A “reality” is the way something is. A reality is there, and there is nothing you can do about it. Every day we wake up to the realities in our lives like school, work, money problems, traffic, all those things we have no choice but to deal with.
People who are in media production, people who make television programs, movies and records, and who publish newspapers and magazines, wake up every morning with their specific set of realities. These are the realities they face in making their media business a success. They have no choice but to deal with these realities. The first law of media states: "The media is a business."
The first media reality is balance. This is particularly true of the non-narrative (news and information) media, but it also applies to entertainment media as well. Media consumers insist that their information be presented in a balanced way, that is, both sides of the story are provided. If only one side is provided, or not enough of the other side is provided, the consumers will think the media is biased and unfair in giving so much attention to just the one side.
Of course no story can be perfectly balanced, because no two consumers will see the story in exactly the same way. Think of the population as describing a standard statistical bell-curve, that plots political and social preferences of the people. The curve will be flat at the left and right ends and rise from either end toward the middle in a bell-shape. The curve is flat at the left and right ends because only a small number of people possess extreme left or extreme right views. From both sides, those views moderate as the curve rises toward the center. Hence in the political dialogue, we hear adjectives like “the extreme left,” “the hard right,” “moderates,” and “centrists.”
The majority of the population exists out in the bell part of the curve, and at some point on the left and right, their preferences, whether from the left or from the right, enter the “mainstream.” This is the audience served by the “mainstream media,” both non-narrative (news and information) and narrative (entertainment).
Let’s look at a story in a mainstream media newspaper: The New York
Times, The Miami Herald, The Washington Post, The Kansas City Star, The San Jose Mercury-News, The Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, The Stockton Record, The South Bend Tribune.
If all the reactions to this story fell directly in the center, the story would be perfectly balanced. But the 12 news and event values tell us that each person reacts to a story in his or her specific, individual way, no two exactly alike. Because of this, one person will see this story as balanced, while another will see it biased to one side or the other, either by a little or by a lot. Sociologically, a person’s views place him or her in one of two general categories. People who consider their views “liberal” are said to be to the “left,” while people with conservative views are to the “right.” A moderate liberal looking at this story might see it as biased to the right of center, but not by much. A stronger liberal might see it biased farther to the right, but not so far that it is out of balance. Conversely, a moderate conservative will see it biased to the left of center, but not so much as to be out of balance. Of course there are extreme liberals and conservatives who will look at a story and claim it is completely out of balance, completely biased, though the majority claims it is balanced, but not perfectly.
In order to be believable, the information media must present stories that the majority of consumers believe is balanced. Information media producers wake up every morning to that reality.
Balance is also necessary to the success of entertainment media. A simple but good example is a football game. If one team is ahead 35-0 at the half, the consumers are going to turn it off and watch something that is more in balance. Good dramas need balance, whether it is in a love story or in the conflict between good and evil. Good sitcoms need balance, between humor and the believability of life situations. Good novels need balance, to provide tension between the two sides struggling to prevail. A good story can’t be all black, or all white.
Of course much very carefully produced media content appears every day in the media, that has no balance at all, and we look at them with interest. They are called commercials, or ads. There are also extremely liberal, or extremely conservative, news and information organizations, both in traditional print and broadcast media, and also (very much so) in the new blogger media. Their content is mainly advocacy (like a commercial) of a point of view, and criticism of the opposing point of view.
The second media reality is professionalism. Whatever the presentation, media people wake up every morning knowing it must be professional. In journalism, either newspapers or broadcast, the three cardinal rules are accuracy, accuracy and accuracy. The story must be accurate, both in its content and also in its presentation. Spelling, punctuation and grammar must be correct, or the story loses credibility.
Journalists strive every day to be professional, and they do much work that is never seen. A news story is like the tip of the iceberg, the 10 percent poking up above the water, and that is what the consumer sees. But below the water, unseen, is the 90 percent of the iceberg, the work the journalist did to make sure the story was strong enough to sink a ship.
Other people in media go to those same professional lengths. All those wonderful, carefree people in sitcoms and soap operas didn’t win their positions without years of training and practice. It’s no secret how long and hard actors in movies must work to become successes. The musicians in the recording industry, and the technicians who record them, do not just sit down at pianos and mixing boards and make wonderful music. Even the most casual music is a result of careful planning, hard work and perseverance, on both sides of the microphone.
Professionalism is vital to all aspects of the production. Appearances and sets must be professional, both in information and entertainment media. Lighting and audio must be professional. Newspaper and magazine layout, book production and camera angles must all be professional. Continuity must be professional. If one part of a scene is shot at noon, all parts must be shot at noon, on the same day if possible, because the light changes. If half of a noon scene is shot at noon and the other at 9 a.m., the consumers will notice. Likewise there are famous stories of telephone poles showing up in gladiator movies.
Professionalism is even important to tabloid journalism. One television tabloid show, “Hard Copy,” showed a man and woman anchors, beautifully dressed, sitting in a newsroom, narrating the show. In fact they were sitting in front of a blank wall covered by a blue “chroma-key” screen onto which was projected video footage of a newsroom. If you watched “Hard Copy” carefully on successive nights throughout the week, you could see people making exactly the same movements through the newsroom, night after night.
The third media reality is competition. Every morning, media producers wake up to the very hard reality that there are only so many hours in a day, and so many dollars in the consumers’ pockets. And this day will be jammed full of media content, a blizzard of signals from hundreds of television channels and radio frequencies, thousands of newspapers and magazines, racks full of books and CD recordings.
All of them are competing for the consumers’ attention, all fighting to make a profit and stay in business, or (and this is dangerous) all driven by a corporate bottom-line. Advertisers want to see which programs give them the best opportunity to reach consumers and compete for the limited dollars in the consumers’ pockets. What can a media producer do, to enhance his product’s chances of success against the relentless competition?
If the media producer tries to make his product better, to improve its quality, in order to be more competitive, then the effect on the media is good. This happens all the time. There are many examples of quality media products introduced each year.
But often, more and more often, media producers decide to make their product more interesting in ways that are not so professional. They will use the fourth value, sex, the ninth value, novelty, and the twelfth value, sensationalism, to lure curious visitors to the product. Viewers will tune in to a program just to see someone eat a huge South Pacific cockroach on television. It would be hard to argue that this is quality media programming. Producers of the XFL football league tried to create a television product that was a big, sexy macho party at which football was played.
Some of these ideas work; some don’t. “Survivor” was a success; the XFL was not. The ideas that work, encourage the media producers to keep looking for other “sensational” ideas (leading to the proliferation of reality shows) that are meant to manipulate consumers as much as entertain them.
The competition reality is also at the heart of a major news media debate these days, and that is the rush to get stories published, to “beat” the competition. This has been going on forever, but now much of the media operates under corporate ownership, with competition elevated to fierce and counterproductive (in terms of media quality) levels. The most painful example is the decision by CBS News executives to go on the air with allegations about President Bush’s military service records before completely checking and verifying the story’s accuracy. The media must work hard in the months to come, to restore balance between accuracy and competition.
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