Media have helped create a crisis of democracy - now they must play a vital role in its revival

by Denis Muller, The Conversation:  https://theconversation.com/media-have-helped-create-a-crisis-of-democracy-now-they-must-play-a-vital-role-in-its-revival-139653

In May 2020, with the world still in the grip of the coronavirus pandemic, Margaret MacMillan, an historian at the University of Toronto, wrote an essay in The Economist about the possibilities for life after the pandemic had passed.

On a scale of one to ten, where one was utter despair and ten was cautious hopefulness, it would have rated about six. Her thesis was that the future will be decided by a fundamental choice between reform and calamity.

She saw the world as being at a turning point in history. It had arrived there as a result of the conjunction of two forces: growing unrest at economic inequality, and the crisis induced by the pandemic.

It was at such times, she argued, that societies took stock and were open to change. Such a time, for example, was in the immediate aftermath of the second world war, which resulted in radical reforms to international political and economic frameworks.

She was writing against a backdrop of a larger crisis – the crisis in democracy. The most spectacular symptoms of this were the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States and the Brexit referendum. Both occurred in 2016, and both appealed to populism largely based on issues of race and immigration.

The election of Donal Trump as US president in 2016 was symptomatic of democracy’s crisis. AAP/Reuters/Jonathan Ernst

In the four years since, many books have been written on this crisis, among them Cass Sunstein’s #republic, Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt’s How Democracies Die, and A. C. Grayling’s Democracy and its Crisis.

Then, somewhat surprisingly, in May 2020 a new spirit of what might be called “economic morality” announced itself.

This came from within the Republican Party of the United States. It happened while Trump, that most amoral of Republican presidents, was in office, and reasserted some of the fundamental values of conservatism.

It took the form of a new organisation, American Compass, https://americancompass.org/, founded by Oren Cass, who was domestic policy adviser to Mitt Romney’s 2008 and 2012 US presidential election campaigns. He is also the author of an acclaimed book on labour markets, The Once and Future Worker: A Vision for the Renewal of Work in America.

American Compass’s mission, as stated on its website, was to:

… restore an economic consensus that emphasises the importance of family, community, and industry to the nation’s liberty and prosperity.

As the coronavirus pandemic wreaked havoc across the United States, Cass described the nation’s response as an indictment of what he called an “economic piety” – a form of ideological purity – that ignored many values that markets do not take into their calculations.

These included the well-being of workers, the security of supply chains, and the running down of America’s self-sufficiency, exemplified by a shortage of medical supplies.

His line of argument was supported by a senior Republican, Senator Marco Rubio, in an article for The New York Times. Rubio’s critique of the failure of American economic policy over two decades was crystallised in one sentence:

Why didn’t we have enough N95 masks or ventilators on hand for a pandemic? Because buffer stocks don’t maximize financial return, and there was no shareholder reward for protecting against risk.

Has the coronavirus changed the way democracies operate? AAP/Reuters/Jonathan Ernst

The fact that this significant shift in economic thinking and socio-political priorities was coming out of elements in the Republican Party in the lead-up to the presidential election is perhaps an indication that MacMillan’s thesis has some substance. Perhaps democracies are on the cusp of a change in direction.

How the pandemic contracted the media landscape further

Alongside these developments, the existential crisis facing news media was made worse by the coronavirus pandemic. As business activity was brought to a stop by the lockdown, the need for advertising was drastically reduced.

Coming on top of the haemorrhaging of advertising revenue to social media over the previous 15 years, this proved fatal to some newspapers.

In Australia, the impact of this was worst in regional and rural areas. News Corp announced in May that more than 100 of its regional newspapers would become digital-only or close entirely.

In April, Australia’s largest regional newspaper publisher, Australian Community Media (ACM), announced it was  suspending the printing of newspapers at four of its printing sites, halting the production of most of its non-daily local newspapers. ACM has about 160 titles.

These developments represented a serious loss to local communities and added to the democratic deficit already apparent over more than a decade as advertising revenue flowed away from traditional media to the global social media platforms.

Defending against the digital onslaught

At a national level, the Australian government took up a recommendation by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to force the global platforms, particularly Facebook and Google, to pay for the news it took from Australian media.

The platforms mounted a fierce rearguard action against this proposal, which remains unresolved for now.

If a democratic revival is to occur, however, a strong media will be a necessary part of it. The necessity of a free press has been clear since the germination of modern democracy in the late 17th century, and in the late 18th century it was given powerful recognition in both legal and political terms.

Edmund Burke. National Galleries of Scotland

In 1791 it was articulated in the First Amendment to the US Bill of Rights. In 1795, Edmund Burke stood up in the British House of Commons and  asserted that the press had become what he called “the fourth estate of the Realm”.

If the media are to play their part in any democratic revival, however, financial and material security will be only a part of what is required.

One factor that has contributed to the present crisis in democracy is polarisation, the opening up of deep divisions between the main political parties of mature democracies. This has been magnified by media partisanship.

There is a lot of research evidence for this. One of the most significant is a 2017 study that showed the link in the United States between people’s television viewing habits and their political affiliations.

A further factor in the crisis has been the emergence of the “fake news” phenomenon. In the resultant swirling mass of information, misinformation and disinformation that constitutes the digital communications universe, people have returned to traditional mass media in the hope that they can trust what they see and hear there.

The Edelman Trust Barometer, an annual global study of public attitudes of trust towards a variety of institutions, including the media, showed that since 2015, public trust in the traditional media as a source of news had increased, and their trust in social media as a source of news had decreased.

Populism and scapegoating

A third factor in the crisis, exacerbated by the first two, is the rise of populism. Its defining characteristics are distrust of elites, negative stereotyping, the creation of a hated “other”, and scapegoating. The hated “other” has usually been defined in terms of race, colour, ethnicity, nationality, religion or some combination of them.

Powerful elements of the news media, most notably Fox News in the United States, Sky News in Australia and the Murdoch tabloids in Britain, have exploited and promoted populist sentiment.

This sentiment is reckoned to have played a significant part in the election of Trump.

It is also considered to have played a part in the outcome of the Brexit referendum.

It follows that if these are contributing factors to the crisis in democracy, then the media has a part in any democratic revival.

To do so, it needs to take four major steps. One is to focus resources on what is called public interest journalism: the reporting of parliament, the executive government, courts, and powerful institutions in which the public places its trust, such as major corporations and political parties. This work needs to include a substantial investigative component.

A second is to recommit to the professional ethical requirements of accuracy, fairness, truth-telling, impartiality, and respect for persons.

The third is to take political partisanship out of news coverage. Media outlets are absolutely entitled to be partisan in their opinions, but when it taints the news coverage, the public trust is betrayed.

The fourth is to recalibrate the relationship between professional mass media and social media.

That recalibration involves taking a far more critical approach to social media content than has commonly been the case until now.

While it is true the early practices of simply regurgitating stuff from social media have largely been abandoned, social media still exerts a disproportionate influence on news values. Just because something goes viral on social media doesn’t make it news unless it concerns a matter of substance.

Social media still exerts too much influence on news values. Shutterstock

Social media is where fake news flourishes, so the filter applied by professional mass media to what appears there needs to be strong and close-meshed.

That is the negative side of the recalibration.

The positive side is to further develop the extraordinary symbiosis that has been shown to exist between social and professional mass media.

It was most spectacularly demonstrated by the Black Lives Matter protests that followed the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Social media allowed millions of people all over the world to be eyewitnesses to this gross act of police brutality.

Professional mass media, by applying its standards of verification and corroboration then disseminating the footage on its mass platforms, ensured the killing became known to the community at large, well beyond the confines of echo chambers and filter bubbles.

It also added that element of long-established public trust that respected news brands have to offer.

The world saw how powerful that combination was. A single act of police violence with racist overtones in a relatively obscure American city set off protests not just in the United States but in many countries with a history of police brutality against people of colour: Canada, Britain, Belgium, France, Australia, the Dominican Republic.

Thanks to the power of the media, the killing of George Floyd triggered protests around the world. AAP/Sipa USA/Sopa Images

And then the same combination exerted a high level of accountability on the police for their further acts of violence against the protesters, which spilled over into police violence against the media covering those protests.

These events show the importance of the community having a common bedrock of reliable information on which to base a common conversation and a common response to an issue of common concern. It is the opposite of the fragmentation that is created by online echo chambers.

If Margaret MacMillan is right, and the world really is at a point where significant economic, political and social change is possible, let’s hope the media might be brave and honest enough to reflect on the contribution they have made to the creation of democracy’s crisis, and be prepared to change in order to help rebuild public trust in democratic institutions.

We know how to fix the police: the data proves that regulating police behavior results in fewer killings of civilians.

by David Byrne, Reasons to be Cheerful:  https://reasonstobecheerful.world/we-know-how-to-fix-the-police/

Monday afternoon of last week, my friend Bobby texted me that a protest was going to assemble at Grand Army Plaza, on the edge of Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, at 6 pm. I rode out there to discover, to my pleasant surprise, that this was to be a bike “march.” Hundreds of cyclists had converged at the entrance to the park. 

We chanted as we rode. Traffic stopped at cross streets, and more often than not motorists honked and waved to salute us. The real surprise came when we reached the Williamsburg Bridge. Some cyclists in the lead blocked the traffic heading into Manhattan, and we swarmed onto the westbound lane and over the bridge. A pretty glorious feeling, I have to say.

Credit: Alex Cascone

My impression is that the police in New York have tempered their initially confrontational approach to the protesters. There were no barricades or cars set up to entrap and enclose marchers. It seemed to me that, slowly, some lessons are being learned. But not everywhere — in Atlanta, Rayshard Brooks was murdered, shot in the back as I write this. In many places, nothing has changed.

We talked (distanced) as we rode. We asked each other: What next? What changes can be instituted? (New York is banning chokeholds). Are the changes being considered enough? And maybe, most importantly, are there policies that have shown documented success in stopping the killings, combating systemic racism and fostering better relationships between neighborhoods and the police? 

The answer is: Yes, there are changes that have been proven to work.

There are two types of policies: Ones that reduce the risk of violence during an encounter between a citizen and the police, and ones that reduce the number and kinds of encounters altogether. I’ll start with what happens during an encounter.

Part 1: Less dangerous interactions

8 Can’t Wait

There’s been a fair bit of buzz about 8 Can’t Wait, a list of eight policing reforms recommended by an organization named  Campaign Zero that was formed in 2015 by three activists from St. Louis and nearby Ferguson, Missouri. 

This organization has been name-checked by everyone from Barack Obama to Ariana Grande — deservedly so, as their  research is proof of what works and points to a positive way forward. In a nutshell, their data show that cities that have adopted certain policies regulating what happens when police and civilians interact have seen a reduction in killings of said civilians, and that police violence can be reduced by 72 percent if all eight recommendations are adopted! 

Since black people are nearly three times more likely to be killed by police than white people, these recommended policies are what we need to adopt — right now. How inspiring that these young people have helped galvanize this push for solutions!

Here are the eight reforms they studied and recommend based on the results of those studies:

1. Require comprehensive reporting (every time officers use force or threaten force against someone, they have to report that)
2. Exhaust all other means before shootings (unsurprisingly, this can reduce police violence by 25 percent)
3. Ban chokeholds and strangleholds
4. Require a use-of-force continuum (this limits the weapons or force that can be used depending on the situation)
5. Require de-escalation (officers have to communicate with subjects, maintain distance and otherwise defuse tense situations whenever possible)
6. Duty to intervene (officers must stop other officers from using excessive force, and report incidents)
7. Ban shooting at moving vehicles
8. Require warning before shooting

And here is their chart showing the reduction in killings associated with each restriction:

Credit: Campaign Zero / #8CantWait

The figures show that there is a clear reduction in killings when each of these policies is adopted. Campaign Zero arrived at these numbers by looking at police department records. The information was not easy to get — the police don’t like to reveal internal data (changing that policy is also recommended). But over the course of a year, by using the Freedom of Information Act and even sometimes resorting to lawsuits, they got the information they needed. This information was then cross-referenced with a database of police killings compiled by the Guardian.

Other factors were taken into account for each city: the number of arrests made, the size of the police force, demographics and the degree of inequality. That’s a lot of stuff to factor in, but if they hadn’t folks might not take these findings seriously.

Credit: Campaign Zero / #8CantWait

The good news — and boy do we need some of that now — is that cities where these policies have been applied have shown a significant reduction in killings of civilians. Here is a solution that works, we have proof, and were it more widely adopted we might find ourselves in a better place.

Camden serves as a case study

Camden, New Jersey has adopted some strategies that resemble Campaign Zero’s recommendations. More radically, in 2012 the city disbanded its entire police department. It was then reconstituted with new officers (though 100 of the old ones were kept) as part of a new public-safety force focused on rebuilding trust between communities and the police. 

Camden’s chief of police told Citylab that he wants his new officers to “identify more with being in the Peace Corps than being in the Special Forces.” This means using handcuffs and guns only as a last resort, mentoring local youth and generally acting like members of the community. For instance, every new recruit in Camden now starts out by knocking on doors in the neighborhood they’re assigned to, introducing themselves to the residents and asking them about the important issues where they live.

Camden used to be one of the most violent cities in the U.S. Since 2014, however, its crime rate has dropped by half and reports of excessive force by police have dropped by 95 percent! It’s a complicated story — not as simple as it might seem, and more than can be told here — but it shows restructuring can work.

The not so good news is that, according to Campaign Zero, only two large cities — Tucson and San Francisco — have adopted all of the policies 8 Can’t Wait recommends. These reforms often meet resistance despite proof that they work. Police unions work hard to oppose them, claiming they hamstring officers who are simply trying to do their jobs.

But there is evidence that this argument is false. Many of these reforms, besides saving the lives of civilians, also result in fewer police being assaulted and killed in the line of duty –– a win-win situation.

Credit: Campaign Zero / #8CantWait

Here, then, is where both sides may find some agreement!

Part 2: Reducing engagement with police

The reforms recommended above are aimed at reducing risk during encounters between civilians (especially black civilians) and members of the police force. But another way to reduce this risk is to reduce the number of encounters altogether.  Those changes may take more time to put into effect, but they can affect the whole ecology, altering the relationship between a police force and the citizens they have sworn to protect.

Ending “broken windows”

The broken windows theory posits that targeting minor infractions like vandalism creates a sense of orderliness and control that deters would-be criminals. But it has been proven a false assumption. As the New Yorker recently put it, “Perceptions of disorder generally have more to do with the racial composition of a neighborhood than with the number of broken windows or amount of graffiti in the area.” In fact, according to one study, “Aggressively enforcing minor legal statutes incites more severe criminal acts.” The policy has, it seems, exactly the opposite effect intended. 

Increasing diversity on police forces

Whether more diverse police departments are less violent towards black people is a complicated question. One 2017 study found that more racial diversity on a police force led to fewer black citizens being killed — but only once the force was made up of more than 40 percent black officers. 

In fact, until a ratio that at least matches the demographic of the city or county is reached, police forces with just a few black officers were found to kill even more black civilians. The researchers theorized this might be a result of those few black officers trying to show that they weren’t going easy on black civilians. There’s a tipping point, and until you reach it, the beneficial effect doesn’t kick in. A token black man or a woman on the force is not going to do it. But when law enforcement matches the population, then a significant reduction in killings occurs.

The Clinton Crime Bill, a.k.a the Violent Crime Control Act

In 1994, Bill Clinton (and Joe Biden) helped to create the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act. This bill expanded the death penalty, introduced minimum mandatory sentencing and put limits on parole. It also provided funding to add 100,000 officers to police forces nationally. 

A number of studies have questioned whether these measures actually reduced crime — crime was going down before the law went into effect. But it sure established an adversarial relationship between the police and the black community. States joined in, adding their own mandatory sentencing rules, harsher penalties for adolescents and more arrests for minor drug possession. These policies went a long way toward filling up prisons, even the new ones funded by the Clinton bill. 

Other studies have shown that increasing incarceration does nothing to reduce crime. But you can bet that 100,000 additional cops on the street increased police encounters, especially in black neighborhoods, many of which ended in violence. We have proof that fixing many aspects of this law will greatly reduce potentially dangerous encounters.

Redefining police work

There have been calls recently to defund the police. In fact, Campaign Zero has even acknowledged criticism that the 8 Can’t Wait campaign emphasizes reform over defunding.

I’m not going to wade into defunding, not in the literal sense. But removing cops from scenarios that they are neither trained nor equipped to deal with is something even the police themselves endorse. Mental health issues, drug overdoses, traffic, homelessness, sex work — these issues are often  better dealt with by social workers (who don’t carry guns) than by police who are not trained for them. Taking those responsibilities away from police and making sure trained folks are there to handle those issues will help.

Challenges: Why reform is so difficult

Though the 8 Can’t Wait recommendations reduce police violence, change has been frustratingly slow. There are reasons for this, and fixing these structural issues will go a long way toward making other changes possible.

Lack of federal oversight: With 18,000 police departments in the U.S., each with its own set of rules, reform is like playing whack-a-mole. 

Lack of transparency: Police records are kept secret by statute in many states. It’s hard to reform something if you can’t prove it exists — thank God for cell phone videos.

Qualified immunity: It’s very difficult to sue police officers, which makes it harder to hold them accountable (that may soon change).

Optics

In my opinion, what police look like — and what their tactics look like — has a huge effect on the relationship between a government and its citizens, especially citizens of color. When police surround and enclose a peaceful demonstration (known as kettling, like putting a lid on a pot of boiling water) it says, in effect, “We are not your protectors, and we will use force to dominate you.” 

The same goes for the visual effect of the gear and outfits. Police and other forces aligned like Star Wars stormtroopers with helmets, masks and weapons at the ready are clearly meant to inspire fear. The optics say to citizens, “You are the enemy and we are an occupying army.”

Some cities have wisely taken a different approach. Police at demonstrations and marches in Camden, Newark and Santa Cruz have shown solidarity with the marchers, joining them in normal street uniforms. In effect, this says, “We are PART of the community that we are here to protect.” It’s the opposite of an attempt to surround and contain. 

Connected

I am old enough to remember the protests against what was called the Vietnam War in the U.S. (and what was called the American War in Vietnam). I was in high school, and many of us saw the war as illegal, immoral and illogical. America was bitterly divided. National Guardsmen killed (white) college students in Ohio. I remember when, in 1967, Martin Luther King made a speech about how the war, racial injustice, poverty, workers rights and civil rights are all interconnected: “The bombs in Vietnam explode at home — they destroy the dream and possibility for a decent America.” 

Many on his team thought this was a tactical mistake — diluting the message, maybe, or risking alienating some followers or what government support existed. LBJ was supportive of the civil rights movement, but he was pro-Vietnam War. The New York Times wrote that connecting the two was dubious.

But, then as now, King was right. To make progress with law enforcement, one has to look wider — at housing, schools, the health care system and, of course, the courts and prisons. Each one affects the others. The remedies outlined above are essential, but the sickness is widespread. Thankfully there is firm evidence of progress here and there. There are partial and proven solutions. It’s not time to give up.

How much do people around the world care about climate change? We surveyed 80,000 people in 40 countries to find out

by Simge Andi and James Painter, The Conversation:  https://theconversation.com/how-much-do-people-around-the-world-care-about-climate-change-we-surveyed-80-000-people-in-40-countries-to-find-out-140801

Image: The Conversation.com

New survey results from 40 countries shows that climate change matters to most people. In the vast majority of countries, fewer than 3% said climate change was not serious at all.

We carried out this research as part of the University of Oxford’s Reuters Institute annual Digital News Reports. More than 80,000 people were surveyed online in January and February of this year.

Almost seven in ten think climate change is “a very, or extremely serious, problem”, but the results show notable country differences. Lack of concern is far higher in the US (12%) as well as in Sweden (9%), Greta Thunberg’s home country. Despite disastrous bush fires at the time of our fieldwork, 8% of respondents in Australia report that climate change is not serious at all. These groups with low levels of concern tend to be right wing and older.

Four of the five countries showing the highest levels of concern (85-90%) were from the global south, namely Chile, Kenya, South Africa and the Philippines. However, in countries with lower levels of internet penetration, our online survey samples over-represent people who are more affluent and educated.

Almost everyone in Chile and Kenya thinks climate change is serious. But that’s not the case in Scandinavia and the Low Countries. Reuters Institute Digital News Report, Author provided

Perhaps surprisingly, the five countries with the lowest levels of concern are all in Western Europe. In Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and the Netherlands, only around half (or less) think that climate change is a serious problem.

It is the first time that results from survey questions on climate change have been included in the Reuters Institute’s reports, so it is difficult to draw out historical trends. However, results in 2015 from the Pew Center based on surveys in 40 countries (with different questions and countries to those in our survey) found that 54% of those surveyed thought that climate change was “a very serious” problem.

So it looks like concern for climate change may be rising globally. There is certainly strong evidence that it is increasing in some countries. In the US, in November 2019  two in three Americans (66%) said they were at least “somewhat worried” about global warming, an increase of 10 percentage points over the past five years.

In the UK, data from the CAST centre at Cardiff University  showed that in 2019 levels of “worry” about climate change were at their highest recorded point. Extreme weather events, media reporting and wider publicity were mentioned by respondents as reasons for their increase in concern.

In our survey, across countries and markets, individuals who identify as left-wing tend to report higher levels of concern. This finding is even more visible in more polarised societies such as the US where 89% of those who self-identify on the left note that climate change is serious, compared to only 18% of those who self-identify on the right.

Right-wingers tend to take climate change less seriously – especially in the US and Sweden. Reuters Institute Digital News Report, Author provided

We also find a similar divide in Sweden. As Sweden is widely considered one of the world’s most progressive nations, these results surprised us and we asked Martin Hultman, a researcher in climate denialism at Chalmers University in Gothenburg, what to make of them.

“These figures do not surprise me”, he told us in an email. “Since 2010, the leadership of the far-right political party Sweden Democrats has been against all types of policies to tackle climate change, including the Paris Agreement.”

“And we know that the spread of climate change denial ideas and rhetoric is widespread in Sweden – not least when digitally-born far-right media sites spread conspiracy theories about Greta Thunberg.”

TV news still dominates

Across all countries, people say they pay most attention to climate news on television (35%). Online news sites of major news organisations are the second most popular news source (15%), followed by specialised outlets covering climate issues (13%), then alternative sources such as social media and blogs (9%).

Figures from the UK, US and Australia are broadly in line with these preferences. Printed newspapers and radio are way down, with only around 5% saying each was the source they paid most attention to. In Chile, where the concern is high, specialised outlets covering climate issues (24%) as well as alternative sources such as social media (17%) are nearly as popular as television (26%).

The differences in climate news consumption are also visible among different age groups. Younger generations, more specifically the so-called Generation Z (aged 18-24), are more likely to report paying attention to alternative sources on climate change (17%) as well as TV (23%) and online news sites from major news organisations (16%). Older people, however, rely more heavily on TV (42%) and use less of the online news sites (12%) or alternative sources such as social media (5%).

Respondents from both sides of the political spectrum criticise the media for either being too doom-laden, or not bold enough, in their coverage of climate change. That said, our survey shows that almost half of our respondents (47%) think that news media generally do a good job of informing them about climate change, and 19% think that they do a bad job.

However, those who have low levels of concern are much more inclined to say that the news media are doing a bad job (46%). This might indicate a lack of trust in climate change coverage or a more general loss of confidence in the news media.