Do you trust newspapers?

When a real estate sales agent pursues you to buy a flat, you won't take his words as fact. So do you regard comments from car sales, cosmetic sales and stockbrokers? You treat their words as advices or opinions, if not mere selling efforts, because you know how they earn their living -- from pursuing you to open your wallets. Do you trust the contents of newspapers?

Unfortunately, most people treat what the newspaper said as factual reporting. But if you follow my previous two articles and believe in what i said, you know the newspaper publishers made their business by selling advertising, rather than selling newspapers. In other words, you, as a reader, are not their customers. Their customers are advertisers. Your purchases of the newspapers merely help them serve advertisers better. Then you won't be surprised to learn that newspaper publishers behave more like salespeople than judges. Will you still take their words as fact anymore?

Most newspapers do not tell lies. Neither do most salespeople for apartments, cars and stocks. Newspaper publishers sell your attention. To source as much quality attention as possible, newspapers must arouse your curiosity. The aim is to arouse curiosity, whether by telling the truth or lies. If the truth can arouse attention, that's perfect for readers. Unfortunately, it is always easier to find a curious lie than the curious truth although, in that case, accurate and objective reporting would be compromised.

Drawing attention is the old trick, which include photos of celebrities taken by paparazzi, bloody and violent photos of scenes of traffic accidents and suicides, and the outing of privacy of celebrities or even ordinary people.

It serves advertisers up to the moment that you decide to buy the newspaper. The more dangerous trend is that newspapers try to blur the line between editorial contents and advertising contents.

Once you buy a newspaper, you have the very own right to read the editorial contents only and disregard the ads. i think most readers have unconsciously developed the habit of skipping the ads. Obviously, even though news reports and ads share the same page, there must be straight black lines separating reports from ads. Advertisers hate those black lines.

There have been headline stories about how fat Hongkong people are. Another report said how much fatter we have become since we started waking up for the World Cup games a few weeks ago. Pages of ads from fitness and weight-losing centers followed.

Besides, there are dozens of feature stories about fashion, retirement planning, test drives, dining, travel, etc. All of these speak well for their advertisers.

The business section should be the second-most lucrative section for generating advertising revenue, after the front page.

i always suspect, without any proof, that newspapers turns bullish about the stock market when there are big initial public offerings. i also wonder how seldom newspaper cites negative comments from analysts and fund managers about the stock market. i also get the similar feeling whenever property developers launch apartment flats. The market opinions cited by newspapers are often predictably tilted toward the positive side.

Just look at the full pages of ads placed by property developers and IPO companies and you might have the same suspect as my own.

Worst, there are routine advertisers who place pages of ads everyday and could turn angry about negative reports about their corporate images. Theoretically, the editorial department and the sales department of a newspaper publisher are separate. However, the editorial department often feels the pressure from the other side of the company.

Journalism ethics mandate accurate and objective reporting. However, reporters and editors have the freedom to choose whom to interview. Experienced reporters can easily tell in advance what the stance a particular person has and what he or she will comment.

If i want to write a bullish report about certain IPO, i could call up any brokers who are offering margin financing for the subscription. If i want to trumpet the property market, i could interview any sales of property developers and agencies.

Even more dangerous are the citing of anonymous sources of information. Journalists have the duty to protect identities of their confidential sources, as it is in the public interest of sharing information. However, this rule can be easily abused, for people to distribute some information, true or fake, in favor of their own interest.

Furthermore, reporters and editors also have the freedom to choose what comments to cite from the interviewee, and what angle to present the story, after the interview. Editors choose the headlines, after the report is written.

Unnoticeably, the newspaper of your own choice would be full of advertising contents. If you are an Adam Smith, free market, advocate, and you understand that the newspaper publishers are profit-maximizing bodies, you won't have any complaint about any biased reports.

When you make decision on investment, homebuying, car buying, shopping, you are inevitably influenced by the media. The business tie between advertisers and the media would probably make you spend more money than otherwise.

An ideal newspaper business is one that has high creditability, which attracts many serious readers. The high circulation lures much advertising revenue and hence generates high profits. But the reality is that the newspapers with highest creditability are not necessarily the most profitable ones.

Nevertheless, under such a business restructure of newspaper business, the journalism ethic standards and editorial independency become very important safeguards for the dissemination of unbiased, accurate information, which makes journalists who uphold these ethical values highly respectable.

Jul 12, 2006
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