The All Too Obvious Step

Everyone mourns lost opportunities. We have all seen investments we did not make reap rich rewards for someone else. We have all seen jobs we were not interested in become more suitable for us than the ones we have. We always wonder why we were so stupid as to look a gift horse in the mouth.

It remains a source of amazement that media people are not crying themselves asleep at their stupidity. Every day they have ample opportunities to increase their customer base. On the basis of some outdated concept they fail to do so. Now we know why it is said that you should never trust a journalist.

We are surrounded by news media. Newspapers, radio, television, internet, posters, all kinds of media exist to tell us what is going on in the world. They all have one major problem. Each outlet is committed to telling the truth or at least getting as near to it as they can whilst telling a good story. Why bother? The vast majority of news has no practical effect on anyone's life. We have all seen reporters commenting on some faraway war. If what they were commenting on affected us we would be involved with it rather than watching others being affected by it. So what does it matter who is winning the war or if it is taking place at all? We experience the story and like to tell ourselves it is fact to make us feel we know something. The media knows that by now. Newspersons have made up enough stories and presented them as fact to know the real reason the public engages with their product.

The way to make more people take an interest in your news outlet is simple. You just have to tell different news. Take football results for example. In every paper they are the same. If your team has lost four-nil why would you want to read this over and over again? If you knew that in some newspaper your team had won you would scour them all to find that uplifting score. Your favourite player would be bound to be mentioned in a positive light somewhere if you looked hard enough. You would listen to all the match reports on radio and TV if you did not know in advance what they would say the score was. In this way everyone would access news media and those media could charge enormous sums for advertising there and inflated cover prices. Would it really do any harm to do things this way? Clearly not when most people are not affected by the vast majority of news stories.

Of course some things do affect people. The Budget for example. When the Chancellor of the Exchequer rises to make his speech we all want to know how much more tax we are going to pay and on what. Here is a major opportunity for the Chancellor to satisfy the whole electorate. By making pre-recorded speeches simultaneously to every news agency he can give us all the choice of abiding by the version of the Budget which suits us best. In theory this would have the effect of drastically reducing the revenue the budget was intended to raise. How much money is actually raised by the Budget? The global financial situation changes by the minute. It is nonsense to suggest that the Budget has any lasting effect on public finance as speculation can nullify its effects instantly. The market determines public spending. A Budget which suits every elector would go a long way towards keeping a govermnment in power for ever and as the effects of most government policies are never felt within the lifetime of a government this would not make one jot of practical difference to anyone's life.

Truth is a fine thing. If it was everything we would all seek it at all times. In practice however we all seek what suits us whether it is true or not. Our media outlets are living in the past. As no one believes them anyway why not give people what they want? Or do news organisations do not wish to be accountable to their public? This has long been suspected. If you asked them why would you expect the answer to be a true one?