Published in the Western Standard, August 8, 2005, p. 21; reprinted in the Financial Post, August 11, 2005, p. FP-17, under the title "Don't Blame the Media - They Jest." The version below corrects two typos.
That's Entertainment
by
Pierre Lemieux
"The power of the media," is a convenient explanation for what one doesn't like in society or in public policy. But it is a misleading explanation.
It is true that the media often don't provide relevant, unbiased information. I just saw a telling example. When she was sentenced, in 1993, Karla Homolka was prohibited from having guns for life. A few days ago in early June, Montreal daily La Presse mentioned this condition in a page-one subtitle, as if it were one of the new release conditions.
In fact, nobody with a serious criminal record can get a gun licence, without which being in possession of guns is a crime carrying a maximum 10-year sentence. No prohibition is needed. In fact, it is difficult to get a gun licence even for a peaceful citizen -- for example, if he has seen a doctor for depression. Or, remember Jean-Francois Laflamme, the young Quebec hunter who was caught with an expired gun licence, and against whom the Crown abandoned the criminal charge on April 10 (see Western Standard, May 30)? Well, more than two-and-a-half years after being charged and two months after being cleared, he still has not received the firearm licence he applied for!
Was La Presse exercising "media power" when it gave the impression that Homolka had just been subjected to a gun ban and that, otherwise, she could have walked into a gun shop and come out with a gun? In a society where the media are still, generally, more or less free, why don't they provide the relevant information their customers want? The basic reason is simple: information is not what their customers want -- except on matters related to their personal consumption decisions (which TV set or car to buy, et cetera).
In political and social matters, information is useless for the ordinary citizen, simply because an individual citizen has no impact on the political process. Consider an election. An individual's vote will only count if the outcome of the election would have been different without his vote. The probability that this will happen is infinitesimal. Indeed, it never happens. Statistically, you have, for all practical purposes, an infinitely larger chance of winning the lottery jackpot than of casting the decisive vote in an election.
Non-ordinary citizens - -politicians, pundits and other opinion leaders -- have some hope of swaying public opinion and shifting thousands of votes one way or the other. But the ordinary citizen certainly cannot hope to influence important political outcomes. "But if everybody votes like me . . ." Yes, of course, this would make a difference, but your own individual vote will not generate this outcome.
When ordinary citizens vote or participate in the political process, it can only be for one of two reasons. One is a concern for justice: people vote for what they think is just or right. But many, if not most, people today are not interested in justice, and they vote for the second reason, which is the same reason they cheer or boo at hockey games, knowing very well that their voice won't raise the noise level: the reason is to be part of the crowd, to have fun -- in other words, to entertain themselves.
People are rationally ignorant of politics. They are mainly looking for political entertainment, and this is what the media give them. There are some exceptions, which include the financial press and other specialized publications that sell specific information to individuals who will financially benefit from it. And some writers, like this one, try to sell information. But, in general, the media are in the entertainment, not the information, business.
Note that fear is one form of entertainment. People like horror movies. And, like simple girls in humble cottages, many people like to fear monsters and criminals, provided they can dream of the king coming to their rescue in his shining armour. It is in the interest of the state to encourage these fairy dreams.
As for the media, if they want to make money, they provide entertainment. Perhaps they wield influence, but it is the influence of the clown rather than the teacher.