This assignment is a summary of my thoughts and understanding of an episode within the Democracy Works podcast. It features a University of Pennsylvania professor of media policy and political economy, Victor Pickard. The topic of discussion stems from his book Democracy Without Journalism? Confronting the Misinformation Society and talks about how the American media has built up from its inception as well as how we, as citizens, can push to democratize it.

Victor speaks to the host of the podcast, Jenna Spinelle, about how American media has turned into what it is today because of the constant financial aspect to it. Jenna begins by asking Victor about a big topic he mentions in his book called ‘corporate libertarianism’ in media. Victor mentions that the American media system is kind of unique from other ones around the world. Within media (and within everyday life), most Americans have a mindset of separation between government and media.

I kind of see this separation to come from fear of misinformation. An example that I think a lot of people may refer to when they think of government intervention within media could be the way foreign superpowers like Russia and China control media outlets and public perceptions through news.

Victor mentions the fact that this belief in ‘no government intervention’ also deeply ties into the American belief of the First Amendment, which then may lead to arguments like the one I just mentioned above. Victor says that by government intervention or by policy intervention, he means to make the media more fair and to allow an open discussion of democratic ideas. Some examples mentioned were the regulations of media to protect the public and to protect those exposed to certain more extreme forms of media.

Jenna and Victor then discuss the inception of media around the 1930s and 40s, and how its beginnings were extremely poor and very monetized. This control of the media by “a handful of major corporations” has led to what it is today, which is a very polarized media system that deals less with facts and less with democracy and more with subtle language differences to sway opinions of specific groups.

Victor then goes on to speak of the original intention of the media and the postal system. The founding fathers had the goal of the media and the government working together as they understood that government intervention is required to maintain news and information in a democratic way. This includes allowing newspapers and other media to be shipped countrywide at a low cost or for free (something that is becoming less and less of a part of every day life due to constant monetization) as well as the creation of a Public Broadcasting System.

Victor talks about PBS and how little funding the United States (or the citizens of the US) put towards it. In terms of national ratios, the average US citizen puts about $3.15 to PBS while the average British citizen puts in about $100 for the BBC. This large discrepancy in money and effort given to a broadcasting system designed to cover news fairly also adds to the lack of structure within American media.

Victor mentions some solutions to this monetization (and not democratization) of media. He says that we need an intervention within all branches of the government. But the first step to him is to get resources to build the public media infrastructure required. He suggests a shift in GDP (which I don’t know much about but according to him, a shift from .001 GDP to .01 would allow for billions of dollars to be sourced directly to PBS). He says something of that financial nature would require congressional intervention.

In the past few years, we’ve realized that nothing really happens quickly when handed to Congress, so he also suggests a commission to be executed that would allow awareness to be spread about the state of current national media.

This episode really interested me because it strongly highlighted the major weakness within national media and how we need to step away from it being controlled by only a few major corporations. A lot of American citizens don’t understand that government intervention doesn’t immediately result in the most extreme, state-controlled form of media, and Victor helped explain what he meant by the term.