Why, an audience member asked NPR's Linda Wertheimer at a San Diego symposium this past weekend, wasn't public radio correcting all the lies being told in the campaign?
We do correct a lot of them, she replied. We report that candidate so-and-so made a certain claim today, and then we compare the claim with the facts, and we show that it's not true. The problem, she went on to say, is that our coverage doesn't stop candidate so-and-so from repeating the same falsehood over and over again, but we can't keep repeating the same story day after day, because it's not news any more.
She's right. There are always newer whoppers to fact-check, and news needs to be new. But in a campaign that will see $3 billion spent on political advertising -- a record high, exceeding even the 2008 presidential-year campaign -- the reasonable premium that journalism puts on novelty is what plenty of candidates are banking on. If you say anything, no matter how mendacious, enough times, people will come to believe it's true.
In our media ecosystem, no truth-squadding can ever get as much airtime as paid ads. Worse, the Supreme Court this year opened the floodgates for corporations to spend unlimited amounts on ads. And because Republicans filibustered a law that would have required disclosing who's paying for those ads, Karl Rove, Dick Armey and their ilk are laundering those donations via front groups with anodyne names like Americans for an American America.
"A democracy can die from too many lies," Bill Moyers said at the same event only a few minutes before Linda Wertheimer spoke. It's sobering. But you'd never know the stakes were that high from the kind of campaign coverage we Americans have settled for getting.
Case in point: this weekend's back-and-forth between Representatives Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) and Mike Pence (R-IN) about the House Republicans' Pledge to America, moderated by David Gregory on NBC's Meet the Press. Why does anyone besides someone as masochistic as me watch this stuff? An algorithm could generate gotcha kabuki like this, and you'd never know the difference.
Gregory asks Pence how Republicans can reduce the deficit if they extend the Bush tax cuts, and Pence responds with boilerplate about Democrats raising taxes on small businesses. Gregory asks Van Hollen how Democrats can rule out middle class tax hikes if they want to get serious about the deficit, and Van Hollen responds by ignoring his question. Gregory asks Pence how Republicans will deal with entitlement spending -- will they raise the retirement age? -- and Pence offers the usual pieties about keeping "our promises to seniors and near-seniors." Gregory asks Van Hollen to name the Democrats' three to five top campaign points, and Van Hollen's answer wanders from small business and Chinese currency manipulation to clean energy jobs and earmarks.
Gregory knows neither guest is going to stray from his talking points (though Van Hollen sure could use a better shortlist), but he isn't going to stray from his own talking points, either. "Watch the tricks these guys play to avoid my straight-talk traps!" That's the subtext we're meant to admire, as if we've never witnessed this depressing ritual before.
The goal of these Sunday shows -- what their makers want most -- is to generate news, and it's not news that Republicans and Democrats both have ridiculous positions on the deficit. So it was no surprise, except for the nakedness of the admission, when Gregory began the segment by trying to suck Van Hollen into the contretemps between Senate and House Democrats about when to schedule the tax cut vote. "What about the timing?" Gregory asked Van Hollen. "Answer this question about the timing. Maybe -- because this is where the news is -- should the House take this up before the midterm vote?"
This is where the news is. It's not news that Republican wailing about the impending tax burden on small businesses is a bogus claim meant to mask their advocacy of tax cuts for billionaires. It's not news that Republican dogma about the jobs-generating effect of tax cuts for the richest Americans is economic nonsense. But it is news when strategy, tactics, timing -- the Beltway insider's game -- is on the table.
I'm not dewy-eyed enough to believe that a network Sunday show can get Monday headlines by pinning Pinocchio badges on its guests. Nor, though NPR's coverage may well do more fact-checking than commercial networks, do I have a solution to the quandary Linda Wertheimer described: How many times can you (politely) say that Candidate X lied today, when Candidate X lies every day, and so do Candidates A through Z?
Yet I also can't get Bill Moyers' point about democracies dying of lying out of my head. He also said that, on his PBS programs, one of the things that he and his wife and producing partner, Judith Davidson Moyers, have struggled with is the amount of toxicity -- the deceitful, dangerous part of public discourse -- to put on the air. On the one hand, it's important to know the truth about what's going on. On the other, it's painful to know the truth, but to be unable to act on it. How can you deal with cancer, he asked, speaking of the vulnerability of democracy to partisan propaganda, unless you know the diagnosis?
As long as news needs to be new -- which is another way of saying, as long as news (even public broadcasting news) depends on ratings -- it's hard to imagine that a daily diet of "here's who damaged democracy today" will grab an audience, especially if it's the same demagogues as yesterday. Unless, of course, you're funny when you say it. But the sanity of Jon Stewart deserves a column of its own.
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.
Follow Marty Kaplan on Twitter: www.twitter.com/martykaplan
a lying sacktelling the truth and who is not. Our sheep have been captured by wolves. Mixing metaphors now. Must go to bed.While I agree with your assessment that politicians invited to such shows as Meet the Press or Face the Nation are not likely to stray from their talking points. Additionally they are likely to be intentionally deceptive if not outright mendacious, particularly if unchallenged. Yes, your correct that, even when challenged, they will not likely change their message.
However, the news organizations are equally complicit in the deception of American because they tolerate these lies in the hopes of gaining the sound bite or two that will be fodder for their colleagues all the following week. For better or worse, what Ted Turner spawned with the creation of CNN has given today's politician a perpetual platform. The more outrageous the claim, the grander the lie, the more likely CNN, MSNBC, Fox, etc. will be there with a microphone in that pols face.
The way to cure the disease is to deny nourishment to the parasite. But, David Gregory (or his colleagues) is not likely to abruptly end an interview because he is being lied to or because a guest will not get off a talking point. Mr. Gregory needs them and they want the air time.
We are literally the civilian population caught between these two warring factions--I call them factions because their is no effective different between these people except which party they belong to--that continue to escalate their efforts, moving further away from the job at hand and the truth needed to solve our problems.
Or is it just coincidence that no matter who is in charge, things get worse? Yeah, Clinton balanced the budget on paper, but by cutting defense? How is that any better than Bush increasing Defense spending so we can't even afford basic social programs?
Balance is the name of this game: Balance between Socialism and Free Market Trade; between Individualism and Nationalism; Internal needs and external threats; Collective tyranny and Individual tyranny; etc.
Then there are issues like the government's role as referee between relationships and how the relationship between those who embody public authority and those who hold private authority lends unfair advantage to the wealthy over the common person. I know cheating in professional sports is considered part of the game, but most teams don't pay off the officials right in front of the spectators and cameras.
In other words, why are you surprised that electing self-serving people to public office gets us a self-serving government? Our leaders only speak about "our country" when they're trying to win (over) the nation.
I'd rather watch paint dry.
That is a distinct CNN problem. If they say one indiviual lied they feel they need to find something their opponent lied about and make them equivalent regardless of whether they are or not.
If we know Senator so-and-so is going to lie, why bother with the interview? If you are a reporter, you can include his comments in the story but can control how they are perceived by providing listeners (and readers) with the other side. You will also be able to stay on point and stick to the facts.
If they realize they are no longer the news but their comments are, maybe, just maybe, we will be able to get to the truth.
It's lazy journalism, in my opinion, that NPR and other media outlets do less writing and reporting and more interviews. It's certainly cheaper and maybe that's the real truth behind this issue.
Can we simply tally the lies?
a) Fox News wins by far over all the other news outlets combined
b) Among politicians:Tea Party members get the first prize with mainstrean Republicans a close second and Democrats a distant third [but in all fairness, all of them tell enough lies to earn a place in the podium!]
about what's being presented. Not to take anything at face value is a good starting point for anybody.
Mr Kaplan, your question practically answers itself -- why on Earth would you feel the need to remain POLITE when reporting on something as important as the lies of politicians?
Far and away my favorite book on US politics is Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72 by Hunter S Thompson, who clearly never was hampered by a perceived need to be polite when writing about something as important as politics, and who wrote about it brilliantly until around 1980, when his overindulgence in alcohol and other drugs quickly began to turn his brain into mush -- just compare The Great Shark Hunt with Generation of Swine, it's very sad how quickly and how far the quality of his writing declined. (It's not POLITE to mention Thompson's self-inflicted brain damage, but it's ACCURATE, and so by mentioning it I honor his example.)
Another thing which set Thompson apart from the vast majority of American journalists was his belief, which I share, that there is no such thing as objective reporting, but that's a whole other, ontological ball o' wax...
http://thewrongmonkey.blogspot.com/