Last week the Washington Post’s Mark Leibovich wrote of a photo-op session staged by Howard Dean and Harry Reid, describing the event as a “spectacle” that “offered yet another distillation of why so many people believe that politicians and the media deserve each other.”
Since the journalist virtually led with that line I expected a tableau in which the attending pols and reporting gaggle made collective fools of themselves. But as I worked my way through the entire piece I discovered the “spectacle” came not from the hosts, but from their guests, who behaved like a bunch of college kids on goof juice.
Dean and Reid had wanted to address maybe an issue or two. No dice. These days what plagues the nation’s newshounds isn’t carnage in Iraq, or millions without health care, or pension-fund bankruptcies. Well, those may plague, but what really keeps the Washington press corps up at night -- drumroll -- is Howard Dean’s mouth, which, as everyone already knows, uses automatic and not manual drive. To which many say, who cares. At least he doesn’t filter every utterance through some focus-group banality machine.
But fun is fun, news is news, and national ills are boring, so Howard Dean’s mouth became the photo-op’s reportorial focus. They fired one question after another to Reid and Dean about the latter’s rhetorical promiscuity, to which the target of inquiry finally said, “You know, I think a lot of this is exactly what Republicans want, and that’s a diversion.” When the session ended Senator Richard Durbin added, “Please, for a minute, get to the substance. You guys should be ashamed of yourselves.”
Ashamed? Who knows. Thinking of job security? You bet. They’re just following orders -- cover the sizzle, cover the horse races, cover the hype (that they’ve hyped) -- which come from megamedia corporate executives shackled by the market forces of popular apathy that must be shaken and stirred if their news outlets are going to make a buck.
“The public often seems to see us as part of the entertainment circus that parts of the ‘media’ business have become and, therefore, not people to be taken seriously,” writes the Village Voice’s media columnist, Sydney Schanberg. But the often-unasked question is why the news media -- especially the electronic news media -- ever transmogrified into an entertainment circus to begin with.
Perhaps it goes unasked because the answer is so bloody obvious: The public demands a circus. It doesn’t pass the time reading Foreign Affairs or tuning in to C-SPAN. It wants People Magazine or an American Idol. And in its news and public affairs it demands a similar serving of entertainment, not substance.
So that’s what the corporate bosses give them -- must give them, actually, which makes the givers as enslaved by the entertainment circus as much as serious news consumers are sick of it.
Of course there’s a slavishness as well to conservative talking points by the Rupert Murdochs of the media world. No one disputes that vivid reality. But the greater news media just serve up whatever sells, what’s cheapest to produce, what offends the fewest, and therefore what satisfies the bottom-line shareholders. They simply sell what the market is buying. And the market buys schlock, glitz, and other irrelevancies.
If you don’t buy this money-over-ideology argument (or money as ideology), take Joe Scarborough’s MSNBC program as quintessential evidence. When his show debuted it was packed with politics -- the sort of slanted, right-wing politics you’d expect from the former impeachment-obsessed congressman, but at least it was politics.
Seen it lately? When Scarborough’s not covering Michael Jackson’s woes he’s off and running down runaway brides or missing women in Aruba. He’s been told his ratings hang on it. Push the right-wing line? Pshaw. Compared to human-interest hype, there’s no money in it. And if there’s no money, there soon will be no show. So it’s back to Aruba.
I wholeheartedly agree with thoughtful critics of the media scene, notably Bill Moyers, who denounce their profession’s abrogation of its public duty. But do the news media do this because they have an ideological agenda, or merely because it’s the ratings-boosting way to do it, the inoffensive way, and hence the profitable way?
In short, selling out -- just like the majority of politicos they cover. Perhaps that is what Mark Leibovich of the WP really had in mind -- not the photo-op “spectacle” -- when he wrote it’s no surprise “so many people believe that politicians and the media deserve each other.”
Remember the 1970s movie "NETWORK"? Today, it looks like a prophecy.
Posted by: Kid Charlemagne | June 13, 2005 at 06:45 AM
People do not want to be informed. Information just might interfere with their preconceived notions. It also might require a few thought processes. Not an option among the American people anymore. Apathetic America just doesn't give a damn.
Posted by: battybug | June 13, 2005 at 08:42 AM
Whatever became of the Tom DeLay/Jack Abramoff scandal?
Posted by: Ernie Spoon | June 13, 2005 at 09:45 AM
If you claim it's not so much politically driven drivel being distributed as much as market driven drivel, then you must also include the politically driven "dumbing-down" of the country as well.
For decades the right wing has been trying to under-educate the public while busting unions. An under-educated and poor public is more likely to be easily manipulated and more likely to enlist in the armed services so they can be sent to corporate wars.
The public is only interested in the swill on TV because they've been trained all their lives to be interested in it.
I don't buy the line that it's all the consumer's own fault.
The country isn't moving to the right, it's being MOVED to the right.
Posted by: Steve | June 13, 2005 at 10:33 AM
The problem is that when one is blinded by unbridled greed, one demands that EVERYTHING be profitable. News isn't and never was. However, I regard it as a small price broadcasters must pay in exchange for their use of the public airways. Pity the sheeple don't demand better.
Posted by: Marblex | June 13, 2005 at 11:31 AM
I never watch soaps or the other dross fed to the masses but if they were to write storylines showing corporate bad behaviour or lack of health cover consequences etc. could this be the way to "educate" those whose time is filled with such crap. Just a thought.
Posted by: JR | June 14, 2005 at 05:12 AM
Where is Murrow now that we need him?? Outside of a very few (Moyers comes to mind), these would-be journalists are nothing more than hacks.
Posted by: Jean S. Markovitz | June 14, 2005 at 11:18 AM
Ahhh, Jean, you've done a big dis-service to reputable hacks. The current crop of journalists aren't qualified to even be hacks.
The way to demand, to create change is very, very simplistic.
Cancel your cable. I did.
Doesn't cost anything, saves money.
If I want news there is the internet, books, papers, etc.
Trying to discuss anything with friends, neighbors, etc. is a bit awkward as they yet have TV.
BTW, if you cancel, please, call or write and let them know why. I did and have talked 19 other people into doing the same.
They all called/wrote their reasons as well.
Posted by: 0hio | June 14, 2005 at 12:51 PM
Ahhh, Jean, you've done a big dis-service to reputable hacks. The current crop of journalists aren't qualified to even be hacks.
The way to demand, to create change is very, very simplistic.
Cancel your cable. I did.
Doesn't cost anything, saves money.
If I want news there is the internet, books, papers, etc.
Trying to discuss anything with friends, neighbors, etc. is a bit awkward as they yet have TV.
BTW, if you cancel, please, call or write and let them know why. I did and have talked 19 other people into doing the same.
They all called/wrote their reasons as well.
Posted by: 0hio | June 14, 2005 at 12:52 PM
Nice try,Still poorly examined.Everytime I read a writers attempt to keep Al Quida in the equasion or Bin Laden.I see disinformation and deflection from Israel and Mossads involement
Posted by: Bob in shit florida | July 01, 2005 at 11:46 PM