The message could hardly have been more serious.
Above
Monbiot's online article was a jokey animated advertisement featuring
whizzing little cars on which were superimposed the smiley faces of
Guardian journalists. The ad plugged the SEAT Leon Cupra car, "the
embodiment of SEAT's motto - Auto emoción."
The Pathology of Normalcy
It
is rare indeed when opportunities arise to broach these issues in the
corporate media. Last month, Guardian Online hosted a live public
debate with George Monbiot. (
Live online: Q&A, June 20, 2007; )
We posted the following contribution for Monbiot to address:
The Guardian website today proudly boasts:
"Over the last 12 months, the GNM [
Guardian News and Media] total audience accounted for:
"20%
of all champagne drunk. One in six of all city breaks taken. One in
five Acorn 'Urban Prosperity'. £1 in every £7 spent on computer
hardware or software. 1/6 of all MP3 player expenditure."
Andy Pietrasik, the Travel editor, also writes:
"The section is designed to address the way we travel now:
"Weekend - for the budget airline generation that takes more short breaks than ever before at home and abroad
"On
Location - for the
new generation of jetsetters, who have been inspired
to travel to a destination because of a film they have seen."
Doesn't this make a mockery of the Guardian's claims to be
responding to climate change? Is it really credible to expect a
newspaper dependent on corporate advertising for 75 per cent of its
revenue to seriously challenge the corporate system of which it's a
part and on which it depends? Why don't you discuss this inherent
contradiction in your journalism?
David Cromwell and David Edwards - Media Lens
George Monbiot then cherry-picked the bit he wanted to answer:
===
"Doesn't this make a mockery of the Guardian's claims to be responding to climate change?"
Yes, it does.
===
While Monbiot's candor was welcome, his response was minimal. And so we followed up a few minutes later:
===
Thanks, George, but you failed to answer our third question:
"Why don't you discuss this inherent contradiction in your journalism?"
Isn't
it vitally important that this structural problem of the corporate mass
media system be exposed? Doesn't your silence on this issue indicate
the very real limits of free speech in our 'free press'?
===
We
received no further response during the live Q&A session; perhaps
unsurprisingly, given that Monbiot was wading through many queries from
the public. However, a few days later we received this email:
Dear David and David,
I
am taking your request seriously and looking into the implications of
the newspapers not carrying ads for cars, air travel and oil companies.
Like you, I believe this is necessary if we are to have a chance of
preventing runaway climate change. But if this call is to carry weight,
I must be able to present an alternative: to demonstrate to news
organisations, including the Guardian, that they can keep their heads
above water while refusing this advertising. Assuming, as I think I
will find, that they account for a large proportion of a newspaper's
income, and assuming that all newspapers are in financial trouble (all
the former broadsheets are, I think, now cross-subsidised by
proprietors or other commercial outlets) what alternative funding
models would you suggest?
If you wish to ask for ideas from other people, please do so.
With best wishes, George (Email, June 25, 2007)
We responded:
Dear George
Many thanks for your email and for taking our challenge seriously. A few obvious points spring to mind.
The
first is that slave owners insisted for years that abolition was an
economic impossibility - that turned out to be nonsense, of course, as
well as being morally unsustainable.
Newspapers - as well as the
motor racing industry - also shrieked about the impossibility of doing
without tobacco advertising. But both appear to be thriving despite the
loss. Why could the media not survive the loss of fossil fuel
advertising?
The simple fact is that the media +have+ to change.
If not, there will be no funding models, no advertisers, no media. They
have to change because fossil fuels will eventually run out. They have
to change because it is a moral obligation - their promotion of
unrestrained fossil fuel consumption is not morally defensible.
Perhaps
with your prompting the Guardian could open a debate with 'liberal'
media rivals like the Independent to seek a consensus on the way
forward.
Could such papers seek out replacement advertisers in
the growing renewables market? They could open a debate with readers to
discuss replacing fossil fuel advertising with a higher cover price.
There is, of course, a precedent - the Guardian already charges for an
advert-free online service.
Could newspapers begin by refusing
the worst fossil fuel advertising - SUVs, for example? Could the
Guardian sell off its majority stake in the Trader Media Group -
including its outrageous Auto Trader magazines - which is valued at
around $1.35 billion? ('
Guardian Media Group announces sale of stake in
Trader Media Group,' March 23, 2007;).
Could that money be invested in renewables somehow?
We need to
be cautious about focusing exclusively on the issue of funding. You
ask: "what alternative funding models would you suggest?"
This,
in effect, asks: How can a psychopathic corporate media system be
funded in a way that makes it less destructive? The corporate media
subordinate people and planet to profit as a matter of necessity rooted
in legal obligation. They will not reverse these priorities as a result
of altered funding. It would no doubt be preferable if Hannibal Lecter
changed to a vegetarian diet, but he would remain a dangerous
psychopath.
One of the reasons we are at the very brink of
catastrophe, is that mainstream media and politics have tirelessly
persuaded us that a system that naturally subordinates human values to
profit is best placed to protect human welfare. History demonstrates
that progressive change happens when people escape this illusion by
rejecting the compromises involved in cooperating with destructive
systems of power and instead demand change from outside.
Arguably,
you are one of the most powerful supports for the delusion that the
corporate media are willing to tell the truth that matters in a way
that can lead to the change we need. Your excellent articles on climate
change shout a loud message of honesty, action and hope. But the news
reports, comment pieces and adverts that surround your work powerfully
reinforce a "pathology of normalcy" and prevent people from seeing the
pathology for what it is. Andy Rowell, who has often written for the
Guardian, noted in a speech last month:
"...advertising
reassures people that it is OK to buy and consume. It provides a safety
net to make it acceptable to consume. What makes this so important is
the media are often the windows through which we see the world. If we
open a paper and see fast cars it makes it acceptable to drive one, if
we see cheap flights it makes it acceptable to go on one".
We at
Media Lens have achieved whatever impact we've achieved on a
shoestring, with virtually no resources. We operate out of one of the
richest nations on Earth. If even a small number of people directed
their money and talents away from supporting the mainstream media to
supporting alternative, non-corporate media, real progress could be
made. In our view, this is a much more worthwhile focus than
concentrating solely, or primarily, on how to reform a psychopathic
corporate system. It's worth attempting what you suggest, but it's
vital that we also focus on building genuine alternatives to these
media.
Why not look to the example of the online OhmyNews
service in South Korea, as we did in our book, Guardians of Power
(Pluto Books, 2006)? OhmyNews was started by Oh Yeon Ho who said:
"My
goal was to say farewell to 20th-century Korean journalism, with the
concept that every citizen is a reporter... The professional news
culture has eroded our journalism, and I have always wanted to
revitalise it. Since I had no money, I decided to use the Internet,
which has made this guerrilla strategy possible."
The success of
libertarian, internet-based sites in South Korea suggests that internet
media relying mostly on contributions from ordinary readers can become
a potent democratising force.
And while the mainstream media
have mostly sent back propaganda from Iraq, Arabic journalists and
Western bloggers have emailed a steady flow of horrific images and
honest reportage fueling deep concern across the Arab world and
beyond. Jo Wilding's brave and compassionate reporting
(http://www.wildfirejo.org.uk), and Dahr Jamail's MidEast dispatches
(http://www.dahrjamailiraq.com) are two inspirational examples.
There is plenty of scope for debate. Perhaps you can kick it off in the pages of The Guardian. (Email, July 2, 2007)
We look forward to seeing whether there is any follow-up to the above exchange.
SUGGESTED ACTION
The
goal of Media Lens is to promote rationality, compassion and respect
for others. If you decide to write to journalists, we strongly urge you
to maintain a polite, non-aggressive and non-abusive tone.
You
may wish to ask the editors of the Guardian and the Independent to
invite the public to debate the issues raised in this alert. Ask the
papers how dependent they are on fossil fuel-related advertising and
what they are doing to wean themselves off it.
Write to Alan Rusbridger, Guardian editor
Email: alan.rusbridger@guardian.co.uk
Write to: Simon Kelner, Independent editor
Email: s.kelner@independent.co.uk
Please send a copy of your emails to us
Email: editor@medialens.org
Please do NOT reply to the email address from which this media alert originated. Please instead email us at
Email: editor@medialens.org
This media alert will shortly be archived here:
http://www.medialens.org/alerts/07/070704_melting_ice_sheets.php
The
Media Lens book 'Guardians of Power: The Myth Of The Liberal Media' by
David Edwards and David Cromwell (Pluto Books, London) was published in
2006. John Pilger described it as "The most important book about
journalism I can remember."
For further details, including reviews, interviews and extracts, please click here:
http://www.medialens.org/bookshop/guardians_of_power.php
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Writings 
The collision of commentary and advertising in the corporate press is sometimes comically surreal. Take George Monbiot's column in this week's Guardian:
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