“The unpalatable truth is that austerity lies ahead,
whoever wins at the polls and whatever the parties say before then.”
This is how The Economist
addressed the state of British public finance ahead of the 2010 General
Election.
There simply was no alternative
to austerity, and the UK public sector had to be put “on a prolonged harsh diet”.
As journalism scholars have noted, framing austerity as necessary has been the
dominant way for mainstream media to describe the spending cuts, tax-hikes and
competitiveness-enhancing “structural reforms” implemented by both center-left
and center-right governments after the 2007-8 financial cr. Despite the
differences between the various economies in Europe, austerity has been framed
as a necessary cure across the continent.
Yet this is not a new feature of
contemporary journalism. This tendency to render austerity into an unavoidable
fix to economic woes is characteristic of the way that the Economist has discussed
austerity since the Second World War.
For post-war Britain, austerity
was a dire, yet necessary remedy to tackle the economic troubles faced by a
nation recovering from wartime hardship. The Economist saw that austerity – in the
form of rationing – was needed to tame the deficit in balance of payments and
combat inflation.
The economic circumstances left
no room for alternatives, The Economist argued although the very idea of the
state interfering with market transactions contradicted the liberal history of
the magazine.
In a similar fashion, The
Economist saw austerity as part of the natural development of France in the
early 1980s. The socialist president Francis Mitterrand, elected in 1981, was
finally ditching Keynesian idea and embracing austerity as a way of streaming
the French economy to meet the demands of the global economy.
Mitterrand’s turn from a
Keynesian spender and an embrace of the big state to a conservative fiscal
prudent was heralded as the triumph of reason. Ideological thinking was finally
making room for a pragmatic view on economic policy making. Under the close of
the market, Mitterrand was “modernizing” France.
However, the sound logic of
austerity was portrayed as constantly in danger of being trumped by populist temptations.
Politicians, pressured by the disgruntled public struggling with tax-hikes and
public spending cuts, are naturally averse to difficult decisions, The
Economist argued.
Once could of course argue that
these examples are expected of The Economist, which is often labelled as the
go-to newspaper for global elites and the international capitalist class.
But to dismiss The Economist as
antithetical to mainstream journalism that wishes to position it above the
political fray would be a mistake. On the contrary, The Economist embodies many
virtues of modern, objective journalism.
Since, its establishment in 1843,
The Economist has taken pride in the fact that its journalism is based on
facts, reason, and nuanced deliberation.
Instead of being a mouthpiece for vested interests, the magazine
positions itself in the “radical centre”, beyond the traditional left-right
divide.
It wishes to tend to an intelligent
and sophisticated audience and is read not just by the global elites but also
by “hipsters on the subway”. When The Economist celebrates the effects of globalization
and free trade, it sees itself as speaking for the global poor and underprivileged,
those who are not served by politicians, who are guided by narrow interests.
Indeed, The Economist speaks for
the “modern humanist project”. It is noteworthy that this ethos has been
characteristic of mainstream journalism since the late 19th century,
when outlets started to detach themselves from political parties.
In the heart of journalism, the
idea of facts replaced ideological positions and journalism became the guardian
of what was perceived as the “common good”. Gradually, the depoliticisation of
journalism has contributed to a journalistic style and understanding of society
that can be described as “post-ideological”.
This is an understanding of the
world not characterized by differing world views and politico-ideological
positions but by a rational consensus that can be reached via expertise, market
solutions, and careful public deliberation.
This condition has been crystallized
by Third Way social democrats such as Tony Blair and Gerhard Schroder. As political
leaders, these technocratic managers embraced market liberalism and globalization
as the unconditional fundamentals of post-cold War political economy regime.
In journalism, this post-ideological
worldwide produces, as Sean Phelan argues, a certain degree of anti-political
cynicism. In journalism language, politics is often thrown around like a dirty
word, something antithetical to the objective facts of economic expertise and
market-based solutions.
This is exactly why The Economist
renders debates on issues such as austerity not into contestations between differing
political positions but between the rational and the irrational.
Politicians are – due to
ideological fixations or electoral pressure – incapable of adopting a
reasonable stance on economic policy. Politicians tend to either shy away from difficult
austerity or, alternatively, overdo austerity with an “obsessive” vigor.
At the same time, The Economist’s
realist stance on austerity is characterized by cool and nuanced reasoning, the
common sense. Instead of harnessing a critical debate between fundamentally differing
views, objective quality journalism tends to depoliticize economic policy
debates.
The debate on austerity, for
example, becomes a debate on the scaling and timing of austerity, the necessarily
of which is hardly questioned. In these debates, mainstream economic thinking
and market demands renders austerity into a technical fix, thus delegitimizing
any radical alternatives and suffocating a truly pluralist political debate.
But, in order to reach a truly
multi-voiced debate on issues of economic policy-making, journalists may need
to critically address such “God-terms” of modern journalism as objectivity.
