Breaking the News: How the Media Undermine American Democracy.

• Author: Fischer, Raymond L.

By James Fallows/Pantheon Books, 1996, pp. 296, $23.00

Reviewed by RAYMOND L. FISCHER Associate Mass Media Editor, USA Today, and Professor of Communication, University of North Dakota, Grand Forks

Disdain for the media establishment has reached a new low as Americans have come to regard it with increasing distrust, disappointment, and disrespect. James Fallows assesses that the media establishment's response is in the denial stage as reporters and editors continue to tell the public that journalism merely reflects the world as it is. The author analyzes why the values of journalists have changed, how their current practices undermine the credibility of the press, and how they influence every American by distorting the processes by which the public chooses leaders and resolves public issues. Although some journalists have recognized the crisis in their profession and a few have initiated reform efforts, far too many continue to rationalize their irresponsibility.

A mixture of financial, social, and professional incentives has produced self-aggrandizing behavior that has turned the internal values of elite journalism upside down. Journalists who have become "star-oriented" have gained the potential to command power, riches, and prestige. However, their personal success involves a terrible compromise: The more prominent today's star journalists become, the more they sacrifice the essence of real journalism--the search for information of value to the public. The best-known, best-paid ones set an example that erodes the quality of the news, threatens journalism's claim for public respect, and, more importantly, undermines the long-term health of the political system. In order to make politics more interesting, these journalists portray public life in America as a depressing spectacle in which one group of conniving, insincere politicians ceaselessly tries to outmaneuver another. As a result, they increase the probability of the news media's extinction. As Americans care less about public life, they will become less interested in journalism in any form.

Fallows devotes much of his book to examples that have provoked public anger with the media. Talk...