The American media as Fourth Estate: from Watergate to present day

¶ … Media in America as the Fourth Estate: From Watergate to the Present

During the 1970's, the role of the media changed from simply reporting the news to revealing serious political scandals (Waisbord, 2001). The media's role during Watergate was viewed as the mirror that reflected the most that journalism could offer to democracy: holding powers accountable for their actions. This became a trend in the American media and journalism had high credibility in the years that followed, and a great increase in journalism school enrollment followed.

However, during the 1980's and 1990's, this trend withered away. Investigative journalism is no longer rampant the firmament of American news. While the tone of the press was self-congratulatory in the post-Watergate years, the state of American journalism is currently viewed in a less positive light.

For the elite, the shift in journalism is welcomed. For example, according to John Dean, an American journalist, President Bush and Vice President Cheney have suggested that the presidency was weakened by Watergate. "No one has watched the impact of Watergate on government more closely than yours truly," said Dean (2002). "I wrote a book, Lost Honor, examining the impact of Watergate ten years after the events. And I do not believe Watergate can possibly justify the secrecy arguments that are being made now. If anything, it justifies openness."

The Role of the Media

The role of the news media in modern society involves more than just news coverage (Coronel, 2000). The Fourth Estate is considered one of the most important parts of the check-and-balance system created by the U.S. Constitution. News media have a responsibility to be the eyes and ears of the public. Sometimes, the media even acts as the voice of the public. The media is obliged to tell the general public what the public institutions are doing and to convey our concerns to these institutions in the form of commentary.

Politics and the Media

The world learns much of what it knows through the filter of the media, which includes television, radio, newspapers and the Internet. What the public is told and how media messages are conveyed shapes the public's views, goals and plans. In this light, the media has a great deal of influence.

The (First Amendment to the Constitution guarantees protection of freedom of speech and freedom of the press Coronel, 2000). In the United States, the media is often referred to as the fourth branch of government (or "Fourth Estate," as it monitors the political process in an attempt to make sure that political players do not abuse the democratic process (Coronel, 2001). When media workers uncover dishonesty or abuses of power, they are expected to report it to the public.

Many people call the media the fourth estate because it plays such an important role in the outcome of political candidates and issues. For this reason, the role of the media is often controversial. News reporting should be objective, but journalists often display personal opinions that affect their reports.

New Era of Journalsm

According to Dean (2002), the work of Bob Woodward, the Watergate reporter who uncovered the scandal, set the stage for a new era of journalism. According to Woodward, "Nixon's successors, I thought, would recognize the price of scandal and learn the two fundamental lessons of Watergate. First, if there is questionable activity, release the facts, whatever they are, as early and completely as possible. Second, do not allow outside inquiries, whether conducted by prosecutors, congressmen or reporters, to harden into a permanent state of suspicion and warfare."

According to Dean (2002), "It seems that President Bush and Vice President Cheney want to remove the last vestiges of congressional power - the power to expose. But that will not solve their problem, because it has been the so-called fourth estate, the news media, that has collaborated with Congress in preventing the Executive Branch from operating in secrecy. The news media, as Woodward makes clear, are never going to return to the pre-Watergate days when a president's actions were not questioned. Nor should they, even in a time of war."

Many critics argue that increasing media ownership concentration and the drive to sensationalize or commercialize news coverage have taken away the guts and gumption that investigative reporting requires (Waisbord, 2001). Business pressures have also had a negative effect on investigative reporting, as journalistic demands for a great deal of time, human and financial resources directly conflict with profit expectations and production cost controls. In addition, the fear that stories might result in serious lawsuits prevents news companies from supporting http://www.e11th-hour.org/Common/CLEAR.GIF

Aside from these factors, many investigative stories have been written and produced in the past decade. Major newspapers and television stations in the United States have produced articles that have revealed corruption, injustice, and business mismanagement. Local and network television news are the most popular source of investigative stories, which generally expose consumer fraud, in areas such as health care, social services, and home mortgages.

The New Role of the Media

In defense of the media, which has been criticized for being too independent and too powerful for the public good, Anthony Lewis of the New York Times wrote, "The press is protected [by the First Amendment] not for its own sake but to enable a free political system to operate. In the end, the concern is not for the reporter or the editor but for the citizen-critic of government (Herman and Chomsky, 1988)."

Lewis cited Supreme Court Justice Powell, who said (Herman and Chomsky, 1988): "no individual can obtain for himself the information needed for the intelligent discharge of his political responsibilities.... By enabling the public to assert meaningful control over the political process, the press performs a crucial function in effecting the societal purpose of the First Amendment." Therefore, as Judge Gurfein ruled in supporting the right of the New York Times to publish the Pentagon Papers after the government had failed to show any threat of a breach of security but only the possibility of embarrassment: "a cantankerous press, an obstinate press, a ubiquitous press must be suffered by those in authority in order to preserve the even greater values of freedom of expression and the right of the people to know."

Many people point out that the media were not always as independent, vigilant, and defiant of authority as they are today. Instead, it is believed that the experiences of the past generations taught the media to exercise "the power to root about in our national life, exposing what they deem right for exposure," without regard to external pressures or the dictates of authority (Herman and Chomsky, 1988). Thus, the generation in which we live poses a challenge to the propaganda of our nation's leaders.

The mainstream press portrayed the Watergate incident as a scandal in which Nixon sent a group of petty criminals to break into the Democratic Party headquarters. The Democratic Party represents strong domestic interests, solidly based in the business community, so Nixon's actions were seen as a scandal.

The Socialist Workers party, a legal political party, represents no business interests. Thus, there was no scandal when it was revealed, at the peak of the Watergate scandal, that the FBI had been disrupting its activities by illegal break-ins and other measures for a decade, violating democratic principle in more serious ways than Nixon was accused of. However, these covert and illegal actions received very little media.

In addition, the role of the FBI in the police assassination of a Black Panther organizer in Chicago was not portrayed as a scandal by the media, yet Nixon's "enemies list," which identified powerful people who were denigrated in private but suffered no legal consequences, was widely publicized and publicly criticized.

For the first time, the role of the media and their investigative reporting "helped force a President from office" (Herman and Chomsky, 1988) in what is held to be a most remarkable display of what some call media independence, and others call arrogance.

History provided Americans with a "controlled experiment" to determine just what was at stake during the Watergate period, when the confrontational stance of the media peaked. The media demonstrated its belief that because powerful groups are able to defend themselves, it is a scandal when their position and rights are threatened.

By contrast, as long as illegalities and violations of democratic substance are reserved for marginal groups or result in a diffused cost imposed on the general population, media opposition is obsolete. For this reason, Nixon could go so far, lulled into a false sense of security precisely because the media only stepped in when he began to threaten the elite.

The same thing happened during the Iran-contra scandals and the media's reaction to them. The media declared it a scandal when the Reagan administration was found to have violated congressional prerogatives during the Iran-contra affair, but ignored the fact that the International Court of Justice judged that the United States was engaged in the "unlawful use of force" and violation of treaties in its attack against Nicaragua.

A he sponsorship and support of state terror that cost some 200,000 lives in Central America in the preceding decade did not create any media attention because these actions were conducted in harmony with the elite's consensus. Thus, the media supported them, as demonstrated in reviewing the fate of worthy and unworthy victims.

Thus, the examples used to praise the media for their independence, or criticize their excessive zeal, actually demonstrate the opposite. Contrary to the usual image of an "adversary press" attacking an executive giant, the media's lack of interest, investigative zeal, and basic news reporting on the blatant illegalities of the executive branch have encouraged major violations of law.

Elements of Hollywood in the Media

As a result in the transformation of the role of the media from a Fourth Estate watchdog to a politically correct parrot, there has been a great deal of commercialization in the media and many of Hollywood's elements are now seen in the media. For example, two weeks into the war in Iraq, many media groups declared the American-led effort a complete failure (Marsden, 2003).

And the public reaction to these reports showed that the public believed most of what they heard from the agenda-driven and somewhat ignorant media, who failed to gather thorough and accurate information before placing their opinions in the media. Many media groups were criticized as treating the war as some kind of reality program, and the public reacted to the war as such, demanding the instant gratification involved in watching television.

During the war, "embedded reporters" traveled with front-line soldiers (Marsen, 2003). While many people viewed this as investigative reporting, others balked at the idea, arguing that images of allied tanks, rolling triumphantly and unimpeded through remote and unpopulated desert areas painted an inaccurate and biased view of the war.

On television, Americans watched an "embedded," excited CNN reporter report on how much "fun" the war was so far. The networks showed Iraqi soldiers surrendering to allied troops, while groups of Iraqis cheered the arrival of American and British soldiers. Some people called this investigative reporting. Others felt it was Hollywood's finest. Many believed it was the ultimate in media manipulation.

The media allowed viewers to see images of an easy offensive that would be met with little resistance and few challenges. As if on cue, feared Iraqi leaders seemed to just surrender when the allied forces showed up, and the Iraqi people gave up all loyalty to their leaders. However, this was all a show for the viewers, who did not want to see failure.

The viewers expressed disappointment when the U.S. failed to claim victory in a week. As a result, the media added a plot twist (Marsden, 2003). The New York Times suggested that the U.S. blew the entire war when it failed to kill Saddam Hussein on the first day of the invasion. MSNBC's Iraqi-based reporter, Peter Arnett, went on Iraqi TV to announce to the enemy that the U.S. war plan had failed. The April 7th edition of New Yorker Magazine reported that U.S. leaders had to pay the price for wanting to "do the war on the http://www.e11th-hour.org/Common/CLEAR.GIF

The Trend of Investigative Journalism

Investigative reporting exposes information about some type of wrongdoing that affects the public interest. Most of these exposes result from the work of the media rather than from information leaked to the media (Waisbord, 2001).

Before the Watergate scandal brought investigative journalism to the forefront of the media, investigative journalism was associated with solo reporters working on their own with little support from their media organizations. However, in the 1980's and 1990s, as the media accepted its new role as investigators and watchdogs, teamwork became a fundamental part of the media.

Media organizations began to recognize that various kinds of expertise are necessary in producing well-documented and comprehensive stories. Reporters, editors, legal specialists, statistical analysts, librarians, and news researchers began to collaborate on investigations.

Knowledge of public information access laws became the most popular way to find what information is available under "freedom of information" laws, and what legal problems might arise when false or incriminating information is published. New technologies made it easier to find facts and made reporters familiar with the complexities of any given story (Waisbord, 2001). In the 1990's, the computerization of government records and the availability of extraordinary amounts of information online, computer-assisted reporting changed the role of the media to the leading source of public http://www.e11th-hour.org/Common/CLEAR.GIF

In many ways, the role of the media changed from 1970-2000. With these changes came many contributions to democratic governance. The role of the media can be understood in keeping with the Fourth Estate model of the media. According to this model, the media should make the government accountable for its actions by reporting information about matters of public interest even if such information presents authority figures in a negative light.

Thus, investigative reporting is one of the most important roles of the media as far as democracy is concerned. This role is correlated to the logic of checks and balances in democratic systems and provides a valuable mechanism for monitoring the performance of democratic institutions as they are defined to include governmental bodies, civic organizations and publicly held corporations.

According to Waisbord (2001), the media's role shifted over the past thirty years, causing many changes to this nation. "The centrality of the media in contemporary democracies makes political elites sensitive to news, particularly to "bad" news that often causes a public commotion. The publication of news about political and economic wrongdoing can trigger congressional and judicial http://www.e11th-hour.org/Common/CLEAR.GIF

In cases when government institutions fail to conduct further inquiries, or investigations are plagued with problems and suspicions, journalism can contribute to accountability by monitoring the functioning of these institutions.

It can examine how well these institutions actually fulfill their constitutional mandate to govern responsibly in the face of press reports that reveal dysfunction, dishonesty, or wrongdoing in government and society. At minimum, investigative reporting retains important agenda-setting powers to remind citizens and political elites about the existence of certain issues. There are no guarantees, however, that continuous press attention will result in congressional and judicial actions to investigate and prosecute those responsible for http://www.e11th-hour.org/Common/CLEAR.GIF

Investigative journalism also contributes to democracy by nurturing an informed citizenry. Information is a vital resource to empower a vigilant public that ultimately holds government accountable through voting and participation. With the ascent of media-centered politics in contemporary democracies, the media have eclipsed other social institutions as the main source of information about issues and processes that affect citizens' http://www.e11th-hour.org/Common/CLEAR.GIF

Media Ethics

Investigative journalism, which reached its peak during the Watergate scandal, let up a few years later to increased attention to "journalism ethics." As polls revealed decreasing credibility for the media, the media throughout the 1980s placed more and more emphasis on improved ethics, including vehicles such as codes, news councils and ombudsmen.

As media choices grew during the 1980s, the Federal Communications Commission, the main government "watchdog," relaxed regulations on U.S. broadcast media, expanding the amount of outlets one owner could possess and announcing that the "Fairness Doctrine" (which assured equal air time to contending political views) would no longer be enforced. In an effort to increase competition and access to the burgeoning "Information Superhighway," the Clinton administration in 1994 proposed eliminating restrictions on cable television and telephone companies from entering one another's markets.

By the 1990s, the media came to play its most important role in the U.S. electoral process, and cable networks had greater influence than ever.

Satellite technology has enabled American networks to target international audiences. Newspapers can also use satellite technology to print international editions, and The New York Times started printing a special edition in Russian in 1992. Foreign participation in U.S. media grew over the last decade, and ethnic publications, especially in Spanish, and Spanish-language television and radio grew like wildfire throughout the 1980s and early 1990s.

An interactive medium, which was sparked by rapid advances in digital technology and the growing convergence of the computer, telephone and cable television, demonstrate the main trend of the early 1990s. Exemplifying this trend is the fiber-optic cable system that was installed throughout the U.S. By TCI, the largest American cable TV operator.

The $11 billion 1994 merger between the Viacom Cable Company and Paramount shows the type of new alliance between formerly separate media companies that shaped the emerging multi-media market of the late 1990s. MCI's 1995 announcement that it was investing $2 billion in Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation exemplifies recent efforts by U.S. telephone companies to enter the lucrative multi-media sphere. This growing market offers new job opportunities to journalists, and, as a result, journalism education has attracted more and more American and foreign students in America.

Different media workers may pursue a story under different circumstances, so creating an all-purpose ethical rulebook is difficult, although certain standards have become generally accepted since the Watergate era. The legal implications of reporters' actions are much more specific than ethical issues, which deal with right and wrong, and which philosophical principles can justify a particular course of action (Waisbord, 2001).

Any decision can be judged as ethical or unethical, depending on what ethical framework is used to justify it, and what values are viewed as important. During the 1980's and 1990's, with the commercialization of the media, reporters were faced with the ethical question: who will benefit as a result of the http://www.e11th-hour.org/Common/CLEAR.GIF

If a journalist commits to democratic accountability, then the question that needs to be asked is whether the public can benefit from the investigative reports. According to, there are many ethical questions that journalists began asking themselves as investigative reporting gained popularity. "Whose interest does investigative journalism serve by publishing a given story? Does the press fulfill its social responsibility in revealing wrongdoing? Whose interests are being affected? Whose rights are being invaded? Is the issue at stake a matter of legitimate public interest? Or is individual privacy being invaded when no crucial public issue is at stake? (Waisbord, 2001)"

The media's role as the fourth estate comes into play as far as ethics are concerned. Over the past thirty years, as the public has seen more exposure to investigative reporting, it has become apparent that the public seems much less willing than journalists to accept any method to reveal wrongdoing.

The public is, in general, suspicious of invasion of privacy, regardless of the public relevance of a story. The public is less likely to accept that journalists should use any method to get a story. This attitude reveals that the credibility of the media is low. The media was once viewed as trustworthy in the eyes of the public. Thus, the media has learned that relying on questionable methods to get information can damage the legitimacy and public standing of the reporting and the journalists. This fact was not apparent at the time of the Watergate http://www.e11th-hour.org/Common/CLEAR.GIF

Ethical issues involve more than just methods (Waisbord, 2001). Corruption is also a key ethical issue in investigative journalism. Corruption can range from journalists who accept bribes or pay sources for information. The harm to private citizens that could come from what is being reported should also be considered. Issues of privacy are of utmost importance, as investigative journalism teeters between the right to privacy and the public's right to know. However, since the Watergate scandal, as news has become more commercialized, the media seems to think that privacy applies differently to public figures than to average http://www.e11th-hour.org/Common/CLEAR.GIF

Conclusion

According to Mudgeon (2001), "The press today has abandoned its ability to view and report on events from the perspective of an experience-jaundiced common man with common sense, and has adopted the distorted intellectual prism of the ruling class."

While the Watergate scandal marked a new trend in investigative journalism, the media's role as a public watchdog reached its peak during this time. As the media became more commercialized and more "Hollywood," the media's skepticism about the world, its politicians and its businesses all but disappeared.

The newsrooms of the 1970's were flooded with scruffy journalists who demonstrated disdain for their leaders. As a result, the media during this time believed that the role of the press was "to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable." The 1970's reporters took their Fourth Estate obligations very seriously and it showed. However, during th 1980's, this journalistic style took a turn for the worse and became more commercialized. As a result, serious journalism became less appreciated.

According to Mudgeon (2001), "After publication of my first political story some forty years ago, I was taken aside by my newspaper's senior political reporter and admonished about taking too seriously, and being overly respectful toward, the public official whose speech I had covered. When I tried to point out that the speaker's views were important because of the office he held, I was instructed to keep in mind that the individual was "just a politician" and that a politician - any politician - almost invariably was 'someone who would sell his mother into slavery for a vote.'"

Today, the media has transformed into an entirely different operation. The media today speaks for the elites and endeavor to do so to the great unwashed, most of whom have the ability to recognize the pomposity and emptiness of messages from the elites. As a result, less people are paying attention, and the major media outlets are rapidly losing credibility.

As a result of the changes in the media's role throughout the 1980's and 1990's, the elites, who once grudgingly paid heed to the media, no longer feel the need to do so. This has occurred mainly because today's media has abandoned its ability to report on events from the perspective of a common man with common sense, and has adopted the distorted intellectual viewpoints of the ruling class. The media has lost much of its Fourth Estate potential, as it struggles to conform, to be conventional and politically correct. As a result, there is little fear that the press today might rock the boat for politicians or corporations.