In a recent article ‘Torture, depravity – all the media’s fault,’ Andrew Sullivan eloquently criticises the US media as having ‘once scrutinised the powerful’ but has now ‘with some exceptions – become mouthpieces for the powerful’. He goes on to quote Rolling Stones columnist Matt Tiabbi in the recent article that led to major changes in US military command in Afghanistan: ‘If you wonder why this hopeless war has gone on for 10 years, the American press’s decision to act as an extension of the Pentagon’s $3.6 billion annual budget must be part of it.’
This questions whether information and the media, as tools for accountability are being overly exploited by government. One such example is the increasing acceptability of water boarding as a means of torture and therefore the excessive use of spin carried out by the US government to manipulate fundamental moral issues. In response to this, a disconnect may occur between media journalism and the public sense of acceptable behaviour. In 2009 the Washington Post reported a 10.6% fall in newspaper circulation through a loss in paying readers, this was the lowest level in seven decades. Does this signal the demise of traditional media and to what extent is this issue applicable to the UK Media industry?
The solution may be the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (BIJ) an independent non profit media outlet which is still in the developmental stages but has plans to open in November 2010. The concept aims to sell stories into magazines and Newspapers and takes the form of a production house rather than a publisher. This will be under the direction of Iain Overton, formerly of More4 news and financed by a 2m endowment from the David and Elaine Potter foundation (a charitable family foundation established in 1999 to encourage a stronger, fairer civil society).
In this sense PR is dependent on the level of public credibility of the attributes being promoted in relation to the product, the service or the public policy. If that credibility is undermined by the dearth of balanced opinion released through the traditional media, then PR has failed. Alternative sources of opinion forming (twitter, myspace and facebook) will therefore replace the traditional media.
