Washington no one really has permanent friends or enemies because everyone is so interdependent. The politicians are dependent on the press for good coverage and the press is dependent on the politicians for access. If they can't get access, they've got nothing to report. And that's the danger of the corporatization of media. When I first started working in radio, for example, news wasn't a profit center. News was something you did because your license said you were required to operate in the public interest. Little by little, that's changed. The biggest impetus to making media "go corporate" was the Telecommunications Act of 1996. That allowed the consolidation of broadcast outlets that didn't exist before. The effect has been to make the need for access even more pronounced because there is more pressure to perform and make money. The object before was to fulfill an obligation that those stations and outlets felt they had to their listeners and viewers. The object now is the bottom line.
The White House Press Corps's Velvet Rope
One of the great examples of the importance of access is the true story of Jeff Gannon. This guy managed to get a White House press pass through murky executive office ties and was therefore empowered to write stories that sounded authoritative for a conservative blog. I don't care if he was gay, straight, a prostitute or not, the only reason people cared was because he got access. And I think the real story is, Why did none of the members of the White House press corps say anything? I mean, they are a very tight group, but nobody said, "Who is this guy?" The reason was that it's like Studio 54 -- once you are in the door, nobody questions why you are there because "you're one of us."
The problem is, if you're not "one of us," you might lose a story to someone else and in the corporate-controlled media, if you lose the story you might lose your job. And in the big rush to get the story by having the most connections, you lose some reporting skills.
Don't get me wrong. There are still good reporters out there breaking news that might be harmful to their relationships in DC. But in the corporate media world, if it comes down to doing your job or maintaining access, access always wins.
So as reporters hustle to maintain their access the danger exists that they will lose their objectivity and become nothing more than an echo chamber or squawk box for the people they are covering. They are afraid that if they don't sound like a press release they will end up out of the loop.
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