Is it legal, consistent with our values, and how would it look on the newspaper’s front pages? I’m sure many of you have heard variations of this decision-making model. It’s time to analyse the newspaper test.
I used to be a fan of the “how will it look on the front pages?” test for a few reasons:
- People still read newspapers.
- If enforcement is dismal (as it is in most places), adverse media is often a more credible threat.
- Some media outlets were broadly respected.
- It helped people consider how others might view their actions.
- It’s more accessible than “is it legal?” or “is it in line with our values?”.
So what changed?
Newspapers, like, really 🙄?
So said Aly, the precocious 11-year-old, when my wife and I talked about the simple pleasures (before kids) of lazy Sunday mornings reading papers and sipping coffee. Newspapers still have currency in some places and demographics, but they’re not what many consider when talking about media.
Okay, change the test to “How would it look in the media?” What media? Syndicated 24hr news? Domestic (and often parochial) broadcasters? Podcasts? Social media? These sources can be problematic, especially in the era of polarisation, bias, and user-generated content (and yes, I am acutely aware of the irony of writing a blog about biased user-generated content). We’ll get to that.
But first, does it stack up as a decision-making step if we can no longer summarise it in a way that’s widely accessible?
🗑 How would it look on your newsfeed?
🗑 How would it look on the media you most regularly consume?
🗑 How would it look in the media?
Admittedly, I’m not trying very hard, but you see the point. None of these is especially memorable or compelling. The challenge is amplified if your feed is a litany of your friends, hobbies, and adverts that suggests your phone listens to your conversations (creepy little weasel machine).
Assumption: The media fragmentation weakens the power of the newspaper test.
Adverse media ennui
Any publicity is good publicity. It’s a theory some organisations seem intent on testing. Corporate scandals aren’t what they used to be. It will be an interesting twist of fate if increased enforcement, scrutiny, leaks, and awareness contributes to a general shoulder-shrugging resignation. There’s a cynicism about their employer with many (probably most) of the people I speak to. At one end of this continuum, we get cynicism-lite – “they’re okay, but I know that ultimately it’s a business [and therefore not especially concerned with esoteric concepts like morality]”. At the other end of the range, it’s cynicism full sugar, “the vampire squid”. In this environment, where individual accountability is usually lacking, do these non-sentient corporate beings care much about what people write or say about them? Perhaps, but not as much as once was the case.
Then there are the firms that seem too big to care what people think – organisations with so much leverage and market control that we shrug and move on. I’m writing this on a device made by people who build rapid obsolescence into everything, with environmental (and social) implications. Has media coverage of these issues shifted the needle? Not yet. They’re a business, and the business of business is business, for now.
Finally, there’s the media’s role. Do journalists – a broad catchall term with indefatigable heroes at one end and phone-hacking harassers at the other – have the same bite? Claims of sensationalism, a lack of rigour, down dumbing, clickbait, and the rest, aren’t always without basis. This journalistic frailty suffers when they stare down well-funded PR and legal machines at the mega-corps.
Assumption: Bad publicity doesn’t hurt badly enough (in many cases).
Don’t believe everything you read
Do you trust what you read? Not really. Yes, there are individual journalists, bloggers, and podcasters whom I follow, and I find their content insightful and thought-provoking. But at the organisational level, it’s not about the truth anymore. These outlets have paymasters and funders with commercial and/or political goals.
“The first casualty of war is the truth” is a helpful phrase here for two reasons. Firstly, it’s variably attributed to a US Senator (Hiram W Johnson), an English writer (Dr Samuel Johnson), and a Greek dramatist (Aeschylus). The disputed origins illustrate the problem with literary or media truth itself. Secondly, we’re dealing with polarisation, extending from intra-family feuding (e.g., vaccines) to outright ideological conflict (too many to mention). I still feel that one-on-one, most of us can find common ground, but at an abstracted level, we seem endlessly concerned with sticking each other in boxes and doing our best Monty Python impression.
As the furious fringes on the left and right attract disproportionate media attention relative to their size, the overwhelming majority seem disengaged, underrepresented or scared to raise a perspective that may enrage. In this context, can you blame people for not associating with what they hear, see, and read?
Assumption: The court of Twitter isn’t concerned with facts, balance, or innocent until proven guilty, so it’s hard for us to respect “How would it look on (social) media?” as a reasonable ethical decision-making step.
Stepping outside of ourselves
“How would it look on the front pages?” may have once been a shocking prospect, forcing us to consider the perception of our actions, but is it still a practical test?
This element of the newspaper test was always my favourite. We judge ourselves by our intentions and others by their actions. Yet we seem to forget that everyone else does likewise. Take the two images below from a recent workshop.
I asked the same question in three separate workshops with broadly similar sways from “I’m pretty ethical, but everyone else is much less ethical.” So where are all these unethical people because they’re not in the workshops I’m running? I’ve attached the ethical neutralisation checklist at the end of this article. In there, you’ll find many ways in which we dupe ourselves, often fixating on our intentions and beliefs and ignoring the perception of our actions.
I would argue that the self-awareness seed in the newspaper test is worth retaining in updated ethical decision-making frameworks. I’ve heard various iterations, including:
- Imagine a camera crew following you around all day. This construct is fallible to the Big Brother bias, where contestants in that show often seemed to show their worse (not best) selves.
- Would your broadcast your decision on social media? The briefest foray into your feed of choice will demonstrate that self-awareness is not a prerequisite for posting.
- Would you be able to justify your decision publicly? Not bad, but public mores don’t travel well, and the public is a broad agglomeration, including keyboard warriors, bots and trolls.
Do any of these work for you? I don’t think we’re there yet, but it’s about progress, not perfection.
Assumption: The accessibility of self-published content has diminished the power of imagining our actions writ large.
Is the media test still accessible?
In a newsletter, I’ve taken somewhat exaggerated positions to make points quickly. I don’t believe we’re much different from what we’ve always been. Nor do I feel that the media is perenially doomed – the space for long-form content indicates otherwise. The mob has always been there; it’s just migrated from throwing rotten fruit and the stocks to the comments section. Brave people have always sought to shine a light on the truth through whatever mediums were available.
But I think we’re in a period of flux where we haven’t (yet) worked out how to live with (and regulate?) the many realms of opinion-setting. As we evolve, I think we may need to put the media test back into the cupboard and stop using an abstract other as an arbiter of acceptable behaviour. In the next newsletter, I’ll focus on another everyday staple of ethical models that is much closer to home: the friends and family test.
