Ethical Journalism in a Populist Age: The Democratically Engaged Journalist

230 Pages·2018·1.56 MB·English

by  Stephen J. A. Ward

Ethical Journalism in a Populist Age
The Democratically Engaged Journalist
STEPHEN J. A. WARD
ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD
Lanham • Boulder • New York • London
Executive Editor: Elizabeth Swayze Assistant Editor: Megan Manzano
Senior Marketing Manager: Kim Lyons
Credits and acknowledgments for material borrowed from other sources, and reproduced with permission,
appear on the appropriate page within the text.
Published by Rowman & Littlefield
An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.
4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200,
Lanham, Maryland 20706
www.rowman.com
Unit A, Whitacre Mews, 26-34 Stannary Street, London SE11 4AB, United Kingdom Copyright © 2019 by
The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical
means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher,
except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-
Publication Data Available ISBN 978-1-5381-1071-3 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-5381-1072-0 (pbk. :
alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-5381-1073-7 (electronic)
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard
for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.
Printed in the United States of America
To the ethical journalists who toil in the fields of
journalism, upholding their integrity and their public
purpose, in a media world seemingly gone mad.
Contents
Contents
Acknowledgments
PART I: Journalism in a Toxic Public Sphere
1 Polluted Spheres, Eroding Democracies
A Polluted Public Sphere
Measuring Democracy
The Democrat’s Nightmare
Conclusion: Structure of the Book
Notes
2 Journalism, Populism, and the Problem of Democracy
Ancient Populism
Middle Ages, Renaissance, and Reformation
Early Modern Populism
Modern Populism
Populism and Nationalism
Populism and Journalism
Notes
3 Extreme Populism and Journalism
Defining Populism
Extreme Populism
Strategies of Extreme Populism
Journalistic Guidelines for Extreme Populism
Notes
PART II: Detoxing the Public Sphere
4 Democratically Engaged Journalism
The Culture of Dialogic Democracy
Can We Be Civil?
What Journalists Can Do
Journalistic Guidelines
Ward’s Democracy Index: Detecting Threats to Democracy
Notes
5 Extremism
Philosophical Fundamentals
Media Harm and Extremism
Guidelines for Hate Speech Reporting
Notes
6 Serving the Republic
Forms of Patriotism
Evaluating Patriotism: A Calculus
Serving the Truth, Not Fake News
Serving Humanity
Notes
Bibliography
Acknowledgments
I owe a debt of gratitude to my spouse and musical muse, Nadia Francavilla, for
patiently supporting my writing of this book over the dead of a Canadian winter,
as my mind abided in the luxurious realm of ideas. I thank poet Robert Shiplett
and artist Stephen Scott for welcoming me to my new home in Fredericton, with
weekly discourses on politics, media, and art over a glass of wine.
I
JOURNALISM IN A TOXIC PUBLIC
SPHERE
1
Polluted Spheres, Eroding Democracies
What is the city but the people?
—William Shakespeare, Coriolanus
A POLLUTED PUBLIC SPHERE
Democracy Eroding
This book explains how journalists can protect and advance egalitarian,
dialogic democracy, locally and globally. Rescuing democracy will require that
journalists reconceive their role in society. It will require the articulation of new
ethical norms and practices. It will require concrete action. Journalists, in
collaboration with other democratic agencies, need to join common cause to
detox a polluted public sphere.
This book is a work in journalism ethics, defined as the norms that should
guide the social practice of journalism. It presumes that democracy is in serious
trouble, and journalists can—and must—do something about it. It also presumes
that, of all the problems that beset journalism, its troubled relationship to
democracy is crucial. Journalism should be a democratic craft, antagonistic to
undemocratic forces of any type. While journalism can (and does) exist without
democracy, no form of democracy worth having can exist without a journalism
dedicated to democratic principles.
Democracy is a problem for several reasons. The practice of democracy, as a
working system of government that seeks to be plural and egalitarian, is in deep
trouble. The pillars of egalitarian democracy are shaken every day by intolerant
voices advancing racism or xenophobia or representing some form of economic
or class privilege. The ideal of democracy—a place where citizens deliberate
impartially and factually on the common good—fails to guide politics. In the
United States and many other countries, we witness the erosion of democratic
communities bound by norms of tolerance, compromise, dialogue, and objective
facts. Citizens who disagree with extreme populists or intolerant majorities are
dismissed as unpatriotic citizens.
Three large factors have created, in large part, this current turmoil: (1) the rise
of a global public sphere; (2) the rise of extremism populism, and its infiltration
of mainstream politics; and (3) the rise of information technologies that can be
used to spread misinformation, division, and hatred. Despite the creative media
unleashed by the digital revolution, the public sphere is corrupted in its capacity
to discern truth from falsity, sincere reporters from manipulative voices, experts
from ideologues, facts from uninformed assertion. The channels of information
that inform democratic citizens—the very lifeblood of democracy—are polluted
by false information, conspiracy theories, ideological extremism, and
manipulative groups. Not all of the public sphere is polluted. But so much of it is
corrupted that new and strenuous efforts are needed to detox the sphere.