human beings to fly into blue fits at the merest hint that the channels of public comment and information might be overseen on behalf of the State and its people, and for the same people to tell us that the control of these same channels by wealthy interests or individuals is a manifestation of freedom of expression?
The two most common fig-leaves employed to protect the working of the obvious vested interests are (a) the protection of what is termed freedom of expression and (b) the power of the market to self regulate sufficiently. The power of elected politicians requires to be monitored and controlled, but that of wealthy press barons does not.
What protects this manifest nonsense is the choice of totalitarian bogeyman. George Orwell was a wonderful writer and thinker, but he enabled one of the most effective dupes of the 20th century when he created Big Brother. A ludicrous oversimplification of this idea is now used to tarnish and undermine any attempt to regulate almost any kind of market on behalf of the citizen.
In the mediaarena, the concept is used to summon up demonic images of control by the State, over what is written and said.
In truth, our media are already totalitarian, though not in the Orwellian sense. As Neil Postman pointed out in his book, Amusing Ourselves to Death, the effect of media in the age of television corresponds more closely to the vision of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World than to Orwell's 1984.
In the Brave New World, Big Brother is there, but deniable. He does not need to oppress us in ways that might easily be perceived. He makes us slaves to our own darkest passions, and there is no greater slavery.
In doing so, he not merely succeeds in bringing about the subjugation he desires, but achieves this in a manner so ambiguous as to appear to be dominated by the very choices of those who are being denied any form of choice by virtue of being dominated. He takes away our freedom by making us think he is giving us the freedom of having what we want.
AND this is the kernel of the apparent paradox of the drift of modem media. Why is it that, just as people are appalled and outraged by media, their media addiction grows and grows?
The answer is that the process involves the interaction of several forms of freedoms, in constant conflict. In disentangling these different strands we must, at some point or another, engage with some concept of the difference between right and wrong. Should there, for example, be a freedom for journalists to write lies? And should such a freedom be given greater weight than the right of the citizen not to be lied about?
Increasingly, our definitions of freedom involve an attempt to fudge such fundamental questions. It is easier to leave things to the market than to make what might be delicate and intricate distinctions.
As a society we have to ask, if we are capable of asking independently of a media arena which does not encourage such questions: do we surrender to the forces of the lowest common denominator, or do we attempt to formulate some better way of operating?
If the latter, is there some "mechanism", equivalent to the market, which we can put in place to do it for us, or is it something for which we have to take responsibility? I think it is something for which we must take responsibility. A garden left to its own devices will grow only weeds. In the media arena, the cultivation of a more civilised model implies regulation at every level to protect and balance a whole range of freedoms.
But this is a media thought crime. It is permissible to criticise the media in the media, as long as you do not suggest anything that would inhibit the range of "freedoms" the media currently enjoy.
Journalists are required to believe that we require more freedom of the press; to suggest that what we need is more freedom from the press is a dangerous heresy.
Above all, the journalist must remain "sound" on the question of mandatory opposition to any external interference. The prudent journalist will remember at all times that the most which the media will tolerate for long by way of self criticism is the wringing, followed by the washing, of hands.