Is the End of Objective Media the End of Democracy?

As a career investigative reporter, recent events involving censorship and the rather speedy decimation of First Amendment protections at CBS and other legacy news outlets have been very troubling. Sickening, in fact.

I’m referring to the recent cancellation of Stephen Colbert’s “The Late Show,” which regularly discussed political news events and mocked the powers that be, as well as the firings of senior staff and reporters at “60 Minutes.”

I’m also referring to the previous settlements by major TV networks whose owners have paid tens of millions of dollars to the federal government, because they had major merger deals pending. As such, they promised to make changes to remove people or shows that criticize or don’t support the president and his administration in exchange for the approval of deals that put pro-Trump owners in power. This is no secret; these deals have been discussed publicly for more than a year now. Colbert even suggested that his calling such a move by CBS a “bribe” led to his show’s cancellation.

Even though I’m no longer working as a reporter, I do still consider myself an investigative journalist who writes long-form narratives, i.e., books. And even though I’m not writing a nonfiction book at this very moment, my recent foray back into crime fiction does not change who I am or have always been. I still feel the collective pain of my tribe, the Fourth Estate, and the good that we do, when I see major legacy news outlets, reporters or late-night talk show hosts attacked for exercising their First Amendment rights. I cringe as I watch their credibility eroded and degraded by new owners and management that exert their political bias and insert it where it doesn’t belong.

“60 Minutes” has a long history of reporting the news and political events with a well-respected approach of objectivity and neutrality that we could all trust. CBS, too, once had news anchors such as Walter Conkrite, whom we counted on to tell the truth whenever he delivered his nightly address.

But that is no longer the case. Trustworthy news leaders are growing fewer and far between, because that old school approach has been increasingly besieged for the past decade that MAGA leaders have been in power. The same goes for the parallel decimation of respect, belief and funding for education, science and scientific principles.

Honestly, there are few news sources that I trust these days. I read and watch multiple sources to see if I can find the truth somewhere in between the lines, and even then I’m still not sure. So much of what is out there is opinion-based, and even if I might agree with a source’s point of view, I still have no way to vet it for the truth.

When I was a reporter, I worked at two separate family-owned regional newspapers, one on the East Coast and one on the West Coast, where I saw these same forces at work, albeit on a much smaller scale. This pre-dated MAGA, but local news was often influenced by political and financial forces that influenced the owners and publishers of these news outlets, and in turn, stories produced in the newsroom. I’m going to refrain from naming the newspapers, but it’s not that hard to figure out from my resume.

It was troubling and sickening then, too, but it wasn’t on a national scale, so it didn’t feel like the end of democracy, as many cable news pundits are claiming we are seeing now. I keep hearing that unless X happens in the next election, we will be one step closer to that end, when all will be lost. When our nation will have stepped over that line from which we can never come back. Or if we do, it will take at least the next decade to make repairs.

As I’ve watched local news outlets wither and die, and the national news outlets fall prey to these political biases, I feel like a big part of my world and my identity are dying along with them, and I feel hopeless to stop it. The difference from my own experience at these two regional papers is that what’s going on now is happening nationally, so it affects all of us, not just me and the surrounding community.

Political bias belongs on the Opinion page, not in the news pages. It also doesn’t belong in news shows any more than it belongs in opinion-based shows acting as news shows on networks like FOX, which has won lawsuits by arguing that their reporting is opinion-based commentary rather than fact-based news, and yet their shows and hosts still pose as if they’re delivering the news and are still perceived by their viewers as such.

My fiction has offered me my only chance for escape and my only outlet for some relief as I’ve carried my passion for the news business, and the ethics, integrity and honesty it requires reporters, editors, producers and owners to possess and exercise into my latest “Katrina & Goode” thriller series. More specifically into my heroine, investigative reporter Katrina Chopin.

I purposely set this series—which started with HOOKED, Book 1, and continues now with STAGED, Book 2, which comes out on June 16—back in 2015 and the start of 2016, when things had not yet reached this boiling point. When we, or at least I, still had hope for a resurgence and revitalization of the news business.

My thriller series is an homage to the days of old school journalism, when journalists were thanked for telling the truth, not falsely accused of “fake news” by people who didn’t agree with the coverage. You can see for yourself in my plots, which involve corruption and political influences over both the media and government—how a newspaper owner tries to influence the handling of stories involving his friends and business associates, concepts I’ve experienced personally at the papers where I’ve worked, and what you can now seeing happening on a national stage.

The difference in my books is that my characters, Katrina, along with her editors, fight back against those forces and threaten to expose such unethical practices through industry watchdog outfits such as the Poynter Institute. I only wish that those battles and fights were more present in real life today. Many reporters at my two former newspapers gave in to those forces for fear of losing their jobs. Those who speak up don’t get raises; they get banished to bureaus or beats they don’t want as a way to get them to quit. It happened to me more than a few times until I finally left the news business.

That’s why I’m encouraged to see career journalists such as Terry Moran and Scott Pelley, who were both fired, from ABC and CBS, respectively, and Anderson Cooper, who left “60 Minutes” in protest, stand up to power and take a position against the exertion and insertion of political bias and falsehoods into the news. The only chance we have to stop this from continuing is to stand up and speak up. Many individuals are boycotting CBS, for example, while others are cancelling their subscriptions to Paramount+, which is a sister company under the Paramount Skydance Corp. umbrella.

I’m doing my part to stand up to power with my books, both fiction and nonfiction, by pointing out where wrongs were committed. What more can you do?

Some folks have been starting their own programs or podcasts on Substack, but that is not an option for most of us. Investigative reporting takes time, money, and effort. You also have no legal backstop or coverage when you’re out on your own, and lawsuits, even frivolous ones, can cost a lot of money. I’m on here to try to build my readership, but it’s a pretty tough slog to try to draw subscribers.

To pre-order a copy of my upcoming thriller, STAGED, click here.

And if you’d like to buy a signed copy of HOOKED or STAGED from me personally, you can attend any of these events:

--Book launch party/meet and greet, June 16 at 5 pm, Piatti in La Jolla

--Book signing (no talk), June 20 from 1-3 pm, Bay Books in Coronado

--La Jolla Noir, a discussion between me and two other local crime authors, June 23 at 6 pm, La Jolla Library

--Noir at the Bar, seven crime authors will do readings from their latest books, July 11 from 5:30-7:30 pm, Kensington Club, 4079 Adams Ave., San Diego

Thanks for reading!