The Media Are the Message

They lost control of the message.

That's now become the universal diagnosis of Team Obama's mistake during the stimulus bill debate. From the commentariat to the White House chief of staff, the lesson to be learned from the last two weeks, we are told, is that the administration let the Republicans frame the debate.

Now I can understand why Rahm Emanuel would say that to a bunch of reporters. A mea culpa about last week is the price for moving the topic this week to the foreclosure crisis. If the White House hadn't declared that the precipitous end of the honeymoon was its own damn fault, the press corps would have kept gnawing at that bone, and would have turned the stimulus debate into Exhibit A of the obituary of Change We Can Believe In. But because Emanuel copped to losing control of the message, the media finally permitted the Democrats to declare that the passage of the bill -- the nation's single largest investment in infrastructure, education and scientific research since the Depression -- was in fact a victory, and to reboot for round two.

What's so discomfiting about this transaction is what it says about the role that the media have carved out for themselves in American public life.

If the job of the press were to help the public understand what's really important, and to distinguish propaganda from facts, then Republican attempts to sink the bill by defining it as liberal pork would have gone nowhere. The endangered mouse that Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was allegedly earmarking billions to protect; the Las Vegas supertrain that Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) was claimed to have snuck in; the rationing of health care that former New York Lieut. Gov. Betsy McCaughey accused Tom Daschle of hiding in the bill: None of these and other colorful lies would have gained any traction if truth value were a prerequisite for airtime. Instead, unfortunately, the more outrageous the allegation, the more irresistible it was to the media.

When reporting is reconceived as stenography, there's no place in news for news judgment. The Republicans know this. If we trash it, they will come -- that's the GOP's formula for gaming the Beltway press corps. With a handful of honorable exceptions, television journalists are particularly helpless in the face of phony charges. Instead of sorting things through, they just serve them up, to be repeated in the right-wing echo chamber on cable, talk radio and the internet. The closest the mainstream media come to helping citizens distinguish what's believable from what's baloney is the weasely formulation, "Some say... but others say...." If citizens want to separate what's true from what's spin, well, you're on your own, pal.

I'm not saying that the Democrats were blameless during this debate. Calling it a stimulus bill instead of a jobs bill was lame-brained, and a measure of how easy it is to be co-opted by technocratic insider culture. Maybe only one percent of the House bill's provisions, as the president said, were controversial, but that's one percent too many; if ever there were cause for the White House to strong-arm the drafters of the package, this was that moment. Two hundred million dollars to fund contraception through Medicaid might be good public policy on its own, but putting it in this bill was just asking for trouble.

And don't get me started on the Brigadoon of bipartisanship. House Republicans united in lockstep and in martyrdom: Senate Republicans rejected out of hand the core idea of creating jobs through public spending and instead united on a trickle-down tax cut of $2.5 trillion over 10 years, as though George W. Bush had won a third term. Maybe someone, somewhere, gave Obama credit for trying to work with these obstructionist sore losers, but surely more people suspected that only chumps search for common ground with scorpions.

Still, whatever Obama did wrong, it was no reason for the media to go gaga for grandstanding Republican demagoguery. Sure, I'm glad that the president fought back with a prime time news conference, and began using his bully pulpit, and got out of town, and finally produced some partisan sound bites. But something's dangerously wrong with the Fourth Estate when it's obsessed by "narratives" and indifferent to facts.

Political coverage, especially on cable, has become a branch of theater criticism. What counts isn't the merits of the case; what's appraised is the mastery of stagecraft. This is what politics has come to mean: not the apportionment of power, but the snow job of show biz.

Obama didn't lose control of the message. The mainstream media lost control of its mission. Of course that didn't happen just yesterday -- ever since news became a profit center within entertainment conglomerates the real purpose of television news has been to get people to watch it. To aggregate audiences and to sell their eyeballs to advertisers, it's not necessary, and it's awfully expensive, to take pains to figure out what's accurate. It's much better television, and it costs nothing at all, to hand a bullhorn to a propagandist. Nothing, that is, to the networks -- just not nothing to democracy.

This is my column from The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles. You can read more of my columns here, and e-mail me there if you'd like.

Comments

[exhale09]

What I want to know is, what can we do to get the media to change?

We are all so tired of this. We all agree we want facts and important information on issues from the media. NOT just opinions on superficial speculation and theater.

I am so tired of the media continuouslly beginning every segment with "WILL....t­his happen or that happen?" as if we all have crystal balls and know the future.The­n they make and entire show about speculating about things that haven't happen and may never happen, meanwhile they ignore what IS happening as they speak!
Are they just LAZY or what?
I read daily comments on so many blogs that say the same thing. EVEN the media itself has acknowledged that viewers what something different.

So why does nothing change? What can we do to convince them to change?
I am searching for solutions.

[magicwanz]

Since Reagan, conservatives have controlled not just what is debated and where and when it is debated, but the very language we use in the debate, freely corrupting English however it suits them to attain their own ends. When someone hears the word liberal, he doesn't think: "one who advocates freedom of thought", even though thats what it says in Websters. When George Dubya mispronounces "nuclear", we just go back and add that pronounciation to the dictionary and all is well. He wasn't wrong! Reality just needed a little correcting!

[moonwatcher]

I wonder if cable news and radio realize how many Americans do not listen to them anymore and rely on the internet for their news. When news becomes politicized people are turned off and only the partisan will watch them. People who are not connected are at their mercy.

[lgillooly]

We are all spinning our wheels if we do not do something about 91 percent of talk radio.
No other media outlet can do what they do. Rush has 20 million listeners and paid 38 million/yr by the RNCorporation. Then 1000's of right wing local hosts parrot his talking points reaching 10's of million more listeners. NO OTHER MEDIA OUTLET COMES CLOSE.
Take 10 minutes and google Joseph Goebels propaganda ideas. He said you can control a people any where at any time by doing just 3 things
1. Always have an enemy real or perceived (90's Culture War 2000's War on Terror)
2. Wrap it in the flag (dissent will be considered unpatriotic and attacked)
3. Control the message,but make sure it is repeated and repeated over and over again until it becomes the truth.
This is why the right wing is frantic about the Fairness Doctrine..­.They succeeded with this in 1993 against Clinton and we are letting it happen again.....­This HAS to be changed and some sort of balance brought back ASAP

[Dave27]

Electronic media hasn't been journalism since Ted Turner sold CNN. They're the same crowd of thieves as the Financial Industry. Come on, this isn't new. You have to use the web, BBC or PBS for legitimate news.

[HeartT]

"The mainstream media has lost control of its mission." No truer statement has been said. What do we do get a tool we can use here? The media actors seem to want Rush's wish to come true. They are willing to pick out any morsel of a lie or half truth and run it into the ground. This has got to stop. Not just with Obama, but in general. Our media is in meltdown. Have been for a long while now. I expect it to implode any time now. Will a new media please step up!

[marijam]

I got the last of Hardball today and was pleasantly surprised. They talked about the absence of the Libby pardon and several other political items of interest and they had commentary from guests that didn't seem the least bit partisan, just the facts. It led me to watch 1600, where I was again surprised at the improved quality of the journalism. If this keeps up, I'll start watching MSNBC regularly for my evening news. These last weeks, I've been so disgusted by seeing and hearing nothing but Republican talking points that I haven't been watching any of the news programs, just checking certain sites on the internet. This one being the main one, of course!

[Blink2X]

It's all about 'entertainment' and nothing about responsibility. 'Let's see if we can create a sideshow' for ratings sake. Absolutely shameful!

[steve-in-abq]

All lies and jest.
Still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.

-Paul Simon [The Boxer]

[DofG]

In Obama's inauguration speech, he call for the nation to "put away childish things". Our system of government, at the least, is due in part to Enlightenment. And thus, we are its heirs. However, in our time, we are rapidly racing toward our own destruction due to a level of immaturity that is overt, as well as insidious. The corporate press is just one symptom of a cultural malady that is sending us, with no brakes, toward the abyss.

Over the course of our history, we have, with untempered pride, touted the susperiority of our system, rarely pausing to contemplate the real nature of "freedom", and its dangers, when confluent with collective immaturity, and crossed purposes. We've heard the Law which govern these misapplications, expressed as wisdom, down through the ages; but for "practical reasons", we have failed to put it into practice. That law is the Law of Universality- Oneness! Take a sphere of water, and disturb, or remove even one iota of its parts, you will impact the whole! In any system where "freedom" is the mantra, self-interest and untempered competition is its formost enemy! Thus, the "free" without wisdom, and purpose beyond survival, is a child playing with matches, at a oil refinery!

[Subterfuge]

Nothing has been more destructive to the American people over the past 10-15 years as 24-hour news networks.

Repeating lies non-stop, 24/7/365, to the people that depend on you for critical (note: Critical) information, all in the name 'balance', is truly anti-american.

[haimchaim]

Marty K. is the message and Daddysboy is the media

[Bernique]

Professor Kaplan,

There are courageous journalists out there. Too few of them, but the Polks reward them.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/17/nyregion/17polk.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss

[pilotsknob]

I concur with your analysis regarding the 4th estate. Having graduated in journalism, I am disgusted with what passes as journalism, research, factual thought and news reporting. After the MSM began parrotting GOP talking points two weeks into Obama's administra­tion.....I said to myself....­.THAT'S ENOUGH!!!! I haven't watched the talking ditto heads on cable and Sunday morning broadcast shows since then. Instead, I read well-researched news stories and opinions of journalists I believe uphold the honor of journalism to get my news of the world. My stress level has gone down and I find I have more quality time in my life. Try it!

[Subterfuge]

So true. I still watch CNN from time to time but I spend more of my time critiquing how they are presenting information and what the true sensationalist intent of each headline is than actually getting worthwhile information. Rich Sanchez and Lou Dobbs are the worst.

During the republican no-votes, where was the clever and suggestive headline, "Republicans sabotage economy for political gain?" One hour into a democratic movement of the same order the MSM would have dozens of pundits all looping the same word, "Sabotage!" toward the democrats.

If journalists feel enslaved and helpless by the malignant corporate news then they all need to go on strike in the name of journalistic integrity.

[joesnuffy]

I wish the news media would seek and report the truth and work to dispell propaganda and rumor. However, even from the early days of the media when this country was in its infancy, news reporting was biased. The administrations actually had their own newspapers to promote their agenda. So while what you are suggesting is a nice fantasy, we will never see it happen. Everyone has their own agenda; everyone is fighting in their own self-interest. That's the way it will always be. Even if you could get the media to tell the truth, they can spin and direct things by simply chosing what and what not to say.