One of the most memorable stories I recall being told in graduate school was about the lead-up to a famed 1998 Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement and a series of mediated talks between two constituencies seemingly at intractable odds: tobacco farmers and public health workers. As I remember, it was during the process of learning about one another’s respective positions that these groups realized something surprising: that they actually had a great deal more in common than originally had been apparent on the surface, including a vested interest in both the financial and physical health of their local community. They discovered that they were not adversaries at all, as it turned out, but did share a common one: tobacco companies’ corporate structure.

Of course, America’s consortium of big media companies is very different than the country’s big tobacco trust, because, unlike tobacco, news of national import is a public good. Journalism, at its best, is a helpful and essential component of all of our information diets, and it is important to value news sources greatly.

Still, something to which I have given considerable thought in recent years as I have grappled with my own experiences in media (which were largely very good in the beginning but ended with problems leading me to give notice) and determined to talk about challenges I hope to help address constructively is the question: what is the adversary, so to speak, when it comes to civil rights problems in media organizations? Certainly, the answer is no person. I have collaborated with numerous extraordinarily intelligent, kind, innovative, funny, and irreplaceable friends in every organization where I have had the privilege of working. Having been blessed with opportunities to contribute in both the journalism industry as well as in the educational and nonprofit sectors, I love both journalists and problem-solvers.

But I do feel compelled to constructively critique the organizational structure of many media companies, because I feel this structure is harmful.

Presently, it feels like American society is stratifying less along socioeconomic or even political faultiness and more along those delineating the presence or lack of favor from publicly-traded media companies with two classes emerging – the voiced and the unvoiced; or, the active speakers and passive audience, frequently referred to in the second person. (I strongly believe the term “media elite” may be obsolete provided it ever had meaning.)

But good ideas spring up out of numerous sectors, and journalists and celebrities cannot be our only voiced citizens. Recently, it seems, a largely automated ratings-directed apparatus for the selection of members of what are essentially a modern oligarchy has been deemed by many to be an acceptable complement, or even partial replacement, for an intentionally designed representative democracy. But it is important to recognize this is not actually so. Clicks – which generally indicate whether a passive audience member feels strongly about (regardless of whether this feeling is positive or negative) or is addicted to content are not the same as votes, which represent opportunities to express views in a particular direction.

American citizenship is not a spectator sport. And its media do not need to designate any internal or external person or group a sacrificial lamb for the purpose of perpetuating an outmoded, outrage- and sensationalism-fueled journalistic infrastructure.

In my latter-years at CNN, it literally felt as if the company’s most profitable departments, and those tasked with holding them responsible, determined that, because the broadcasts were so profitable, it would be worth it to sacrifice the safety and rights of individual human beings.

Open Systems Design

When I felt ready to begin proposing possible solutions to problems I observed during this time, there seemed to be no one to listen. It wasn’t until I tried to reach out to a celebrity journalist and a Time’s Up actress that it fully dawned on me how absurd the idea was that these individuals represented me or anyone.

Particularly because, in my observations at least, there appears to be a determinative and direct correlation between human rights inside of media organizations and the quality of the product able to be produced (regardless of appearances), so long as a publicly-traded media consortium continues to serve as what is essentially our country’s operating system, it will continue to be important to continually monitor how this OS is managing governmental hardware, as well as how it is powered.

In an industry that has typically survived by garnering as much attention as possible, as a field of competitors has widened, the means by which this is accomplished moving forward deserves considered critique. Although I believe it is more widely understood than ever that cable news, for example, cannot forever rely on getting and keeping the vulnerable – and particularly, the elderly – addicted to rage in order to remain in business, there has seemed to be very little constructive discussion of alternatives. This is as, to the degree that media organizations have power, this power needs to be derived from adding value to the world, not bullying, and harnessed to uplift and empower viewers.

On Alternatives

While it is important to consider market saturation, even if the number of competitors angling for a finite amount of available passive attention dwindles, there is still the matter of more renewable forms of power to be considered. As purveyors of public goods that can be utilized productively, it may be worth considering whether news organizations should be financed differently.

To the degree media companies serve as trustees responsible for stewarding public information, I further wonder whether some form of accountability – such as accreditation or even inclusion in the UN’s Universal Human Rights Index – where civil liberties are concerned could be useful. Given their imperative to uphold the idea of human equality, and an opposing tendency to prioritize shareholder return to the detriment of this aim, media corporations would otherwise, to employ the computer analogy further, in theory, run the risk of devolving into malware.

Regardless of whether funding constructs change, such a safeguard for equality under corporate policy within media organizations is arguably imperative given that the media conglomerates that are currently most dominant in the world are, without exception, also headquartered on American soil.

On the Golden Rule

The legal code declares corporations are people. But does more permanent law? We all know that, being human, we must embody mercy and understanding for others; because we all need it.

But it seems to me that the central question in the area of civil rights in media is not whether the golden rule applies when grievous harms are done by other human beings. While accountability where others are concerned is certainly needed, so is mercy. But, given how frequently corporate structures seem to serve as devices designed to drive a wedge between the elements of authority and responsibility that must remain conjoined anywhere human rights are valued, should the golden rule should apply to them?

During a time of such intense polarization and thought-taking about what steps are needed in order for what should be a unified nation to come together more sustainably, it may be worth remembering that two groups who at least appeared to have no path forward in partnership were able to make progress when they stopped affording publicly-traded purveyors of addictive harms courtesies reserved for what they weren’t: people.