The Crisis Of The Institutional Press

As polarized factions in society pull apart from economic dislocation, tribalism, and fear, and as strident attacks on the press make its survival more precarious, the need for an institutionally organized forum in civic life has become increasingly important. Populist challenges amplified by a counter-institutional media system have contributed to the long-term decline in journalistic authority, exploiting a post-truth mentality that strikes at its very core. In this timely book, Stephen Reese considers these threats through a new conception of the ‘hybrid institution’: an idea that extends beyond the traditional newsroom, and distributes across multiple platforms, national boundaries, and social actors. What is it about the institutional press that we value, and around what normative standards could a hybrid institution emerge? Addressing these questions, Reese highlights how this is no time to be passive but rather to articulate and defend greater aspirations. The institutional press matters more than ever: a reality that must be communicated to a public that depends on it. The Crisis of the Institutional Press is an essential resource for students and scholars of journalism, media and communication.

At the beginning of the 1970s, broadcast news and a few newspapers such as The New York Times wielded national influence in shaping public discourse, to a degree never before enjoyed by the news media. At the same time, however, attacks from political conservatives such as Vice President Spiro Agnew began to erode public trust in news institutions, even as a new breed of college-educated reporters were hitting their stride. This new wave of journalists, doing their best to cover the roiling culture wars of the day, grew increasingly frustrated by the limitations of traditional notions of objectivity in news writing and began to push back against convention, turning their eyes on the press itself. Two of these new journalists, a Pulitzer Prize—winning, Harvard-educated New York Times reporter named J. Anthony Lukas, and a former Newsweek media writer named Richard Pollak, founded a journalism review called (MORE) in 1971, with its pilot issue appearing the same month that the Times began publishing the Pentagon Papers. (MORE) covered the press with a critical attitude that blended seriousness and satire—part New York Review of Books, part underground press. In the eight years that it published, (MORE) brought together nearly every important American journalist of the 1970s, either as a writer, a subject of its critical eye, or as a participant in its series of raucous "A.J. Liebling Counter-Conventions"—meetings named after the outspoken press critic—the first of which convened in 1974. In issue after issue the magazine considered and questioned the mainstream press's coverage of explosive stories of the decade, including the Watergate scandal; the "seven dirty words" obscenity trial; the debate over a reporter's constitutional privilege; the rise of public broadcasting; the struggle for women and minorities to find a voice in mainstream newsrooms; and the U.S. debut of press baron Rupert Murdoch. In telling the story of (MORE) and its legacy, Kevin Lerner explores the power of criticism to reform and guide the institutions of the press and, in turn, influence public discourse.

The role of the mass media in the world of politcs has become increasingly influential and controversial. This book traces the origins and development of this phenomena, basing discussion on critiques of BBC election coverage since 1966.

This book represents a significant contribution to the discussion on the part played by communication, especially in its mediated forms, in people’s lives, dwelling on the nature of the relationship between the notion of power and the media in current Western societies. The media have dramatically increased their capacity to exercise their symbolic force over other fields of cultural production, by partly structuring those intrinsic rules, values, and practices that organize, for example, the political system or the academic world from the inside. On the other hand, the media are intertwined environments subjected to the influence of other cultural, economic, and political forces, which, in turn, reveal themselves to be capable of framing reality through the media themselves. Particularly focusing on the topic of the economic crisis, the various chapters of this edited volume highlight how the relationship between the media and other forces capable of pervasively exercising their power appears to be, paradoxically, as strict as it is opaque. Social media and smart mobile technologies have increasingly affected the modalities whereby other institutions and organizations reflect on themselves and develop their worldviews. At the same time, however, politics and economics experts and strategists have all learned how to ‘exploit’ this potential for their own purposes. Detecting the opacity that characterizes this form of ‘exploitation’ is the first step in the acknowledgment of this phenomenon.

Following the recent financial crisis, regulators have been preoccupied with the concept of systemic risk in financial markets, believing that such risk could cause the markets that they oversee to implode. At the same time, they have demonstrated a certain inability to develop and implement comprehensive policies to address systemic risk. This inability is due not only to the indeterminacy inherent in the term 'systemic risk' but also to existing institutional structures which, because of their existing legal mandates, ultimately make it difficult to monitor and regulate systemic risk across an entire economic system. Bringing together leading figures in the field of financial regulation, this collection of essays explores the related concepts of systemic risk and institutional design of financial markets, responding to a number of questions: In terms of systemic risk, what precisely is the problem and what can be done about it? How should systemic risk be regulated? What should be the role of the central bank, banking authorities, and securities regulators? Should countries implement a macroprudential regulator? If not, how is macroprudential regulation to be addressed within their respective legislative schemes? What policy mechanisms can be employed when developing regulation relating to financial markets? A significant and timely examination of one of the most intractable challenges posed to financial regulation.

American democracy is built on its institutions. The Congress, the presidency, and the judiciary, in particular, undergird the rights and responsibilities of every citizen. The free press, for example, protected by the First Amendment, allows for the dissent so necessary in a democracy. How has this institution changed since the nation's founding? And what can we, as leaders, policymakers, and citizens, do to keep it vital?The freedom of the press is an essential element of American democracy. With the guidance of editors Geneva Overholser and Kathleen Hall Jamieson, this volume examines the role of the press in a democracy, investigating alternative models used throughout world history to better understand how the American press has evolved into what it is today. The commission also examines ways to allow more voices to be heard and to improve the institution of the American free press.The Press, a collection of essays by the nation's leading journalism scholars and professionals, will examine the history, identity, roles, and future of the American press, with an emphasis on topics of concern to both practitioners and consumers of American media.

In light of the Asian financial crisis of 1997, Lai examines whether East Asian economies converged onto the liberal market model by studying the evolution of the financial sectors of Korea, Malaysia and Thailand. This includes sectoral diversification, the nature of competition, and the regulatory and supervisory frameworks.

In 21st century Britain, a 'perfect storm' seems to have engulfed many of its institutions. This book is the first wholesale consideration of the crisis of legitimacy that has taken root in Britain's key institutions and explores the crisis across them to determine if a set of shared underlying pathologies exist to create this collective crisis.