Over at the Atlantic, Andrew Cohen has an anti-mass media screed that I very much enjoyed reading but also think is completely wrong. Here’s a sample:
“Democracy demands wisdom” sounds great as a slogan but no has any relevance in a world where even the highly educated don’t take the time to sort sizzle from steak. It’s no wonder most of our politicians are vacuous and venal. They are being elected by people who are too busy or too bored or too lazy to do anything other than cup an ear for the loudest, cleverest, most dramatic sounds emitting from their televisions, computers or PDAs. Industry insiders often call this “noise” and imply that it’s the “white” kind, on in the background but harmless to the health and welfare of everyday life. It is not. It is a deafening roar, America is listening to it (but only half of it, remember) and it is harming, not strengthening, our national interest.
Indeed, sadly, we have both the government and the news industry we deserve. Tens of millions of people now form their dogged (unfounded, hysterical, self-defeating, etc.) opinions about politics (and law and governance and history and science) based upon the sly words and dramatic performances of modern-day carnival barkers, false prophets and snake-oil salesmen like Glenn Beck and Lou Dobbs and Bill O’Reilly and Nancy Grace. Like Sinclair Lewis’ irrepressible Elmer Gantry, these charlatans all share the same cynical inside joke: The louder you scream, the more people will watch; the bigger the conspiracy you allege, the more people will believe it; the more outrage you offer up, the more passionate and prolonged will be the response. It’s about entertainment, not news, and these people and many more are laughing at us all the way to the bank; the latest generation in a long line of American demagogues.
[….]Intellectual honesty and rigor, or reasoned, dispassionate analysis, is for wimps, public television and the occasional unscripted moment on the Sunday shows. This paradigm wouldn’t have been tolerated by news executives even ten years ago. The media’s wall separating Church (editorial) from State (corporate) was weakening back then. But it’s virtually gone today. News executives embrace the theatrical without apparent shame. No wonder that reality-show-wannabes are doing all sorts of idiotic things these days to get on the news. They realize that everything now is in play; that the networks and cable outlets will cover stories that aren’t news, so long as they get a rise out of their audiences.
As much as I like the general spirit here, I don’t like it when people talk about what “we deserve” because I don’t know who “we” is. Perhaps a Glenn Beck-watching American deserves an awful economy and a screwed-up government but why does a Frontline-watching American deserve it?
Also, it’s fundamentally wrong to say that the media of ten years ago was that much better than today’s media’s or that Beckism is the underlying problem here. It was the New York Times, not Fox, that played the biggest role in pimping bogus pre-war Iraq intel, it was the crazed proclamations of Bob Woodward’s maestro Alan Greenspan that fueled the real estate bubble, not Glenn Beck’s goldbug hysteria, and respected Washington insiders led the impeachment witch hunt as much as Fox News did.
The failures of the last ten years were failures of elites.
I still recommend reading Cohen’s piece. I like how shrill it is. And I honestly believe that if establishment journalists became more blunt and shrill, our public discourse would improve.
Quaker in a Basement
Remember Somerby’s Law of Press Corps Behavior: Whenever the press corps recounts the past, the behavior of the press corps is conveniently ignored.
Brent
Defining democracy downwards I suppose. Of course it is a carnival barker’s world now that Bush got appointed at the start of that last aborted decade. Wall street is a gambling casino that bet on the most valued asset of middle america, lost, then got bailed out, but middle america did not. The screamers and religious scammers will get the attention of the desperate and dispossessed. This screed is about editors and content and is therefore an inside baseball story. The narraative is all that matters. Obama vacations in HI and is therefore not real America. He did not respond quick enuf to the panty bomber so he is weak on terror. It is all about memes to enforce the corporate agenda. So, in one respect the argument that all news has become tabloid is accurate because any other kind of news like real investigative journalism that brought down a president or would out a corporation is nowadays particularly unwelcome. The more Brittany crotch shots the better.
This is the end of unregulated capitalism/corporatism. They own the media. It goes out with a squak becaause it is rather shagged out from pining for the fiords.“““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““`
4jkb4ia
A better example of an irresponsible mass media of more than 10 years ago was Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. My mom refused to pay any attention to the NYT’s coverage of this story because she could remember a time when it would not have been printed.
asiangrrlMN
@Quaker in a Basement: Yup. How can it be their fault? They’re just (selectively) reporting the news; they don’t make it.
And, I have always chafed at the ‘we get what we deserve’ response because if that were really true, then I would have had Gore as my president for eight years.
DougJ
A better example of an irresponsible mass media of more than 10 years ago was Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky.
Doesn’t that fall under “impeachment witch hunt”?
ds
The media is pathetic, but let’s not overstate its influence.
We had a golden age in America from the 1940s to the 70s where America’s elites actually sort of cared about the well being of the country, and were even willing to go so far as to support things like taxes, social programs, and effective governance to promote the common good.
Since then they’ve been in in a self-indulgent, destructive mood, and politics in the recent period has been subject to that.
geg6
No, Doug, not completely wrong. He’s actually quite right. Besides all us brilliant and incisive commenters here at BJ, how many of the people you deal with every day, from your colleagues to your mailman to the young marrieds down the street are people who are too scheduled and busy, too lazy, too intellectually incurious, or too stupid to keep up with nuance and the complicated workings of government and the media? It’s easier to just catch the latest outrage, the ones with the loudest voices, the easy to digest storyline, the least challenging explanation. And that is why we have this media. If it didn’t provide what people think they want, they wouldn’t consume it. However, my beef is that it isn’t the Fourth Estate’s role in our American system to just always give us what we think we want. It should also give us what we NEED. That is why it is given special consideration in our founding documents by our founding fathers. Too many in that special Fourth Estate have forgotten that their freedoms come with a special responsibility.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Has he seen who’s in the Oval Office?
Cohen falls into the trap of believing what he claims to despise. He sees a few idiots on TV waving signs or shouting about death panels and assumes that represents what a good chunk of people are thinking and it will influence other people to think the same way. He also thinks he’s in on a big secret (CNN &c put a lot of filler in the 24-hour beast’s diet).
I won’t say everyone knows this, I will say a LOT more people than Cohen realizes know this. And they find it just as annoying.
4jkb4ia
@DougJ:
It does, and I apologize for skimming over that sentence.
gbear
@ds:
So basically everything went to hell when the boomers graduated from school? ;)
Ash
Speaking of Frontline, I have an interview with them in a couple weeks for a research assistant position. All you DFHs better cross your fingers for me.
General Winfield Stuck
And I would add Monica Crowley and Pat Buchanan on Macglaughin Group barking up Sarah Palin and Global Warming denial. Both void of a single fact but full of populist wingnut piss and vinegar. Politics suck in this country, or the level of discourse, that resemble a neverending Jerry Springer show. And the kicker is both Crowley and Buchanan know better, being among the few wingers with more than a few brain cells.
I hate to say we are doomed, but having an intellectually curious and well informed citizenry are necessary ingredients for a lasting democracy imo, and both are sorely missing in our national experience seems to me.
Charley is looking upward for answers though.
And as each day goes by, I am more convinced this little dog is smarter than the average American. Just my opinion.
DougJ
It does, and I apologize for skimming over that sentence.
I definitely agree with you that it is the probably the best example.
ellaesther
And I honestly believe that if establishment journalists became more blunt and shrill, our public discourse would improve.
Me, too. (Not very trenchant of me, but when you’ve already said it, what’s left to say?)
asiangrrlMN
@geg6: I agree with you, but that brings me back to my point of why bother, then? I mean, if the mass wants to be coddled and whatnot, why should I personally give a damn?
After the facts of W.’s role in the lead up to the invasion of Iraq began to be common knowledge, I read a local editorial about how we are all to blame for the invasion because we all believed W. and the papers. I wrote a piece saying I will not take any blame for that shit (not how I worded it) because I saw from day one that it was a bunch of shit (again, not how I worded it). I knew it was a crock of shit, and I couldn’t understand how anyone could believe otherwise. I read all the accounts of what was going on over there, and I came to the conclusion that W. was manufacturing reasons to invade. If I could do that, then so could anyone else–especially the media.
It’s just frustrating to me because each individual can only do so much. In addition, given how the media is pro status-quo, even larger entities such as Stewart and Colbert have limited influence.
The Republic of Stupidity
@asiangrrlMN:
And I’d be married to Charlize Theron, or at least a FWB…
Mike Kay
@ds:
Money is the root of all evil.
Really, when these guys were working stiffs they cared. Now, all they care about is their individual tax brackets.
ellaesther
@asiangrrlMN: Uh… OT, but isn’t it ass-o’clock where you are right now?
ETA: And hai!
asiangrrlMN
@The Republic of Stupidity: Heh. Alan Rickman pour moi, mercie beaucoup.
@ellaesther: Ass-o’clock. I like that. No, it’s almost nine-thirty in the morning. Not too bad. Hai back!
The Republic of Stupidity
@asiangrrlMN:
I remember reading an article in the SF Chron (I live in the Bay Area) in the fall of 2002 about Bush ordering more ships and supplies sent to the ME and I suspected right then and there that he was going to attack Iraq, no matter what.
I also remember reading at least one article about Saddam offering to step down peacefully, to avoid the attack, but Bush ignoring the offer. No two ways about… Saddam was a bad actor… but then, you’d have thought that Reagan and Bush I and Cheney and Rumsfeld would have figured that out when they started cozy up to him in the early eighties, and arming him to the teeth.
To think, that entire horrific bloody nightmare could have been avoided… and wasn’t… just so the Boy Emperor could get his war chubby on…
I give you Commander Codpiece… America’s CEO!
stinkwrinkle
I think you forgot that we includes a staggering number of idiots, and they do deserve what they get. Sorry, the niche market of “Intelligent People Trying to Make Rational Decisions in a Complicated World” doesn’t get its own cable network.
Also, the media are not trying to provide civic value by reporting accurately on matters of import to the nation, the media are trying to collect viewers. (See above).
joshua
The reason “Frontline-watching” Americans deserve it as much as “Beck-watching” Americans is because we “Frontline-watchers” haven’t risen up and murdered the “Beck-watchers” yet. Not that we should murder them, but…actually we probably should.
The Republic of Stupidity
@Mike Kay:
Actually, I believe it’s:
I’ve always seen money as akin to water. Just as water always seeks the lowest level to flow to, money just seeks to… spend. There’s no intrinsic morality involved. The morality comes w/ the human motive. IMO…
tom p
Doug, “we” is the American Electorate, and we are getting exactly what we deserve. (which is a Democratic Administration handcuffed by a spineless Democratic Senate) The wingnuts have their teabaggers, the (whatever the perjoritive of the day is for the far left) have their whiners and the sane have… What?
Honest question to all the commenters here: When was the last time you wrote your congress critter? (my bet is, been a while, if at all, for most) If you all spent half the time writing them that you do commenting here, you just might drown out a little of the constant chorus they get from the far right.
And in the interests of full disclosure, not near enuf for me. I write CM of MO about once a month (last 2 wks ago) K “backstroke” B of MO not at all in a long time (shouting at brick walls is truly frustrating) (besides he is retiring… FINALLY!) and my Rep??? I live in outstate MO… I would be pissing into the wind.
I know these are not good reasons for shutting up, but they are honest. I will make a promise: I will do better if you will.
The Grand Panjandrum
Blunt, yes. But I don’t know how much shrill I could take. Sneering condescension would be my preference. Or maybe do what Rick Sanchez did to John Ensign? Just ask them the fucking questions they don’t want to answer. Make them sweat!
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
Most of the people Cohen is decrying are filling niche markets that always existed. The centrist news sources (three big broadcast news organizations and CNN) aren’t any stupider than they used to be as far as I can tell. There are now hundreds of channels and Jon Stewart has a battery of interns cataloguing and storing every stupid-ass thing that happens on TV, maybe that’s why we notice it more.
DougJ
Honest question to all the commenters here: When was the last time you wrote your congress critter?
Two weeks ago. I talk to them about once a month on average.
The Republic of Stupidity
@asiangrrlMN:
Or as they say in the SOUTH of France…
The Grand Panjandrum
@tom p: SATSQ: December 23rd. And I have written to both Senators and my Rep on a regular basis for many years.
Linkmeister
Charlie Pierce put Cohen’s piece into book form in his new book “Idiot America,” which is definitely worth a read.
If the blockquote doesn’t take, the three bulleted items also s/b included.
DougJ
@tom p
Honestly, this kind of comment pisses me off. How the fuck do you know who here talks to their Congressmen or not? For me, I learned about the health care bill from blogs, formed an opinion and spoke with people from both my local Congressmen’s offices about it. What makes you think others here aren’t doing that?
You’re kind of an asshole, you know?
EDIT. Okay, I re-read your comment and what I said here is out of line. Sorry.
MikeJ
@Linkmeister: Just got that book for the celebration of the winter solstice. Can’t wait for it to work its way to the top of the current stack.
General Winfield Stuck
I used to, at least up until the last election. wrote mine regular, and called. But now am blessed here in NM with two great liberal senators, and a mostly decent dem rep that so far have voted just like I want them to. When knucklehead Steve Pearce was my rep, I called them about every other month just to let em know how supremely stoopid I thought he was.
I suspect my rep seat will go back to the wingnuts in 2010, though maybe not. Until then, we are all true blue here in NM.
asiangrrlMN
@DougJ: Especially since most people on THIS blog do write to their congress people quite frequently. If one reads the comments of the blog, one would know that.
Batocchio
Yeah, he makes some decent points, and some of his rage is right on, but I agree he’s off with his diagnosis. The public is often much smarter than the Villagers. While America certainly has more than its fair share of stupid and shallow people, politicians and the media generally outstrip them – or are so corrupt the results are much the same. I don’t buy the ‘we deserve it’ line when “we” aren’t calling the shots, and are pretty much ignored. Health care, withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan – the public has often been wiser than the Beltway Conventional Wisdom. They’d be wiser still if news coverage was more accurate and muckraking. The Somerby observation upthread is exactly right. Corporate media figures almost always absolve themselves of their central culpability (as in Joe Klein’s recent attack on liberal bloggers).
Martin
@tom p:
I write my senators regularly. Sometime in the week leading up to the HCR vote. Maybe the 20th or so? My congressman is a douchenozzle and will won’t get a sentence out of me that isn’t laced with profanity. I spoke to his democratic challenger a week ago to thank her for the very kind Christmas gift she sent me (family friend). She’ll be getting a lot of door knocking out of me later this year.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
@asiangrrlMN: This.
I told my wingtard mid-western engineer colleagues at that moment that it was blatant horse-shit and that we had no business doing this. I said, “if ‘weapons of mass distruction’ are discovered, I’ll be the first to say I was wrong.
I wasn’t wrong, the fuckers.
Sly
Campaign Slogan: The Public Sucks, Fuck Hope.
It sounded a lot better when the first guy said it.
Comrade Mary
@General Winfield Stuck: So why not send them the occasional message praising them and asking them to carry on? They may be great right now, but a few words from you could balance the pummeling they could be getting from teabaggers and the like.
geg6
FTR, I communicate with Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Bob Casey, Arlen Spector, Ed Rendell, Jason Altmire, Elder Vogel (state rep), and Gerry Lavalle (state sen), the Beaver County Commissioners, and the members of the New Brighton Borough Council on a regular basis both in person (I’ve actually shaken hands with each and every person named here) and in writing/by phone on a regular basis. Probably not a good idea to assume BJers aren’t quite active in making their political thoughts known to their representatives. And I won’t even go into how many campaigns I’ve worked on since 1976 so as to see my wishes turned into action.
The Republic of Stupidity
@Linkmeister:
Hmmm… if I’m not mistaken, all three of those are Logical Fallicies:
kommrade reproductive vigor
Do mash notes to Chris Van Hollen count? OK, he’s put on some weight but I call it gravitass.
@DougJ: Uh, you do know that was the point.
General Winfield Stuck
@Comrade Mary:
Will do. You are wise comrade:)
DougJ
Uh, you do know that was the point.
Sorry — I added an edit.
This is something that makes me touchy because I used to write for a blog where every time someone disagreed with the other posters they’d write “what have you done, do you canvass, write your Congressmen, etc.”?
El Cid
For a contrasting view, listen to Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting’s latest episode of CounterSpin:
This week on CounterSpin: Some of the current conversations about the future of journalism trade on some pretty rose-colored notions of journalism’s past. The reality is journalism has always been a very mixed bag, with just some reporters doing the challenging, talking truth to power work that later generations may imagine Everyone was doing.
This week on the show we’re going to take a look back at a couple critical institutions in the history of what we now think of as investigative journalism – the sort of hardhitting, independent reporting current discussion is focused on ‘saving’.
One of those institutions was actually a person – I.F. Stone. Stone wasn’t just among the greatest American investigative reporters, he was also an activist and a man of the left. Earlier this year, CounterSpin spoke with D.D. Guttenplan, author of the latest biography of the journalist, American Radical: the Life and Times of I.F. Stone.
Because he challenged U.S. power, often just by reporting the contents of official documents, and because he was a leftist, Stone’s reputation has been under assault by vestigial McCarthyites who have been claiming for decades that he was a Soviet agent.
Guttenplan discussed those charges, and Stone’s actual ideas, in this interview about a man whose story, even after his death, has much to tell us about U.S. media and politics.
Also on the show: Ramparts magazine has also been important even to people who never read it. Originally a small literary magazine pitched to the “mature American Catholic,” Ramparts became a rollicking left-wing muckraking enterprise that exposed CIA misdeeds and Vietnam War lies and atrocities. Contributors to Ramparts resemble a who’s who of progressive journalism and the American left, including Angela Davis, Seymour Hersh and Robert Scheer to name a few.
The story of Ramparts’ rise and fall, and its impact on US journalism, is told in a new book, A Bomb in Every Issue: How the Short, Unruly Life of Ramparts Magazine Changed America. CounterSpin spoke with author Peter Richardson.
mcd410x
You should always call your congresscritter. It’s easy to dismiss mail (and completely dismiss email) because it’s somewhat impersonal.
A voice on the phone carries much more weight.
General Winfield Stuck
@mcd410x:
Though I agree with the calling thing, in general, I have also been told by staffers that what most cc’s value most are handwritten letters/ I was told that during the runnup to the Iraq War and about gave myself permanent hand cramps from writing so many “don’t do it” letters, but obviously to no avail.
Jim
@tom p:
Honest question to all the commenters here: When was the last time you wrote your congress critter?
Several times in the past year, to House ‘critter and both Senators, actually, especially wrt HCR. Iraq, torture, Abu Gonzales, Alito, the Stimulus… off the top of my head, those are the issues I’ve contacted my ‘critters about over the last few years. I once actually provoked a response from Ken Salazar that prompted something more than the usual boilerplate response. Someone in the office thanked me for my “interesting input.” I hate Ken Salazar with white hot intensity of a thousand suns. I guess somehow that seeped between the lines of my e-mail.
mvr
The who is “we” is key.
I’m relatively well off and maybe I can be blamed if I’m snookered by the media. But I’m not hurting personally. I’ve got decent health care, a job, a place to live, hobbies . . .
The folks who are hurt don’t have the luxury of time to figure out who is screwing them over. Or if they do they don’t have the energy. I doubt that they deserve what they get, though some of them are helping those who shaft them.
And of course those folks on the islands that will disappear with climate change aren’t in a position to do much even if they know who is screwing them over.
mvr
@tom p:
Actually, it seems I do it once a month or so, and call more often. Ben Nelson’s office has been getting tired of me, so I gave it a rest, though I’m unfailingly polite.
I did manage to walk by a Republican rally on the steps of his office where I called out the “wrong” answer to one of the teabaggers rhetorical questions (“anybody but the Republicans,” I yelled), and it threw them off their stride for about 20 seconds. But this is what it comes to. Defending the deplorably in the pocket of the right to lifers against the complete idiots.
Not that there is any point to this rambling answer but that it does answer the question asked.
mcd410x
@General Winfield Stuck: They’re good for props.
General Winfield Stuck
@mcd410x:
I believe you are correct sir!! or madame.
mvr
And, FWIW, I’ve called often and predictably enough that Hagel’s office once called me at home to get my opinion on some civil liberties/defense issue. My guess is they had me pegged and his staff wanted to get more input from the anti-Bush side so as to push the Senator to vote the right way.
Living in Nebraska is not the most fun if you’re a relatively well informed liberal, but I take what I can get.
More importantly, I’m not paying most of the cost of the relative ignorance of the American public, nor of the venality of our media. But some people are, and it is a bit disingenuous for those of us who can get our voices heard to blame them.
Joshua Norton
I agree whole-heartedly and always have found that annoying. Using “we” and “us” is a major shortcoming of the Dems in a misguided attempt to appear inclusive or ironic. But by such over-generalization it gives wingnuts the perfect opportunity to throw around words like “hates America” and “traitors” because we fail to use specifics.
We mean right wingers are the cause of the problems and that’s what we should say. After all, they have no qualms about doing it on a daily basis.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
It would be an entire waste of time in my case. My congressman is a mostly reliable vote for Pelosi and my two Senators mostly reliable votes for Reid. Nothing resembling my deepest political leanings stands a nonzero chance of even being introduced for consideration, unless you think a few e-mails on my part will suddenly vault Jethro Q. Walrustitty into mainstream acceptance.
xjmueller
just asking. did anyone read the piece that andrew cohen linked to at the end of his piece?
http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/68apr/vietnam.htm
it’s by his friend and mentor, James C. Thomson, Jr., whom I was unfamiliar with. Thomson’s 1968 take on why viet nam happened could be written about our more recent excellent adventure. at the end of the article he warns about the future and is very close to nailing what actually happened. Santayana was right.
Ripley
@tom p: You barked up the wrong tree and then fled – have you suspended your campaign?
Anyways, yeah, write ’em/call ’em/e-mail ’em. Harry Teague (NM), though, what a disappointment. If I’d wanted a meek grandpa in office I could have dug up my own and got better results.
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
I don’t agree with that, I think. I think I agree with something similar: If journalists said what they think is true, and let us know what their prejudices are, I think the quality of their product would go up. In other words, the quality of the information stream would go up.
I don’t ask a journalist to be fair, or balanced. Just say what he or she thinks the truth is, and tell me what the biases are. I can figure out for myself what is true, with that kind of truthful information.
Journalists fail us when they say other than what they think the truth is because they think we want to hear something different or their employer wants them to say something different.
When simple truth — the truth of what the journalist believes to be true — is the foundation of the reporting, then truth gains in value all along the information pathway. When that happens, people get better information.
I absolutely do not believe that “dialog” or “discourse” should be the goal, or even on the radar. I don’t want a discourse with anyone in the media. I want information. What did you see? What did you find to be true? From whom did you learn this? How did you corroborate your story?
Fuck the discourse. Discourse is for babies, and manipulators. Fuck the dialog. I can get that somewhere else. Just tell me the fucking truth, and let me figure out what it means. I don’t need discourse or interpretation or balance or any of that creepy shit, from journalists ……or from bloggers.
DougJ
You barked up the wrong tree and then fled – have you suspended your campaign?
Yeah, it’s my fault, I misread his comment and flipped before adding the edit.
Sorry.
General Winfield Stuck
@Ripley:
He is my rep and I can’t disagree with this analysis. A dem winning in 2008 was a one time thing, I think, no matter what dem had run then. It is a winger district and will return as such, until dems in Santa Fe bite the bullet and redraw our districts.
El Cid
@xjmueller: It took a lot of work. Reagan had to get us involved in small, thrilling, and easy invasions; by the time George H. W. Bush and co had built up for Gulf War 1, they could announce the defeat of ‘the Vietnam syndrome’, which was the ‘sickly inhibition’ against the direct use of American military force.
They didn’t repeat history because they were ignorant of it — rather, we watched them systematically deconstruct history and listened as our punditarian elites congratulated them for doing it.
And then we did it again as the history of THE SURGE became first propaganda line, then myth, and now ‘doctrine’, and now we are repeatedly told we have a new ‘counter-insurgency’ (‘COIN’) grasp which will guide us through all our next SURGEs.
Violet
@tom p:
I don’t bother with the Senators – two more right wing individuals would be hard to find. I do write my congressperson. Communicate with the mayor and city council as many of the things that affect my daily life are local.
General Winfield Stuck
@DougJ:
Woof woof!!
Ailuridae
@mvr:
This. Frankly a well off liberal journalist suggesting that people deserve to be governed poorly because there are huge institutional forces in the media that prevent ready access to information for nearly everyone who isn’t already interested of has a lot of free time is a morally repulsive position.
Ailuridae +4
mandarama
@tom p:
You can add me to the list of Congress-botherers. Even though it does not one whit of good, I call up Lamar! and Bob Corker and Marsha Blackburn every few weeks just to annoy their staff. Lamar’s office doesn’t answer the phone reliably, btw. Marsha’s receptionist hates me. I always give my opinion on the topic du jour, then say, “I just want to remind __ that he/she has a more diverse constituency than he/she believes, and not everyone in TN is interested in religious rhetoric and obstructed government.” Doesn’t do any good, but I try.
On health care, I took to writing / calling Jim Cooper, too. I live right outside his district, but I used my sister’s address. He wrote back twice, and at least once it was clear I’d nettled him with the Blue Dog accusation. Heh.
Seems to me that if we spend a lot of time reading the political blogs, we’re gonna be the kind of people who like to annoy our congresscritters. But a lot of my neighbors, seriously, can’t name our two senators and rep. V. depressing.
amk
Why do you call it as shrill and completely wrong ? methinks, cohen nailed it. The frigging mass media has been leading the america toward its death spiral of wars, wars, and wars and yet shows no shame or even repentance. The same old tiresome pundits with the same old talking points.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
Generally, people are too lazy to get involved in the intricacies of the political world for various reasons. Some are well off and don’t have to concern themselves with anything deeper than staying wealthy while others are too busy trying to survive and have little leisure time to inform themselves. Thus the rise of the ‘sound bite’, the ‘every nut in an issue is sane, we have to leave it there’ journalism and talking point-reciting political hacks. There is little substance, it’s mostly political fluffing, lip service and hand jobs.
In early December and it was Senator Ron Wyden. You are right that most people don’t do or do it often enough and I believe it’s for the same reasons I noted above.
Anne Laurie
@El Cid:
There are those who believe that Bob Woodward, Superstar Reporter, never actually left the CIA payroll after his Navy years. The “glamorous” denoument of the whole Pentagon Papers / Watergate media gala played a pivotal role in the conversion of low-rent, working-stiff reporters into highly-credentialed, MBA-friendly journalists. (Not to mention that spotlighting Nixon as a foul-mouthed, racist paranoid let all the lesser CREEPsters scuttle away scott-free, only to emerge and spread their filth during later administrations.) Woodward’s subsequent career as an apologist for thugs like Alan Greenspan and Bush’s Supreme Court has not done much to discourage this crazy DFH theory.
Ripley
@General: True that. I didn’t expect miracles, but I didn’t expect this. Teague’s rationale for his HCR no vote was both heartfelt and craven, the sound of a liquefying spine already puddling for another term. Sigh.
@DougJ: Understandable; there was implicit support of the ‘we deserve it’ trope in the initial comment.
Glocksman
@geg6:
Heh..you sound somewhat like me both on this and other issues.
If you weren’t already taken and probably half my age, I’d ask you to marry me. :)
That said, my ‘blue dog’ Congresscritter (Brad Ellsworth IN-08) saw the coming storm and met with individual constituents in August to discuss HCR instead of putting on a circus for the teabaggers and Fox News.
I lucked out and got my name submitted in time for a half hour’s discussion with him.
At the start, he made it clear that he opposed any ‘single payer’ plan and didn’t really like the idea of a public option.
That said we both agreed that something had to be done in the end about the exploding deficits, though he didn’t say much when I suggested tax hikes would be needed to do so.
I’m not crazy about Ellsworth, but he’s most definitely the most ‘left leaning’ candidate who could both (a) win in this district, and (b) honestly call themselves a Democrat.
That said, I’m now in the awkward position of backing Ellsworth against the man who literally saved my life.
His likely Republican opponent is a local heart surgeon who ranks among the best in the country, and he was the one who replaced my defective aortic valve 4 years ago.
As a person, he’s a genuinely nice guy who cares about his patients.
As a potential Congressman, he mouths too many teabagger talking points on some issues (health care) for me to support while mouthing the glibertarian spin on economics.
IOW, despite his literal saving of my life I cannot support him against a ‘blue dog’ like Ellsworth, much less a genuine lefty such as Alan Grayson.
bob h
It was the New York Times, not Fox, that played the biggest role in pimping bogus pre-war Iraq intel,
Not to mention the Whitewater story that lead to Ken Starr and the impeachment of Clinton.
kay
I’m bitter on the press, since health care.
I’ve gone from thinking they were people trying to do a job within a media system that rewards the least rigorous and serious, to considering them as actively standing in the way of any substantive progress on anything.
Health care reform is the largest domestic initiative in 40 years. It’s a domestic initiative, so they don’t even have the excuse of having to go very far for information and experts.
There are reams of information, thousands of compelling and interesting ways to report this story, thousands of experts, and health care affects everyone in the country.
So, all those resources and what did we get? We got shit. We got Senators squaring off spouting talking points, and three full months of teabaggers, and polling.
We got nearly every mainstream outlet treating this issue with something close to contempt: they didn’t take it seriously enough to cover it seriously.
The day after the House bill passed was particularly bad, the assembled reporting team were all but sneering and jeering at Pelosi, and no longer even bothering to pretend to report on what was in the bill. It was fucking appalling, the arrogance and cynicism. Who asked for all this attitude? Why didn’t they just report on the bill and the vote count? Where did this clear contempt for the legislative process and the whole idea of reform come from?
Health care was the issue where they could have redeemed themselves, and really shone. I think their failure on the biggest domestic initiative of the last 40 years was just massive, and it just happened. It’s still happening. I’m bitter about that.
Barry
gbear
“So basically everything went to hell when the boomers graduated from school? ;)”
The boomers started draduating in the early 60’s.
Ask a Vietnam Vet.
El Cid
@Anne Laurie: It’s hard to make a case for government manipulation of the media when, in the famous words of the lawyer for United Fruit after having easily bullied up the U.S. government and press to overthrow the elected President of Guatemala, “the victims prove so eager for the experience”.
Tom
He’s right in that “we” deserve it. “We” make Glenn Beck the highest rating thing in cable “news.” People like strong, controversial opinions that reinforce their opinion of the “other side.”
The thing is, any one can still pick up the NYTimes or Chicago Tribune or WaPo, heck, even the Washington Times, and read good reporting on the big issues of the days. Not the op-ed pages, but the news sections.
That’s what I read to form my opinions. The problem with the media today is that they don’t think Americans want dry reporting, and who could blame them seeing as newspaper circulation is rapidly declining and partisan blogs and cable news shows are increasing in reader/viewership.
Straight news is still the best way to go. that’s what people should be basing their opinions on, not the opinions of others who 9 times out of 10 have an agenda to push.
El Cid
@Tom: That’s true, but an awful lot of seemingly “straight” reporting is low grade, anti-journalistic, establishmentarian shit. The New York Times coverage of the leadup to the Iraq War, for example, was just as harmful in its “straight” news coverage as it was in the commentary section.
The presumed division, the fabled “wall” between the editorial board and the news pages, is honored primarily in the breach, and occasionally as a ‘straight’ deal.
kay
@Tom:
Except. The Washington Post, with the exception of Ezra Klein, did a terrible job on health care. The news section. It was all he said she said, with no distinctions made for the source of the information. They printed insurance company hack-numbers right alongside census data. One = the other, and that ain’t TRUE.
I used the Washington Post to discern which dishonest info meme was going to be circulated the week following so in that sense I guess it was “useful”.
We eventually had a substantive health care debate despite media, not because of them. They all but insisted we slog through reams of total bullshit before getting to the substance. They stood in the way.
I resent the wasted time. I resent the now-familiar “months of bullshit, and then, finally, the meat of the matter”. I know they’re looking for a hook, a conflict horse-race story that draws viewers or readers, but I’m not willing to be shanghaied into assisting with their business model. It’s not my concern and it’s not my job, what they “need”. I’m waiting for them. I don’t want to.
xjmueller
@el cid
I know that this is a thread on media, but I was actually thinking about the description of the decision making process that lead to the expansion of the Vietnam war. Get rid of or demonize folks in state dept who might know anything and make sure that anyone who’s left is ineffective. Rely on philosophical world view rather than facts, ignoring those facts that don’t support the philosophy. Believe in American exceptionalism. In Thomson’s article, he basically predicted the coming of the neo-cons (or at least their equivilents). The govt since the end of VN have generally THOUGHT they learned the lessons of VN, but haven’t. The mistakes they make aren’t necessarily the application of american power, but the process that they use to arrive at the decisions. The AfPak surge meetings were probably akin to the meetings LBJ had prior to bombing and troop escalations 40 years ago. the media certainly has not helped in this regard – no doubt about it – and has actually contributed to the nonsense.
ericblair
Shorter Cohen:
Face it, you fucked up. You trusted us!
rs
@ds: I’d substitute “support” to “tolerate” in your assessment of elite behavior post WWII.
They hadn’t quite figured out how to suppress the nascent union movement of the 30s (they got their footing with Taft-Hartley) and communism as practiced in the Soviet bloc hadn’t been completely discredited- it still represented a legitimate alternative for working people, making it somewhat necessary to provide them (us) with lots of shiny baubles for distraction.
Unless your calls and letters to your elected reps are accompanied by large bundles of cash, your good intentions are about as effective as trying to get pregnant by masturbating.
Restricting the question to the godawful media, a better use of your time and efforts might be local groups pressuring cable and public radio to air shows like Counterspin, Democracy Now, and Free Speech Radio News. I’m in my 50s and I never remember a time when the mainstream media didn’t suck. Quality and substance were always the exception.
El Cid
@xjmueller: I agree, and that’s what I was talking about. The Reagan administration very much believed that actual lessons had been ‘learned’ by the disaster that was the U.S. war against the civilians of Indochina, and they very, very consciously and carefully planned their foreign policy so as to systematically reverse those lessons. This isn’t conspiracy theory. Read them back when they were discussing launching / expanding U.S. wars of subversion and counter-insurgency in the 1980s in Central America, Southern Africa, and Afghanistan. One of their major goals of this ‘new Cold War’ escalation was to re-write the assumptions of American foreign policy domestically. They were doing what you were discussing it, but they were doing it very, very consciously. And most of the liberal hawk and media establishment were more than happy to encourage them to do so.
Steaming Pile
“We” are the ill-informed majority, and I would say to that, “if the shoe fits.” It’s a bit snug on me, as it is on most people who read this blog, but it fits a lot of very stupid and/or ignorant people. The problem is, one cannot separate the stupid and ignorant from the rest, and nor would one want to. Can you imagine a nation of mainly stupid and ignorant people with nuclear weapons? It’s a scary thought, to say the least.
It’s also scary to think that the main reason Barack Obama was elected president was because the stupid and ignorant quite literally had their noses rubbed in it. Let’s hope their memories aren’t as short as we all probably suspect.
It is the responsibility of the rest of us, those who give a damn, those who know what’s really going on, those with triple-digit IQs, to keep a grip on things, to not allow the ignorant and the stupid to take over, as we did in 2000, or in 1994. Learn the lessons of those catastrophes and take measures to see that they don’t happen again.
WereBear
I once wrote an essay for the late Steve Gilliard’s blog (this was while he was sick and needed help) in which I pointed out that perhaps our media is simply reflecting their audience.
When there were only three stations competing with each other, it was bland, middle of the road, fare, but shorn of extremes of either the left or the right. Now, television watchers have far more choices, including the internet.
Essentially, the smartest people I know don’t watch television. They might have a few favorites, or they watch their choices on the internet, as we tend to do, but they have given up on the mass of entertainment and seek elsewhere.
So the ones that are left are usually the unsophisticated and the undiscriminating; and this is what our media reflects. Because they want their audience to be stupid; they are more likely to fall for the commercials they run.
After all, MSNBC is gaining traction while Fox is losing it, last I heard. Yet another sea change.
Mickey
Marsha Blackburn Voted FOR:
Omnibus Appropriations, Special Education, Global AIDS Initiative, Job Training, Unemployment Benefits, Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations, Agriculture Appropriations, U.S.-Singapore Trade, U.S.-Chile Trade, Supplemental Spending for Iraq & Afghanistan, Prescription Drug Benefit, Child Nutrition Programs, Surface Transportation, Job Training and Worker Services, Agriculture Appropriations, Foreign Aid, Vocational/Technical Training, Supplemental Appropriations, UN “Reforms.” Patriot Act Reauthorization, CAFTA, Katrina Hurricane-relief Appropriations, Head Start Funding, Line-item Rescission, Oman Trade Agreement, Military Tribunals, Electronic Surveillance, Head Start Funding, COPS Funding, Funding the REAL ID Act (National ID), Foreign Intelligence Surveillance, Thought Crimes “Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act, Peru Free Trade Agreement, Economic Stimulus, Farm Bill (Veto Override), Warrantless Searches, Employee Verification Program, Body Imaging Screening.
Marsha Blackburn Voted AGAINST:
Ban on UN Contributions, eliminate Millennium Challenge Account, WTO Withdrawal, UN Dues Decrease, Defunding the NAIS, Iran Military Operations defunding Iraq Troop Withdrawal, congress authorization of Iran Military Operations.
Marsha Blackburn is my Congressman.
See her unconstitutional votes at :
http://tinyurl.com/qhayna
Mickey
Mo's Bike Shop
I’ve been thinking back to the media’s failure on Y2K.
I first read about Y2K in a book Cringely put out in ’93. My reaction at the time was, ‘Well, that’s it, we’re Fucked.”
Yet the IT infrastructure in this country got it together, and addressed the problem. I remember feeling pretty proud of my fellow meat sacks at the time.
And then the media got around to the story. The results were no surprise after watching the previous 4 years of stories about the Internet being a government-funded child-molesting technology.
So yeah, the “we get what we deserve” schtick is purely divide-the-peasants rhetoric. The elites of our infrastructure are dominated by third-generation wealth-entitled Cargo Culters.