Journalists seem to have convinced themselves that they aren't part of a business. Case in point, James Fallows:
... as is obvious as soon as you think about it, the press has cultural, social, and political effects beyond the purely commercial. But its managers are being forced to make decisions on the same focused quarterly-returns basis that guides choices at Merrill Lynch or General Motors. Sometimes those pressures for maximized return (and rising stock price) make news organizations more efficient. But in general they weaken or destroy the parts of news systems that affect people in any role other than as shareholders - that is, as readers, viewers, voters, citizens.
Whining about Rupert Murdoch's pending takeover of the Wall Street Journal follows at length. (HT: Andrew Sullivan)
This is precisely the sort of hubris that leads journalists to think of themselves as some sort of fourth branch of government, with a mandate to act as an ombudsman for society. It would be silly, if it were not so pernicious.
Economist Michael Jensen takes a much more sensible approach, writing:
I assert that most of the demand for the product of the various “news” services derives, not from the individuals’ demands for “information,” but rather from their demands for entertainment. In that sense, the news media are in competition with drama, soap operas, situation comedies, fictional writing, sports events, and so on. Observing the almost overwhelming devotion of the news media to political events, quasi events and non-events, it is easy to delude oneself into believing that people have a demand for information about the political sector. Downs, in his classic book on democracy, argues persuasively, however, “that for a great many citizens in a democracy, rational behavior excludes any investment whatever in political information per se.” ...
Go read the whole thing, it's a brilliant essay. For present purposes, however, the main point is that journalists have precisely the same public function as the guys that produce such dreck as Jackass or Girls Gone Wild.
