NEWSPAPERS CAN HELP SAVE OUR DEMOCRACY

 

In our information age of Facebook “likes,” Twitter “microblogging,” social media negativity and cable news political extremism, it is not an exaggeration to point to newspapers as one of the final bastions of support for American democracy. This commentary will explore the impact of the information age on newspapers and why it is important that they continue to be a vital vehicle for information delivery now and in our future.

It is not “news” that newspaper circulation has been steadily declining for the last decade. The estimated total U.S. daily newspaper circulation (print and digital combined) in 2020 was 24.3 million for weekday and 25.8 million for Sunday, each down 6% from the previous year.

Not only are information seekers ignoring newspapers as their primary source, those that do spend less time reading. Average minutes per visit for the top 50 U.S. daily newspapers, based on circulation, is a little less than two minutes in 2020. This is down about 45 seconds from when this measure was first tracked in 2014.

While publishing newspapers online initially increased viewership, the pandemic influenced a number of core newspaper advertisers, such as retail, theaters and those that promote community events. These categories cut back on marketing budgets, accelerating newspaper decline of the all-important ad revenue.

The downturn of newspaper publication has various adverse consequences, in particular at the local level. Research has linked closures of newspapers to declines in civic engagement of citizens, increases in local crime, increases in government corruption/waste, and increases in political polarization. The decline of local news has also been linked to the increased "nationalization" of local elections, as candidates are not evaluated in terms of local issues.

Why should we care that newspapers are declining? After all, the information age assures us that more knowledge is available from more sources than at any time in our history.  Newspapers take time to be read, and the subscriptions are expensive.  Why should someone support a newspaper that writes editorials or publishes opinion pieces against their core beliefs? Social media is free and offers information that takes little time to digest and is in-line with the viewer’s mindset. (66% of Facebook users get news through its site.)

A recent essay in the Atlantic Magazine helped me understand the causes of the information crisis we are going through and how newspapers can help return us to sanity. The well-known author, Jonathan Haidt is a social psychologist who specializes in morality and ethical leadership.  In the April 11, 2022 issue, he published an essay titled: Why The Past 10 Years Of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid.

Haidt’s premise is that three major forces bind together large diverse democracies like the United States.  These are extensive social networks with high levels of trust, strong institutions and shared stories. He points to James Madison who wanted to address this Achilles heel of democracy, “the turbulence and weakness of unruly passions,” in adopting a constitutional republic form of government.

Madison was also concerned about our vulnerability to triviality when he wrote: “where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts.”  According to Haidt: “The framers wrote the constitution, in part, to guard against these weaknesses by building a mechanism to slow things down, cool passions, require compromise and give leaders some insulation from the mania of the moment, while still holding them accountable on Election Day.”

Haidt believes that the algorithms developed to improve social media (the “like” and “share” choices in Facebook or retweets in Twitter) trigger the negative emotions that worried Madison. These “improved” social media options guide users based on past social media experience. No newspaper can compete with the sophisticated targeting of social media sites that feed viewers what they want to read and hear.

These social media tools continually chip away at trust in the government, the election process, the courts, our schools and our neighbors. Social media “dumbs down” the purpose of these institutions and the democratic stories behind the development of each.  Our information gathering brains are rewired to question everything, to never fraternize with the enemy and to attack the enemy with vigor.

When social media monopolized how we receive the news, it destabilized democracy in three respects. First, social media gave more power and voice to the political extremes who have no qualms about using the new tools to spread misinformation and outright lies. Second, the “improved” social media can control what we read. Third, social media has negatively affected the influence of traditional newspapers.

Why do we need newspapers, and what can be done to save them? Unlike social media, journalists who work for newspapers are held to an ethical standard that demands fact checking and retractions when mistakes are made. The editorial and opinion portion of each paper may adopt a certain political philosophy, but is committed to run commentary with differing views. Letters to the editor give each reader the opportunity to disagree with published opinions so that all sides of a controversy are aired in public.

The price and availability of national newspapers have never been more attractive. For a dollar a week, online subscriptions to the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal are available. It is time for more Americans to stop getting their news from questionable sources to help save democracy.