The New Trend of Journalism
(Originalmente escrito em abril de 2017)
Gatekeeping is a theory which states that one of the main powers detained by the media, is not only that of influence over people's opinion, but also on deciding which stories should be published, and which should be left behind. (The image is from http://positivemoney.org/2016/06/bank-of-england-uk-banks-to-lose-their-status-as-gatekeepers-to-the-payment-system/)
Fake news became the cover story of every major TV channel or magazine publisher after last year's election cycle. The fear of journalists was that, with the internet, people could write about whatever they wanted and to create facts that didn’t exist. That was supposedly the case that led Trump to become president and Brexit of ever happening. But the truth is different, and fake news is not a problem for journalism, but to those who no longer posses the power to influence people's opinion.
In 2012, Andrew Breitbart, the creator of Breitbart News, a conservative website which gave a voice to many Americans who could not stand the liberal bias of the mainstream media, died of heart failure, leaving a legacy that lives to this day. The former leftist activist saw that politics could only be changed throughout the culture. Although important for the conservative movement, this was not a revolutionary idea. In the past, the Democratic activist Bill Ayers, for example, implemented changes in education for cultural purpose. The purpose was the same that encouraged Breitbart to create a conservative news website to compete with the mainstream media, dominated by liberals.
Breitbart, despite his idea or his ideology, was right about one thing: there is no longer objective journalism, and he was not the one to put an end to it. When journalism began to popularize in Europe, thanks to the ease in printing books, journals and magazines, the model created then allowed writers to analyze day-to-day events, interpret them and explain it to the public. In America, however, news became a business, and journalism, objective. The idea of unbiased journalism, however, never truly existed, for writers are always looking at events through a certain point-of-view.
On American radio, conservatives are dominant, such as Glenn Back, Mark Levin and Rush Limbaugh. In television and the world's most famous newspapers, however, the liberal bias is very clear and it is normal for it to exist. What is not common, is for journalists to close their eyes on the main political issues. Nowadays, immigration is a good example of unfair covering by the media. The New York Times, owned by the Mexican Carlos Slim, never use the word immigrant when a non-American person commits a crime. The most reasonable reason for that to happen is due to an active political campaign to amnesty illegal immigrants (at least 11 million in the US) and to accept more inside the country. CNN, for example, was hardly criticized when helped Hillary Clinton in the 2016 elections, by giving her debate questions in advance. That is way beyond bias and, for that reason, Breitbart started seeing journalism as a way to influence the culture, not only to inform the people.
To be inside the journalism business was as hard as in many other business. It took a lot of money to create a TV broadcast, a radio station or a magazine publisher. Not only the employees are expensive, but also and mainly, are the license to be on television, the equipment to print a journal or magazine and so on. With the internet, mainly all those issues go away, since the cost to create a website is not only cheap, but is also the only cost people have to create a small one-person news website. In other words, anyone can talk about whatever they want.
Although the easiness in writing on the internet exists, the trick is how to do it and gain credibility with the public. No point in writing something that no one believes to be true, right? For a long time, the mainstream media detained all the credibility power. Not anymore. Thanks to the internet and the space it gives to extremely competent people, issues that no one ever heard about are being shared all around the world. Ever wondered why political movements happens simultaneously all over the west? Before the conservatives counter attack the liberal media, the left detained most of the communication power. George Soros, for example, through his Open Society Foundation, gave money to media channels and political groups even in Brazil. Mídia Ninja, Movimento Viva Rio and Le Monde Diplomatique Brasil, where one of the few that spoke in his name and with his money.
The internet is a tool for journalists, and an incredibly powerful one. To be a journalist was never that easy, as it was never that possible to get passed the mainstream media blockade, whose power lies not only in the influence it has over the people's opinion, but mainly on which stories ought to be covered. Bias, however, will continue to exist, the difference is, with the internet, more points of view can be seen. As in any other commerce, the larger the competition, the better, and with the web, the competition couldn’t be higher.
