Group Three.

If only. That may once have been the case, but those days seem long forgotten in the era of media sensationalism and the 24-hour news cycle. The news media no longer serve as a forum for reasoned debate; they are the very peddlers of amusement and appeals to desire that Siochrú and Girard denigrate. While we bemoan our three “broken” branches of government, it makes tragic sense that our “fourth branch” has broken, too.

The news media used to be one of the pillars of a functioning public sphere. A properly functioning democracy depends on a well-educated, informed populace. Somewhere along the way, though, our public sphere began to crumble. Which came first? Did the public sphere begin to fall apart, and the media follow suit, or do the media deserve some of the blame for the sorry state of our civic space?

I would argue that the media were responsible, in part. Siochrú and Girard write, “The issue [of media regulation] is not one of ‘objectivity’ or ‘balance,’ although such ideas are important in certain contexts. It is about the intent of communication and ensuring the conditions in which distortions of various kinds are minimized.” For decades, the media had generally been successful at self-regulation—avoiding distortions—but that self-regulation began to break down. These days, things have swung to two detrimental extremes.

First, we see thinly veiled partisan mouthpieces masquerading as legitimate news organizations. Second, we see media outlets treating opposing opinions as necessarily factual in a misguided attempt at “balance.” This second extreme is the most insidious, as it is harder to spot. We witnessed such “balance” during the debate over President Obama’s healthcare bill. The media treated the claim that it would create “death panels”—an outright falsehood—as just another legitimate argument.

This sort of “objectivity” helps erode our public sphere by lending legitimacy to assertions that are simply untrue. When the public depends on the media to stay informed, and the media presents it with falsehoods under the guise of “balanced” coverage, how is it supposed to come to reasoned, democratic decisions?