Letters to the Editor
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"The Great Unwashed Masses," Regular Folk and Easy Reading
It is impossible to agrue against Greenwald's proposition that the "establishment" media's coverage of the news, in general, and the presidential primaries, in particular, is woefully inadequate when it comes time to select which subjects get "ink" and which don't.
The usual winners in this selection dynamic are the folksy, the cutesy, the easy-to-cover, the easy-to-understand, the trivial.
Greenwald attributes these results to the fact that, in his opinion, the "establishment" media speak "for" the "Regular Folk", and indeed are themselves "Regular Folk"; they are reporting on what interests them. And since they and their consumers both fall under the "Regular Folk" rubric, voila: the discourses produced by these journalists gain wide circulation.
But Greenwald never bothers with an elucidation of the attributes that qualify one to be labeled "Regular Folk," other than some allusion to them being good bowlers. If he is equating "Regular Folk" to Mencken's "Great Unwashed Masses," Greenwald is obviously in error: the media, though not physicists by any stretch of the imagination, are better-educated, better-read and generally more intelligent and erudite than are members of Mencken's group.
Which are more difficult tasks? Writing a story on Barack's bowling score or writing a story about the intricacies of the plan by the Fed and the administration to avert a worldwide collapse of the financial system? Analizing in detail the 80-something page Torture Memo produced by the Justice Dept. or speculating on what the significance the jacket color Hillary has chosen to wear on a given day is?
When given a choice, human beings opt for the easy way most of the time, particularly in the context of their work-lives. That's what drives the shallow and unimportant reporting that dominates the scene: It's easy as hell to do. (And it's easy to read and understand, which the consumer wants.)
The information consumer who wants different content has millions of other sources availible to him or her now, thanks, obviously, to the Internet. These are the people who will actually read a complex 5000-word article on credit-swaps, subprime mortgage bundles and other derivatives; they are also prepared to do some work merely to access the information.
Mass media consumers want info short, uncomplicated, served on a silver platter, entertaining and EASY. They don't want to be presented with Heidgger's "Being and Time" over breakfast coffee.