The Influencing Machine: Brooke Gladstone on the Media

“The media machine is a delusion.”

This sentence encapsulates the central argument of Gladstone's book: the media are not a machine, controlling the minds of consumers; rather, the media are a mirror, reflecting America back to itself with some distortions. Consumers have far more agency than they believe they do in the creation and consumption of news. 

“News unites a far-flung nation.” 

Using Julius Caesar's Acta Diurna, Gladstone shows how the news historically serves to both unite a populace and inform a government that its activities are known and scrutinized by its citizens. 

“Everything we hate about the media today was present at its creation: its corrupt or craven practitioners, its easy manipulation by the powerful, its capacity for propagating lies, its penchant for amplifying rage.” 

Rather than pessimistic alarmists would have consumers think, the media were never immune to influences, greed, or corruption. Technology may have amplified these factors, but it did not create them.

“It is ideas—not actions—that pose the existential threat.” 

Considering the many laws and actions American presidents and congresspeople have taken to curtail and censor the media, the American government considers the media’s power to sway public opinion dangerous. Typically, these actions are taken during times of war or crisis, such as World War I or the Cold War.

“The media expose corruption and build pressure for change—but the government still has the loudest voice.” 

Despite the amount of control and influence the public believes the media hold, the government—through enacting laws, releasing and censoring information, and outright censorship—has the final say in what news is released to the public. 

“There is a long-standing debate in the media biz over whether news outlets should give the public what it wants, or what it needs.” 

According to Gladstone, this debate does not achieve anything because it assumes that the media's executives have a line on what the public wants or needs, and the public is a monolith—with uniform wants and needs. 

“The whole attitude toward us has been so cyclical

American political reporter Helen Thomas explains how much sway the American government has over public opinion of the media. She cites how President Nixon's anti-media comments incited the public to spit on journalists, and then how, after Watergate, the public saw the media as saviors.

“But news consumers complain more about inaccuracy than cowardice.” 

Mistakes have always happened in news reporting, but the competition among ever-increasing media outlets has given rise to new mistakes. These tend to happen because of over-confidence and a race to be the first outlet to cover a story. These inaccuracies, once exposed, tend to erode consumers' trust more than media outlets' unwillingness to cover contested territory. 

“That number had popped up in the past.” 

Reporters often cite 50,000 as the number of people involved in a particular statistic—be it predators online, children abducted by strangers per year, or people who die in road accidents. The number doesn't correspond to any evidence; rather, it's just the right size to both instill fear and remain believable.

“On any issue—where one person sees moral courage, another sees culpable bias.” 

Gladstone uses the term “The Great Refusal” to refer to some reporters' decisions to occupy a gray area when covering heated issues. When reporters take a side or expose a certain situation, those who agree with them will hold them in esteem, while those who don't will condemn their bias. There's no easy solution. 

“Journalists will bend over backward to appear balanced by offering equal time to opposing viewpoints, even when they aren't equal.” 

Gladstone criticizes journalists' tendencies to value fairness to the point of including a completely false or harmful viewpoint. This results in tepid journalism that can perpetuate these views, sometimes intentionally. 

“If the […] interview had been passed by Pershing's censors at the time […] believe it would have destroyed the main planks on which Hitler rose to power […] and it would have changed the future of all mankind.”

Gladstone uses this example of media censorship to show just how much impact the suppression of a news story can have for the sake of alleged patriotism or national security. 

“The aim of well-timed censorship is to instill this simple idea: ‘It probably never happened.’”

This quote from reporter George Weller regarding the United States' censorship of its bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki shows the lengths the government goes to conceal any activity that may damage its reputation in the public eye. The revelation of the realities of these bombings causes more transparency in the war reporting during the subsequent war in Vietnam.

“They could see where the missiles were launched—not where they landed.”

Allowing for embedded reporters during the 2003 Iraq War proves a mere gesture towards transparency. The Pentagon's goals are not to provide the public with factual information about the war but to build trust and admiration for the military. Hence, they limit reporters' access. 

“Objectivity is essential. Objectivity is impossible.”

Gladstone insists that because the media are a kind of mirror of the public, they often tailor their stories to their consumers. Media outlets are also subject to the influence of their owners, advertisers, and internal biases.

“Impartiality, like news itself, is whatever the publisher says it is.” 

Historically, the news media have altered their definition of impartiality to suit their needs as money-making entities. Early in American history, newspapers serve the interests of political parties, while later they serve their advertisers. Either way, impartiality becomes near-impossible when a newspaper is beholden to the financial support of a third-party entity.

“This notion that journalists ought to be sort of political, ideological eunuchs…is just hopeless.” 

Some believe that journalists should hold zero political views in order to foster infallible objectivity. However, this proves nearly impossible to achieve in practice. Some journalists argue that the media should be able to hold political opinions and either put them aside to report objectively or reveal their biases outright. 

“Objectivity is a trust mechanism you rely on when your medium can't do links. Now our medium can.” 

In modern times, consumers can do their own research and fact-checking, which enables them to hold the media accountable for their sources, facts, and stories. Ideally, consumers would use this access to verify news received from media outlets that may have a bias or lack transparency.

“News consumers say they want objectivity, but they choose news outlets that reflect their views.” 

Consumers are just as susceptible to internal bias as the journalists behind the media they consume. Studies show that these biases tend to blind consumers to opinions other than those that they already hold.

“Media are not just passive channels of information. They supply the stuff of thought, but they also shape the process of thought.” 

Some research shows that consumers’ increasing reliance on the Internet as a source of both news and entertainment is changing the way the brain processes information. Author Nicholas Carr believes this development is not a good thing; Gladstone believes it can be.

“We found that Internet users and cell phone users had bigger and more diverse networks.” 

Pew researcher Lee Rainie finds that, contrary to studies that show people tend to consume media that confirm their existing beliefs, Internet and cell phone use actually exposes consumers to a wide range of information and beliefs. Gladstone sees this as a potential positive in that it can help defend consumers against information echo chambers.

“It is man who is the content of and the message of the media, which are extensions of himself.” 

Gladstone's investigations continue the work of philosopher Marshall McLuhan in his 1964 book, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. McLuhan writes that the media are an extension of man, while Gladstone sees the relationship more as a reflection. Both, though, emphasize the importance of the channel through which a message is relayed, i.e., the news media. 

“In fact, as far back as Caesar's Acta Diurna, news has always been entertainment.” 

Contrary to popular belief, Gladstone argues that the news has never been purely objective and informative. Since its inception, news has been used as a form of entertainment.