The Power of No

On Tuesday night, a serious journalist finally gagged in revulsion at so-called campaign coverage.

On CNN, Mark Halperin, TIME magazine's principled and thoughtful political analyst, shook his head in dismay as the network's Anderson Cooper prodded him to dissect the "lipstick" imbroglio. Halperin wouldn't go there."Stop the madness!" Halperin fumed in exasperation, adding that the moment marked "one of the low days of our collective coverage of this campaign."

With the nation in economic meltdown and multi-front wars, Halperin summoned the Power of No. He declined to engage what he considered a stupid and distracting "issue" in the final weeks of one of the most important presidential campaigns in our nation's history.

The "issue" was the McCain campaign's shrill complaints that Barak Obama owed Sarah Palin an apology for saying of John McCain's economic policy, "You can put lipstick on a pig: it's still a pig." The apology was owed, the Republicans thundered, because Sarah Palin had said during the Repubilcan convention that the only difference between a pit bull and a hockey mom was "lipstick."

This had been the relentless story line for the past several days, sucking up hours of airtime and he said/she said back-and-forth barbs from the two campaigns. And the press -- especially cable television -- has lapped it up.

On CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360," Mr. Cooper was doing what all the other cable television commentators had been doing -- to their collective shame.

He showed the video clip of Obama making the lipstick comment, then turned to his commentators, CNN senior political analyst David Gergen and Halperin. Gergen dismissed the dust-up as "silliness."

But with Halperin, something seemed to snap. He was disgusted even to be asked about something that was, to his mind, a clear campaign maneuver and manipulation in which the so-called serious press was the shill.

And he had had enough.

Would that the rest of the news media had that gag reflex and collectively decided, "Enough!"

Though Halperin did not say so, there is something sinister about the press's complicity in allowing campaign coverage to feed hungrily on meaningless charges and counter-charges. It is not unlike the McCarthy period in which Senator Joseph McCarthy's allegations about communists in the State Department were considered legitimate news simply because he said it.

The truth or legitimacy of what he said was not seriously questioned. Today, in the echo chamber of the fast-moving web and cable news environment, the truth of something is almost immaterial as long as the charge can be repeated and repeated and repeated again.

The news media's passive willingness to be used by campaigns is bad enough. But add to that the effort to stifle serious questioning of such things as Sarah Palin's political history -- a journalistic inquiry that is central to the role of a responsible press. The public's broad contempt for press coverage of the stupid stuff creates fertile ground for silencing legitimate, tough reporting. For instance, the McCain campaign canceled John McCain's appearance on CNN's Larry King show when CNN reporter Campbell Brown had the audacity to ask some probing questions. It was a move right out of the Bush Administration's playbook for punishing pesky reporters.

It is time for news organizations to stop being shills and for serious political reporters to stop being hacks. Mark Halperin and Campbell Brown have showed the way. Don't play the campaign game. Don't scramble after the next shiny object the campaigns throw your way. Take yourself and your work seriously. If the subject is stupid, say so. And say no.

Comments

[demfriend]

I for one was relieved when Halperin said "Stop the madness". The very idea that we should suffer with the lies and nonsense while the 24 hour news channels get their amount of feeding frenzy out of what the one liners or the attacks were that news cycle. The jump on the wagon and lets make the stories bigger is insulting at the very least when all we deserve is honesty. We have only the MSM to be asking the questions and giving us the answers to what we should know about any candidate who might hold our lives in their hands. And yet the questions and actual proven issues have become labeled "attacks" and yet MSM let's it stand when they know it also is not true. The MSM has a dutyto inform us and to tell us the truth not to paint it their way to keep it alive so they can focus on it until the next crap line. MSM has done one thing this election. It has shown us without a doubt bias exists in reporters journalists and actual channels controled by owners and the GOP.

[earlyearlyearly]

Thank you for your article.
To quote Andrea Mitchell talking to Margaret Carlson today on MSNBC, "True or not, these ads are effective". WHA.....? Not only or they not calling the Repubs on their ads, they're totin' water for them.
An no one has even mentioned the many edits in the Palin/Gibson interview. Why don't they show it un edited?

[3fingerbrown]

This is an outrage! How dare Halperin refuse to answer the lipstick question? What if every commentator refused to discuss mindless distractions? News shows might actually have to report the news! Then where would we be?

[grendl]

"there is something sinister about the press's complicity in allowing campaign coverage to feed hungrily on meaningless charges and counter-charges. "


It's not really sinister. It all comes down to money and ratings, and he/said she said knock down drag out fights draw the viewership.

The MSM is sculpting the political narrative. Feeding on conjecture, the blogosphere, innuendo and outright lies, it keeps the fire stoked and Barack Obama should really come up with a better term for it than "silly season".

Thats a term one should use for their children. Its bullshit season, and the bulls are running rampant around the political landscape.

Good article.

[DickTater]

I guess you didn't get my memo. It is NOT for ratings and money.
Who else is gonna rake in the money, capture the eyeballs? Hellmans Mayonnaise? The Culligan Man?
4 corporations own our networks and most of the cable news outlets.
They have the ratings and the money sewn up. There is nowhere else for the eyeballs to go.

Again, this is about the Corp/Repub/Media controlling our minds, our ideas, our conversations. If they choose to hide certain things and trumpet other certain things.....they have just dictated what we know and what we will talk about, and largely what we think. They create the memes, the imagery, the faux outrage, and are ALWAYS on the side of the COrporate Party.

The money and ratings are gravy. Keeping their vice-like grip on our information delivery system is the real prize.

[apoyo]

They are being led around by a leash and they seem to like it.

[DickTater]

Mr Jones,
I believe Halperin and Brown's tentative, toe-testing motion TOWARDS sanity is like a drop in the ocean.

I think your reasoning and stance are just perfect, but you seem to be verging on naive, if you think the Corp/Republican media is the way it is because it is SUSCEPTIBLE or PRONE to being distracted by non-issues. You have almost all the machinations figured out and spotted, but not the central reasoning.
Corporations=Republicans=Media.
That is the answer, the solution to the problem.
The media isn't susceptible or prone to this behavior....they invented it. Human foibles being equal, the Dems have always been the party of substance, the party of ideals, the party of the people. The Repubs have always been the party of corporations, greed, false and empty ideals, and ANTI-people.

The CorpRepubMedia cannot do an expose on themselves. They have been programming us for a long time, and the reason they do what they do...is not for profits or ratings. It is to keep programming us. They own all the equipment, they wrested our airwaves and internet from us. The single most important thing is for them to KEEP ownership of the mindaltering TV/Radio and keep using it for it's most important function...control. Money and Ratings are THEIRS. They own all the gizmos. Who else is gonna get the ratings....Amana or Winnebago RVs?

[fairwitness]

My God, dare we even hope for such a miracle? To hear even ONE of those smirking talking heads repudiate the trash that the Republicans have perfected and refuse to take the Rovian bait would be cause for hope amid the detrius of our media.

[Damiandt]

Oh Please. Boo Hoo. The ENTIRE media showed itself to be the bought and paid for the PIG that it is.

Check this out
http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1694094,00.html

In December, before a single vote was counted, TIME magazine cover story about the Republican candidates.
Notice in the picture there are 5 candidates.

FIVE. Funny thing is there were SIX people at that debate.

What type of reporting COMPLETELY forgets to mention a candidate?

There was a study that counted the times a candidates name was mentioned during the six weeks prior to Super Tuesday.
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3368

It was disgusting how the "media" decided who to talk about, and by talking not mention a single scrap of relevant information.
http://www.fair.org/images/Whitensmaller_05_06_08.jpg

How is it the candidate who raised the most cash, broke fund raising records, and winner of the polls after the debates was only mentioned 10 times to McCain's 931 times?

At that time McCain was broke and had to break his own fundraising rules.

So, thanks for pointing out I can trust NOTHING I see. I have zero respect for anyone in the mainstream media. They are all just mouthpieces without a single piece of journalistic integrity.