Letters to the Editor
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left coaster
I'm genuinely open to suggestions, but I do not like anal fetish Ana Marie, and American politics can be a very, very rough game.
what, in the wild world of off topic posting, are you talking about?
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TRenee
That is a good point and I think a recent study/poll I came across observed a marked distinction between perceptions of local and national media. More people trust their local media. Local media is more targeted and... local.
Paradox,
Maybe a new greasemonkey script will be forthcoming.
Glenn has repeatedly said he finds "grand unified field" theories about the media too simplistic. I do think the simple answer is problematic. But I find this explanation the simplest. It's not conspiracism, it's social science.
I think in this case, conflict theory explains it well.
The fact that it comes from a Marxist perspective scares the crap out of people. Among other things, and in rather general terms, Conflict Theory posits that the state and the law are instruments of oppression employed by the ruling class (elites) for their own benefit. It's not too dificult a stretch to acknowledge the media gets co-opted in this effort. Of course there are exceptions and this is a too simplistic theoretical framework to explain all the complexities of a free press and media in a free and democratic, market based capitalist society. Monopolization of the media into large conglomerates is a natural result without regulation and that is happening. It can't be denied.
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GUTs
The problem with avoiding unifying theories is that you can never then look for the underlying principles on which the system runs. Yes, underlying principles are never perfect and complete, but they are essential if you want to understand and predict the behavior of systems.
But for this example, we have a reasonable theory, which produces falsifiable hypothesis. The theory is that the members of the press are selected for their ability to regurgitate the ideas of the elites. So, one would expect that in the long-run, the stories that appear in the news would reflect the views of a major sect of the elite. It's easy enough to watch in action: almost all "real" news stories (as opposed to infotainment) reflect either the democratic or republican consensus, and usually directly reflecting their relative power.
What would one expect? Well, from this theory, you would expect that when the Republicans held both houses and the Whitehouse, you would get the Republican party line. When the Dems took over two houses, "suddenly" you would start getting news stories that reflect the Dem consensus. This assumes that the visible political power in the country reflects the balance of power of the elites behind them.
And lo and behold! That's exactly what happened. I bet you could graph anti-Bush stories, and you would see a take-off in October, a sharp rise at the election and a veritable explosion in January.
I'd love to see someone take this analysis back through the '60s. I bet the news would just lag the changes in balance of power through that entire period. That anti-Clinton stories would really pick up in '95, that anti-Bush story would fall in 2002, that stories about Nixon's "secret" campaigns in SE Asia would follow, not precede, the opening salvos of Watergate, and so on.
It would probably be even easier to do locally, since the local government processes are often easier to investigate - they can't claim "National Security" to hide themselves, and the local big money is easy to find.
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GUT Check
I think that grand unified theories are both necessary (in order to make sense of things and generate useful hypotheses) and problematic (given people's tendencies to get lazy, stop testing theories, and use a single theory to explain everything). And I think that deep down, Glenn would probably agree--though he would tend to see the problematic side much more than the necessary one.
This is fairly understandable, given where he's coming from, and I tend to think it's more valuable to have him disagreeing with me--and thus making me prove my case--than it would be to have him agree with me.
But most important of all, I think we all benefit from being more conscious of how express ourselves. It's in the nature of comments to be more informal than the posts they're attached to. But there are times to tighten up, when called upon.
Just as there are times for the very purest of snark.
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U.S. Media is blinkered.
I believe you need to expand your parameters to point up the failure of the American media during, not only the time you mention here, but during a much longer lapse.
As a Canadian and what I fondly hoped was a friend of the U.S. I was reading and hearing a far wider source of information than solely American media. Before 2003 I was well informed about the lies the Bush administration was trumpeting, and appalled at the harm it was doing to the good name and honor of the U.S.
I don't pretend to be a wiser person -- merely a better informed one. In the 2006 elections, the U.S. electorate was just beginning to catch up to the knowledge that millions in the rest of the world had known for years. The only significant difference is the quality of information non-Americans were getting from their media outlets.
This is not to say those outlets were inherently superior to such organisations as the NY Times, but they were not being blinkered by corporate ownership and by pundits championed and funded by the administration and its backers. There is only one way to say this -- the American press, and to a greater degree the broadcast media, were not free during this period. The journalists who dispute your opinions may never accept this -- but the only way Americans will learn knowledge instead of unfounded belief is by opening their eyes to the other sides of the news -- and test the words of U.S. outlets against others in the world who have different managers.
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No Questions Asked by Lisa Finnegan
An incredible book regarding the failure of the United States mainstream media is "No Question Asked: News Coverage Since 9/11" by Lisa Finnegan. At Amazon.com the price tag is pretty hefty at $49.95. I lucked out because my I was able to pick it up at my local library.
Ms. Finnegan weaves a heavily researched and documented narrative showing when, where and how the mainstream media failed us including quotes from the likes of Ted Koppel, Dan Rather and others which stunningly reveal that many in the media did not think it was their place to ask critical questions and analysis in the days following 9/11 and up to, and including, the Iraq War.
She details the difficulty of reporters to provide unbiased coverage while embedded with the military because of the bonding that took place between the soldiers and the journalists. She reveals that is was part of a PR campaign created for the Department of Defense.
I don't want to diminish Gary's article, but Ms. Finnegan's book is the most comprehensive analysis I have since of the media to date.