While traveling a few months ago I picked up a copy of Paul Starr's new book The Creation of the Media: The Political Origins of Modern Communications and I've read large chunks of it already and I've been meaning to post some comments. When The New Republic arrived today, it included a brilliant review of the book by the great historian Jackson Lears (subscribers only here). The book is in many ways political economy--a subject dear to my heart given my book on agricultural concentration--and spends much time discussing how politics shapes markets. As a reformer/professor affiliated with The American Prospect, Starr's agenda is to legitimize state action. Fair enough, but that's not why the book is interesting. As Lears notes, America always benefitted from state decentralization which promoted the growth of independent newspapers (in France, the monarchy controlled the main paper) at a time when British political culture--transported to the colonies--was increasingly protective of press freedoms. Starr argues, and I agree, that such conditions, in addition to high levels of American literacy and a well-developed postal system, fostered a particularly rich public sphere. The Founders were agreed that the new American experiment in democracy would only work with an educated, fully-informed citizenry. Starr goes on about how this ideal is threatened by changes in the press and growing corporate control and Lears agrees, noting that "it is delusional to pretend that the lumbering behemoths of the contemporary media industry have preserved any of the old republican [note, not big "R"] concern for an educated citizenry." Gannett Corporation and its subsidiary the Argus Leader are part of this problem. The Argus has been deprived of necessary resources by the parent and the resources that exist are poorly deployed (when deployed, some of the reporters can be brilliant), manipulated by editors with questionable agendas, or the resources themselves are simply biased partisans whose influence is exponentially magnified by the overall poverty of resources. In short, Starr's and Lears' and the Founders' vaunted public sphere in South Dakota is starved for the information necessary to make the democratic process function. Much of what the public receives is a thin gruel of mindless he said/she said articles and artless recitations of the Democratic talking points. At least on days like today, that's what it feels like.
More on Gannett Corporation soon.
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