Letters to the Editor
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Ought to be.
Journalists ought to be bringing new knowledge into the system ...
As brilliantly incisive a characterization as one could hope for of the central problem of journalism in the US today — it doesn't bring any new knowledge into the system. Karl Rove understood this very well, in much the same way that liberals who continue to tune into the same crypto-Republican debating points day after day do not. Is Hillary a bitch or a pussy? Is Obama too black or too optimistic? Tastes great? Less filling?
My one gripe, Editor, is that I would have loved to see Jay Rosen delve more into the peculiar press psychology he so perfectly captures. Why are press people so herd-like? What in their training fails them when it comes to being able to intelligently, autonomously conduct themselves like actual reporters?
I remember the hue and cry from the established press, years ago now, when Salon scooped the Columbine sherrif's report on the shootings there. How did some internet rag's lowly reporter gain access when those representing the prestigious papers could not? It was all about not following the herd.
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All you need is motive
The media has no mind but it has desires. It has no one controlling consciousness, no, but it does have motivations, and as any actor or director or novelist will tell you, motivations are where the action is anyway, the thoughts will follow. The motivations are largely corporate and they're almost entirely about making money.
The focus on the horse race to begin with exists because it creates a spectacle and this makes money. That's the motivation for the mess we have, and in some ways it's all you need to know.
Without it, we could sit down every few years and pick the person who seems most dedicated and effective from among those available, and it could take about three days to decide. It could certainly take a lot less time than it does now anyway.
Almost no one covers the campaigns from the rational perspective, which would be to examine who's best matched to what the citizenry wants and needs. It's almost entirely instead about the viewpoint from the candidate outward, all the discussions are about how she can move this way to attract these people and this is bad for him because he's going to not convince these people, and on and on about essentially who can play the public like a fiddle better than the other, it's entirely about an essentially manipulative and disingenous if not dishonest process.
It's absurd. It's all entirely for the spectacle, and in terms of coverage and the media at least, that's entirely about money.
For a shorter version read Tom Tomorrow's cartoon that just was posted, as usual he nails it best.
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Partisanship!
The problem is exactly that we don't have what the right wing says we do: a partisan press. In an effort to be neutral, the only thing the press can cover is the horse race, the techniques and insider stuff, and god forbid that anyone should look at the content.
The best journalism in America is, and has been for a long time, sports journalism. Read a local paper for its coverage of the local NFL or MLB or whatever franchise: it is clearly partisan in that it wants the home to team to win, but it is critical, incisive, questioning, and even from time to time poetic. Except when it covers intra-city sports, then it has to get all neutral and hence boring and superficial.
Phooey on being neutral, I say. I'd far rather read a reporter who wore their Democratic or Republican sentiments on their sleeve, and then went into the race on that basis, even if I disagreed with it. It would help me more as a voter too; nonsense about campaign tactics and pre-news news help me not at all, what I need to understand is what is being proposed and how it would cash out in my life rather than in the campaign, and I feel rather let down by the 4th estate.
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Why this analysis sucks...
The light touch and therapeutic distance and aren't we funny, look at us gazing at our herd of navels stance, isn't funny and it isn't right. This is serious, this election business. Peoples' lives depend on it (Iraq and Afghanistan) and the integrity of their bodies (the right to privacy and to control one's own body) and their ability to take care of their children (honest work and affordable health insurance) and talking about the media not having a brain or being able to think and being a herd and that explains it all, and sorry about that, ignores the very real fact that someone somewhere is deciding every day and every hour and every minute what to cover and how to cover it and how much to cover it.
You prefer you say "the herd of independent minds." What a neat conceit. Well, I prefer shallow and shameful. You write sympathetically of your insecurities as a youth that have followed you into your maturity, the fear that you will miss something, predict the wrong thing, interview the wrong person, miss the interview of a life time with the man with the buttons and you generalize this vulnerable humanity to the rest of the pack. But you don't address the horrible cynicism that is at work in much of what is said or written or left out from moment to moment by the folks who decide. And you don't explain why your editors or producers choose not to report about "X" because six months or a year before the first candidate has declared "X" is not getting traction in Hollywood or is too naive to win or that editor just plain does not like him and the ethics of that. And you don't explain how it can be that the press in a democracy such as ours covering the election in the way that it does is a sin if you believe in sin.
Here is the url to the Pew report that shows what the authors refer to as the "race for media exposure": http://www.journalism.org/node/9266 If you scan it you will see that they point to a possible correlation between the kind and amount of coverage and the results of the vote.
Read it and weep people. The decisions to run which articles or produce what segments on the candidates were made by individuals. The decision not to examine the details of policy but to opt for gossip and glitter were made by individuals. The decision to report ad nauseam on the shadowy cross or the number of wives someone has or the price for gods sake of a haircut instead of the quality of the candidates' plans to address the gap between the haves and have nots or the philosophy of the third way and its history and where that fits into today's world were made by individuals in their arrogance. And no excuses, each of them knows exactly what he or she is doing.