Scuttlebutt. News Media
By Mitch McFarland
If you read this column at all you probably realize I am something of a political junkie. It was dyed into my fiber from a young age. Not only was my father in local politics, but back in my youth civics was emphasized as an important subject in school. We had “social studies” classes every year from middle school on, and our history classes leaned heavily toward an understanding of how and why our system of government developed. Of course, my teachers had all fairly recently survived WWII and felt especially protective of democratic ideals.
My school took it even further and had mock elections for city council and mayor. Candidates presented positions on the real issues facing our town (should we build a new city hall, for example) and a debate was held in front of the student body. When the results were announced the actual city council adjourned one of their regular meetings, left their seats and were replaced by the winners of the student election. A matter was heard and a vote was taken as an advisory to the adult council.
My interest in politics continued to grow in college. College newspapers in those days were generally given subscriptions by the major newspapers. As an editor of our college rag I regularly read the NY times, Wall Street Journal, Havana Times (an excellent paper), Newsday, The Nation, New Republic, and others. TV news back then was serious, largely believable, broadcast only a few hours a day, and generally accepted as “real”.
Somewhere along the line that all changed. I guess I put a lot of the blame on Ted Turner and his creation of CNN. He turned “the news” into part of the entertainment realm of TV. Prior to that TV networks took a loss on their news departments. They weren't designed to be money-makers. It was considered part of their obligation to the public for the use of the public airwaves; but with only the news to support CNN it had to become more appealing to audiences than their competitors to attract the advertisers they needed. News had become entertainment.
Here we are many years later and look at what has evolved. We have Fox and MSNBC. Neither hides their political bias. Indeed, they are there to sell a show. Despite their widely different take on current events, Rachel Maddow and Tucker Carlson are entertainment cousins. Just as you watch certain TV shows because you like the characters, so it is with much that we see presented as news.
There are, of course, news shows and channels that make an effort to not appear biased, but their style of presentation has morphed into the way sports events are programed. It's the blue team and the red team and there has to be competition. They use polls as their scoreboards and bring on experts to make predictions just like the halftime shows for sporting events. They use flashy graphics like the color commentators do at halftime. There needs to be tension in the news to keep viewers interested.
The most blatant and, to me, shameful example of this was the coverage of the recent recall election here in California. This was presented as a national issue as though somehow what happens in a useless vote in California will reflect onto the national stage. It doesn't. California, I am sorry to say, is not a microcosm of America in a political sense.
The recall was a joke from the day that it was announced and every newsperson worth a pencil knew it. That didn't prevent the networks from bringing out the big guns to “break down the ground game” of each side. With polls showing Newsom up an insurmountable 17 points (he won by 27 points), they kept grabbing at any little piece of information that might suggest there is actual competition: “the Yes vote is running strong in Siskiyou county, but, of course, they only have 8000 registered voters”.
They really worked hard to make this seem like a Trump thing. Just as some people have a morbid fascination with performers who bite the heads off of chickens, enough people have the same fascination with Trump that the media just can't let him go. He's money, as much as I hate to admit it. The media will suck up any little tidbit about him that they can, good or bad, knowing it has the same appeal as the supermarket tabloids.
Then there is PBS. I do think that they try to mimic the old style of news reporting, but in their zeal to come off as objective they lean heavily toward equality. A government official who has spent their entire career studying a subject and whose professional reputation is at stake every time they make a public pronouncement is presented with equal time and gravitas as a publicity seeking politician whose statements are based on their ability to coordinate with a fund raising campaign.
That must be why so many young people say they get their news form folks like Jon Stewart and John Oliver. They aren't afraid to call BS on anyone regardless of party.
The whole thing reminded me of a time back in the earliest days of satellite TV. I got a dish so that I could watch NBA games. In those days, your receiver picked up the raw live feed from the sound truck outside the auditorium before the studio added commercials. During time-outs the camera would freeze and sometimes the announcers' mics were left on.
One evening I was watching a game the NY Knicks were playing on the West Coast. The Knicks were getting killed by halftime. The drubbing continued into the second half and during a third quarter timeout you could hear one commentator telling his partner, “Can you imagine anyone back in New York staying up until midnight to watch a stinker of game like this!”
That is how I felt just before turning off the recall coverage.
