WHEN RATINGS TRUMP TRUTH: THE DARK SIDE OF NEWS MEDIA

 

The Simpsons’ scene opens with Homer Simpson sitting on the couch, flipping through channels on his TV.

Homer: “Hey, Marge, check this out! The news is reporting that aliens are invading Springfield.”

Marge (skeptically): “I don’t know, Homer. That sounds like fake news to me.”

Homer (rolling his eyes): “Ah, Marge, you and your obsession with truth. Don’t you know that ratings are all that matter? Who cares if it’s real or not, as long as people are tuning in!”

Just then, Bart burst into the room, excitedly.

Bart: “Dad, did you hear? The news is saying that a giant donut is rolling through downtown!”

Homer (jumping up): “Now that’s what I’m talking about! Let’s go check it out!”

Marge (exasperatedly): “I can’t believe I’m the only one here who cares about what’s actually happening in the world.”

Not really, Marge. Lots of moms like you do care as well about what’s happening in the world today. Like this one mom, I read some time ago in an article I’m trying to retrieve from my aging memory. Her son got down to chat about the day’s issues. Abreast of the current events, the mom exchanged views with her son.  Stunned, the son asked her mom where she got her thoughts. Mom replied she picked them up from Fox News she watched daily.

Nothing’s wrong with that chat until one reads the headline about the White House saying that Fox News’ Tucker Carlson is not credible – the network’s star could be mom’s favorite. The headline is about Carlson who claimed that the people who stormed the Capitol to protest the 2020 US presidential election results were “sightseers” -- based on his manipulated and selectively edited bits from out of 41,000 hours of video.

Michael Fanone, a former Washington, DC, police officer who sustained severe injuries defending the Capitol on January 6, wrote that legal filings made public exposed Carlson as a fraud. He wrote in the CNN article:

“Carlson’s spin about January 6 is fabricated. I was there. I saw it. I lived it. I fought alongside my brother and sister officers to defend the Capitol. We have scars and injuries to prove it.”

One may unearth the root of the matter from the following clashing statements (underscoring mine) once said by two prominent personalities in the Fox News organization:

“The RATINGS are the lifeblood of the business.” (Rupert Murdoch, founder of Fox News’ parent company)

“[W]hen people start to question the TRUTH… I found that unsustainable.” (Chris Wallace, ex- Fox News Sunday host who left Fox)

RATINGS VS. TRUTH

The ratings versus truth muddle is not a new phenomenon in the US media industry which has become increasingly competitive in recent years with news organizations vying for viewership and readership in an ever-changing landscape. This has led to fierce competition for ratings and viewers as news organizations strive to capture the attention of the public and remain relevant in an increasingly crowded field.

Fired up and not far from fanatical, the competition has been raging between conservative news organization outlets, like Fox News, and liberal news outlets, like MSNBC. The February 2023 Nielsen ratings ranked Fox News as the most-watched basic cable network in a total day which averaged nearly 1.44 million total viewers. MSNBC comes closely behind averaging 1.165 million total viewers.

However, this competition can fall out at a cost, as news organizations are often faced with the difficult decision of balancing ratings and viewership with the journalistic values of accuracy and impartiality.

In the case of Fox News, Dominion Voting System, a leading provider of election technology, filed a $1.6 billion lawsuit against the network alleging it knowingly spread false information about Dominion’s involvement in the 2020 U.S. presidential election and contributed to the defamation of Dominion’s reputation.

The lawsuit accuses Fox News of promoting baseless conspiracy theories about Dominion’s voting machines and alleging it was involved in a vast-election-rigging scheme to ensure a victory for Joe Biden. These claims were not supported by any evidence and were debunked by multiple independent audits and investigations into the election results.

Meantime, at the innermost recesses of the Fox News foxhole, Oliver Darcy of CNN reported: “Fox News staffers are in the dark and vexed as the right-wing talk channel remains ensnared in one of the worst scandals of its 26-year history – and arguably the most consequential media scandal in modern American history.”

“People are really shocked and disgusted,” the staffer said. “Even longtime staffers. You would think after all we’ve been through nothing could surprise us. But this is unprecedented.”

“We’re all embarrassed,” some employees at Fox, feeling self-conscious about the scandal, told Brian Stelter in Vanity who wrote this seeming handwriting on the wall: “No one I spoke to expects Fox will come out of a trial as a stronger brand.”

PH RATINGS-TRUMP-TRUTH VARIANT

“Sen. Tillis Calls Tucker Carlson’s Jan 6 Revisionist History” (Now This News on YouTube banner)

REPORTER: “What do you think of, you know – Tucker Carlson… has had to downplay January 6, said it was, you know, ‘mostly peaceful chaos’ in his view, and said it was not an insurrection… How do you feel about that?

SENATOR TILLIS (R-NC): “I think it’s bull s**t.”

Here and now in PH, the revision of Philippine History is raging and shown in movie theaters all over the country. The public pulse seems to hold its breath while watching which, between the two versions of history, could climb to the top ratings of the box office and be proclaimed ultimately as the winner – the torchbearer of the truth of PH History.

Excerpt of The Manila Times’ Antonio Contreras’ column “The partisan weaponization of art as propaganda” could give us a microcosm of how the Ratings-Trump-Truth muddle is coming down in PH:

“[W]e now see the production of art, particularly of films like “Martyr or Murderer” and “Oras de Peligro,” unfold as implicated in the political contestations between the anti-Marcos and pro-Marcos narratives. What is being affirmed is the political nature of art as a weapon for propaganda. Despite the posturing of the partisans, both movies are forms of propaganda, in the sense that they have appropriated art to promote a particular partisan view.”

George Santayana (The Life of Reason, 1905) said: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

If we, Pinoys, could not even agree on what to remember from the past, are we condemned to repeat it? Your guess on what is “it” is as good as mine.

One final word. If one assesses a leader’s performance based on a survey rather than the realities on the ground, then he puts into operation the ratings-trump-truth modus operandi.

Has anyone gone through some nagging feeling that the time has come for some Pinoy, like Sen. Tillis, to say, “I think it’s bulls**t”?

Head collage photos courtesy of Deadline & freepikdotcom