MEN'S HEALTH AMERICA SPECIAL REPORT, PART IV
Media Indifferent to Men's Health
January 22, 2003
This series of Special Reports has documented widespread bias
in media coverage of sex-specific health issues. This bias is symptomatic
of a larger issue: the apparent indifference of the mass media to the
concerns and needs of men.
How Did This Indifference Arise?
In the early 1990s, newspapers and TV stations made a laudable effort to hire more women and minorities in an effort to appeal to a broader range of readers and viewers. The hope was that this would reverse sagging revenues caused by the growth of cable TV and the internet.
Media executives believed that women and minorities wanted a different type of coverage. At one meeting, Mark Willes, publisher of The Los Angeles Times, revealed his plan to publish stories that were "more emotional, more personal, and less analytic." (1).
As it would turn out, making stories more personalized had the effect of undermining the traditional media values of objectivity, balance, and fairness. This would set the stage for more ominous developments at the New York Times.
Arthur Sulzberger's Scheme
Some of the media elites began to embrace an agenda of social advocacy. Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., publisher of the New York Times, lead the way in this campaign. According to Nan Robertson, Sulzberger "considers himself a feminist...is an ardent fan of the writer Marilyn French." (2). Marilyn French is well-known for her defamatory remark that "All men are rapists and that's all they are."
Mr. Sulzberger explained his new editorial philosophy at a 1992 conference in this way: "We can no longer offer our readers a predominantly white, straight male vision of events." (3).
Later, Sulzberger's views became even more harsh: "If white men were not complaining, it would be an indication we weren't succeeding and making the inroads that we are." (4). It is hard to imagine a statement more arrogant or more contemptuous of men.
Sulzberger's editorial vision had a ripple effect throughout the entire industry. First, he hired writers and editors who translated his beliefs into articles, news analyses, and editorials that appeared daily in the New York Times.
But more significantly, as the preeminent media outlet in the country, the Times sets the agenda for those topics that are considered newsworthy and those that are not. As a result, Sulzberger's anti-male agenda began to affect media coverage of men's issues around the country.
Hence, efforts to achieve "diversity" in practice translated into one-sided stories that downplayed or ignored the perspectives of men. Men's health was simply deemed to be unimportant. Indeed, complaints that the New York Times was biased against men were interpreted by the Times' executives as proof that they were succeeding with their diversity agenda.
License to Overkill
Even worse, men soon became a favorite scapegoat of the media. Men became deserving of stereotyping, dehumanization, and scorn. As documented in the first article in this series (5), media representatives could make almost any derogatory comment about men with impunity.
In his best-selling book "Bias," Bernard Goldberg quotes a CBS executive who explains this scapegoating of men as a "License to Overkill." According to this anonymous executive:
"Any group that feels, rightly or wrongly, that it has been oppressed, no matter how much or how little, has the license to overkill...Once you have the license to overkill you can say just about anything you want about the oppressors. And get away with it." (6).
Unworthy Victims
A decade ago, the American mass media set out to reinvent itself in order to increase exposure and revenues. Ironically, this editorial make-over ended up undermining the journalistic mandate to get the story right. Editorial gaffes at the New York Times became the butt of late-night comedy routines.
The public took note, as well. In 1979-80, 75% of all TVs that were on in the early evening were tuned to an ABC, NBC, or CBS news program (6). In 1994-95, the viewership fell to 51%. And by 2001, the market share of those news programs had plummetted to just 43%. Clearly, the effort to increase network viewership had failed.
Media coverage of important social issues could no longer be counted on to be objective, fair, or balanced. For many Americans, the mainstream media simply lost its credibility. This is a great loss to American society.
And for men, this chilling prophesy from the book "Manufacturing Consent" (7) has now come to pass:
"Our hypothesis is that worthy victims will be featured prominently and dramatically, that they will be humanized, and that their victimization will receive the detail and context in story construction that will generate reader interest and sympathetic emotions. In contrast, unworthy victims will merit only slight detail, minimal humanization, and little context that will excite and enrage."
-Carey Roberts
A Double Standard of Media Coverage;
Media
Bias in Coverage of Gender Health Stories
Men's
Health: More Bias in Media
Media
Indifference to Men's Health
Notes:
1. McGowan W. Coloring the News: How Crusading for Diversity has Corrupted American Journalism. San Francisco: Encounter Books, 2001, p. 18.
2. Isabelle de Courtivron: And with Good Reason, a review of Marilyn French's The War Against Women, New York Times, July 5, 1972.
3. McGowan W. Coloring the News. San Francisco: Encounter Books, 2001, p. 19.
4. McGowan W. Coloring the News. San Francisco: Encounter Books, 2001, p. 238
5. Men's Health America: A Double Standard of Media Coverage. Rockville, MD, 2003. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/menshealth Message #655.
6. Goldberg B. Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News. Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, 2002.
7. Herman ES and Chomsky N: Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. New York: Pantheon, 2002.
