This is a great response to Hanania's article, but it omits the most crucial question of all: Why is the media so intent on warping the public's perception of the Big Picture?
The implication from Caplan that the media is promoting a warped Big Picture because of either a nefarious agenda or incompetence is simply untrue. The media is me…
This is a great response to Hanania's article, but it omits the most crucial question of all: Why is the media so intent on warping the public's perception of the Big Picture?
The implication from Caplan that the media is promoting a warped Big Picture because of either a nefarious agenda or incompetence is simply untrue. The media is merely operating in a free market and responding to demand incentives. The public's demand for warped Big Picture thinking, then, is the issue here, not the media itself.
This situation is similar to the War on Drugs. The U.S. government believed for decades that the key to winning this war was to attack the supply - arrest drug dealers, shore up border security, and work with international authorities on drug smuggling and production operations. The supply, however, was never the root driver of the problem, and for every supplier eliminated, another three, like a hydra, would take its place to continue to meet demand. In this case, demand drives supply, not the other way around.
Likewise, the American public's demand for "Warped Big Picture" viewpoints drives the supply of news coverage provided by the media. The American public, then, is to blame. If the media were truly pushing endless complaints, rampant innumeracy, and warped Big Picture thinking to a public who didn't want it, then alternative media sources would simply replace the old media.
The sustained power of the media today despite the warped Big Picture narratives they provide is proof of either (1) massive market inefficiencies, or (2) strong demand for the Warped Big Picture worldview.
The claim that the media industry is inefficient doesn't hold any water in light of the low barriers to entry introduced by the rise of alternative news and social media, so there must be strong public demand for the Warped Big Picture.
Why do so many people continue to believe the media is at fault here? Because we are terrible at recognizing at our own biases, and specifically our negativity bias. Our propensity to seek out and consume endlessly the most negative news available is universal, and yet is rarely recognized on an individual basis.
Until we focus on the demand, i.e., ourselves, and recognize and refrain from our psychological need to consume negativity, we'll never fix the Warped Big Picture issue that so many incorrectly attribute to the work of a nefarious media monolith. As with so many other issues, the problem (and the solution) is not to be found in a nefarious "other", but instead can be found by looking ourselves in the mirror and recognizing our own role in pathologically consuming negative media.
If it's just the audience, then what was different a few decades ago, when the media was far less partisan and more trusted? I don't think that explains the full picture.
The media is terrible because the people who go into the media are terrible. So then we could ask what changed about who goes into media in the past few decades. The largest shift, of course, is that the media now largely consists of young, college-educated, leftist women. That was not the case 50 years ago.
Why did that demographic shift happen? One reason is certainly the rampant credential inflation leading to a media industry that all but requires a degree from a 4-year university and possibly a graduate degree, often from a far-left university in a left-leaning city. Furthermore, these graduates feel entitled to an elite position in society due to their prestigious credentials, but many end up living in a closet in Manhattan doing the equivalent of writing listicles for BuzzFeed. Rather than blaming their lack of success on their own choice to pursue a low ROI college major and go into a very competitive industry, they blame the "societal structure" itself, capitalism, the patriarchy, etc. They find any way they can to cope with the knowledge that their working-class, low-prestige classmate from their home town is making 5 times more money than them as a plumber.
Why did the credential inflation happen in the first place? The best candidate I can think of is the Higher Education Act of 1965. The timelines certainly seem to line up.
A few decades ago the difference was a less competitive media industry with much higher barriers to entry and fewer players coupled with the fact that TV was a new medium for broadcasting, and it wasn’t until several decades into news broadcasting that people figured out that negativity sells.
Your explanation doesn’t explain the equally warped Big Picture conveyed by right-wing media.
This is a great response to Hanania's article, but it omits the most crucial question of all: Why is the media so intent on warping the public's perception of the Big Picture?
The implication from Caplan that the media is promoting a warped Big Picture because of either a nefarious agenda or incompetence is simply untrue. The media is merely operating in a free market and responding to demand incentives. The public's demand for warped Big Picture thinking, then, is the issue here, not the media itself.
This situation is similar to the War on Drugs. The U.S. government believed for decades that the key to winning this war was to attack the supply - arrest drug dealers, shore up border security, and work with international authorities on drug smuggling and production operations. The supply, however, was never the root driver of the problem, and for every supplier eliminated, another three, like a hydra, would take its place to continue to meet demand. In this case, demand drives supply, not the other way around.
Likewise, the American public's demand for "Warped Big Picture" viewpoints drives the supply of news coverage provided by the media. The American public, then, is to blame. If the media were truly pushing endless complaints, rampant innumeracy, and warped Big Picture thinking to a public who didn't want it, then alternative media sources would simply replace the old media.
The sustained power of the media today despite the warped Big Picture narratives they provide is proof of either (1) massive market inefficiencies, or (2) strong demand for the Warped Big Picture worldview.
The claim that the media industry is inefficient doesn't hold any water in light of the low barriers to entry introduced by the rise of alternative news and social media, so there must be strong public demand for the Warped Big Picture.
Why do so many people continue to believe the media is at fault here? Because we are terrible at recognizing at our own biases, and specifically our negativity bias. Our propensity to seek out and consume endlessly the most negative news available is universal, and yet is rarely recognized on an individual basis.
Until we focus on the demand, i.e., ourselves, and recognize and refrain from our psychological need to consume negativity, we'll never fix the Warped Big Picture issue that so many incorrectly attribute to the work of a nefarious media monolith. As with so many other issues, the problem (and the solution) is not to be found in a nefarious "other", but instead can be found by looking ourselves in the mirror and recognizing our own role in pathologically consuming negative media.
If it's just the audience, then what was different a few decades ago, when the media was far less partisan and more trusted? I don't think that explains the full picture.
The media is terrible because the people who go into the media are terrible. So then we could ask what changed about who goes into media in the past few decades. The largest shift, of course, is that the media now largely consists of young, college-educated, leftist women. That was not the case 50 years ago.
Why did that demographic shift happen? One reason is certainly the rampant credential inflation leading to a media industry that all but requires a degree from a 4-year university and possibly a graduate degree, often from a far-left university in a left-leaning city. Furthermore, these graduates feel entitled to an elite position in society due to their prestigious credentials, but many end up living in a closet in Manhattan doing the equivalent of writing listicles for BuzzFeed. Rather than blaming their lack of success on their own choice to pursue a low ROI college major and go into a very competitive industry, they blame the "societal structure" itself, capitalism, the patriarchy, etc. They find any way they can to cope with the knowledge that their working-class, low-prestige classmate from their home town is making 5 times more money than them as a plumber.
Why did the credential inflation happen in the first place? The best candidate I can think of is the Higher Education Act of 1965. The timelines certainly seem to line up.
A few decades ago the difference was a less competitive media industry with much higher barriers to entry and fewer players coupled with the fact that TV was a new medium for broadcasting, and it wasn’t until several decades into news broadcasting that people figured out that negativity sells.
Your explanation doesn’t explain the equally warped Big Picture conveyed by right-wing media.