Marx and radical news outlets

    The other day, I found myself re-reading the affable graphic guide, Marx For Beginners. It’s a good book, if a little biased towards the man, and I’d recommend it if not for the fact that it was published when Germany was still two countries and the jury was still sort of out on the whole USSR thing, at least amongst Marxist circles. However, what's relevant for today is the book’s mentioning of Marx’s early foray into investigative journalism. While interesting, this is wholly unremarkable. Many latter-day social activists are writers and journalists as well as thinkers. However, at the time, Marx was remarkable for his desire to not just consider philosophy, but argue for it too, which is sort of what Dialectical Materialism was getting at (nowadays such a notion appears to be just a jumble full of words, untangled to suggest a polemic about real-world goings on; that is, what we’d consider modern day economic and political philosophy). Anyway, this whole investigative journalism Marx was getting on with – what does it tell us about him? And what does it tell us about media in the modern age? Well, a surprising amount – if you’ll lend me your (b)ear(d)s…

    Marx’s career in journalism began with his dissection of poverty in the Moselle District of Germany (now sort of sandwiched between France and Luxembourg). This journalism is said to have been conducted sort of like a latter-day documentary, think the Guardian’s John Harris or Vox’s excellent Borders series. But Marx’s journalism – because it was almost always tied to radical journals for which he was a major contributor – often carried a direct, political message. With his exposes on Moselle, Marx intended to effectively scold the Prussian government, and send a message to the public at large about serious moral deficits in their own society, deficits which, more often than not, the public would otherwise ignore. Of course, we see modern day equivalents of such politically charged journalism. A good example would be the dissection of gun crime in America; a bad one might be Kony 2012. Remember that? No? Probably for the best.

    Anyway, Marx’s goal, clear as day, was to state what he perceived as hidden class interests at work to keep society a certain way, to keep people tied to capitalist endeavour and, intentionally or not, tied to poverty. The most important aspect in ending this message was to maintain a stance on the how and why of the news: not just, “these people are living in poverty”, but “here’s my narrative so as to why they’re in poverty, how they got there, and how we might get them out”. It’s easy to criticise such an idea, especially if you’re one of those edgy centrists; why not just let people form their own opinion on how to pull the less fortunate amongst us out of abject poverty? Well, Marx was working with fringe narratives. And regardless, his notions of class hierarchy were simply an ideology, an alternative narrative to the dominant one, that is, capitalism; in that era, those people are poor because that is the way it is.

    The problem is that increasingly roving news and the endless presence of copy encourages a stipulation of being unbiased, often because it’s easier to not go into endless academic detail about the how and why of the abject horrors that still, inexplicably, exist in the modern era. Also, doing so would too often invite a political minefield. If the BBC maintained, for example, that Theresa May attempted to undertake a cabinet reshuffle to assert her political power within parliament (and failed), it would be taking a stance on the issue and be likely to alienate the public, when the public expects the BBC to explicitly avoid serious normative judgement.

    However, the flip-side of this is that reading news without any firm sort of explanation has two serious problems. First, it is disingenuous, and offers a political stance even if the intention is to not offer one: the political stance here is not one of neutrality but a refusal to admit the cause. It could even be stated “The cause is yet unknown!” Not even doing this is a very clear choice. Second, rolling news stories that are just descriptive, event after harrowing event without explanation for why, normalises violence, terror and poverty. That’s bad, because, well, obviously it’s bad. And it makes people less interested in the news. The how and why of things are often the most interesting bits! They’re the most important things schoolchildren learn, for one.

    So, this is perhaps what makes people shift towards more radical forms of news media. If mainstream media is stifled and tight-lipped in its attempts to make political statements, people will be more inclined to choose news sources that offer them firm answers to the ‘how’ and ‘why’ questions; especially if those answers align with the bias and prejudice of the viewer. Additionally, radical news media and sites well known for ‘fake news’ often trade on their occasionally implicit answers to the ‘how’ and ‘why’ questions above all else: “look how we managed to connect this to Muslims”, “you won’t believe how this otter joined Al-Qaeda”, and so on and so forth.

    If all media outlets were more inclined to explain the news, rather than just report it, it might be that the public on the whole were less likely to turn to alternative news sources. Additionally, a landscape with more informed conclusions would inevitably be positive. Even if some of these conclusions include some degree of speculation!

    Of course, we all know why news sources, especially from public broadcasters, are often loathe to explain the ‘why’ of various hardships and atrocities: because many of our modern-day struggles, especially those currently handled by worldwide charitable organisations, have something to do with the imperial past of one great European superpower or another. Admitting, for example, that continued bloodshed in the Middle East could be at least partially attributed to the ends of the Sykes-Picot Agreement would incur a flood of complaints from honest, patriotic individuals - rightly or wrongly. So it’s a difficult one. But you know how the old adage goes: everything happens for a reason! Except the extinction of the dinosaurs. The jury’s out on that one.