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TechnoratiNetworks Sleep While Democracy Burns
Sometimes mainstream media reveal their failures in displays so stark that it makes the job of media critics too easy.
NBC, ABC and CBS frequently forget to serve their viewers, to be sure, but certain miscues are a special boon to bloggers and media reformers, who work tirelessly to show that the titans of the mainstream consistently miss the most important stories of our time.
Network coverage of the political conventions this week and next is a case in point, as American politics takes a back seat to mainstream media reality.
The "Big Three" have decided that democracy is bad for business, and are treating viewers to excited hormones (ABC's "High School Musical"), miniskirts (NBC's "Deal or No Deal") and bachelor hi-jinks (CBS's "Two and a Half Men") instead of Democratic and Republican convention coverage in Denver and Minneapolis.
Citizens v. Consumers
At PBS, where "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer" still thinks of its audience as "citizens rather than consumers," the conventions will be covered from gavel to gavel. ABC, CBS and NBC are yielding little more than an hour of prime time on most convention nights.
This is the sad reality of a corporate media that prefer laugh-tracks and the bottom line to political discourse.
While the networks yuk it up with sitcoms and teen libido, the message they're sending the American public is that the most important political gatherings of the last four years don't merit the nation's full attention - and certainly matter less than the standard prime-time fare offered up on any other night.
Television and the Age of Apathy
The damage goes beyond that: In the era of television elections voter turnout has been stuck between 50 and 55 percent. Over the same period, many young voters (aged 18 to 24) have increasingly passed on voting altogether - there's been a steady decline in youth turnout, despite spikes during the 1992 and 2004 general elections.
Even when they tune in network news, the public is spoon-fed coverage that rarely reflects the viewing public's political interests.
NBC, ABC, CBS and their cable counterparts overwhelmingly portray the elections as a horse race pitting TV-ready personalities against one another. Obama is the inexperienced firebrand, McCain the seasoned, straight-talking maverick. This drama may play well on the small screen, but it accomplishes little towards informing voters about the candidates' political views.
According to MediaTenor research from the 2004 presidential elections, less than 5 percent of networks newscasts dealt with candidates' positions on policy issues, such as health care, education, the war in Iraq, the economy and employment -- even though American voters consistently rank these topics as the "most important issues for the government to address."
The same pattern can be seen on the news in 2008. Candidates are not being identified according to their stances on the issues, but by their posture of the day. As a result, too much coverage emphasizes immediacy and spin over substance and issues. Who's up in the latest polls? Who scored the latest zinger on the campaign trail?
In 2004: Worm Munching Trumps Obama
In the face of this critique, network executives have circled their news vans and lobbed criticism at the conventions themselves.
In 2004, NBC's then anchor Tom Brokaw called the conventions heavily scripted "infomercials" not worthy of news. That year, NBC fed viewers a prime-time diet of worm munching on "Fear Factor" instead of featuring the debut of rising political star Barack Obama, who took the stage in Boston, delivered an electrifying speech and launched his political prospects.
NBC was not alone. ABC and CBS also deemed Obama's historic moment as "too scripted" for prime time.
To be fair, conventions are designed by the parties to spin their candidate before the media, but it's up to the networks to unpack the hype and deliver real political analysis and breaking news to their audience.
Turning their cameras on is a start.
29 Comments so far
Show AllLack of voting doesn't necessarily equate to apathy. '08 may be the first election since I became an adult in which I probably won't be bothered to vote. I believe our system is terribly broken, may have always been broken. Better to be a wise/frugal consumer, eat local/organic, be a good neighbor, good role model to younger people, spread cheer when in company with others.
I'm unsure I can even be bothered to vote for Nader. If we had the Range Vote, unicameral population-proportionate body, only very small jurisdictions that any single politician could control (< 5,000 citizens) and no corporate media maybe I'd think otherwise. But as it currently stands we can't possibly get the change we want from this system. Voting only encourages them...
And I no longer believe that we'll ever get any of these things through the mechanism of voting. 500 years and counting.
And people are still amazed when I or my wife tell them we do not watch TV.
When, or I should say if people actually wise up to how the media has rotted their brain to the point they can no longer practice independent critical thought, they will disconnect the corporate umbilical cord and reconnect to reality already in progress.
g
Yes! They ARE pushing harder,,,,, they are sheep led to their own slaughter and they do not even realize it as of yet.
YES! This is just what I want! I want to see the economy go straight into a massive depression! I want America to go to WAR Now with Iran.... We have tried and tried to awaken these scum in all fashion of reasoning to no avail.
Hell with it, I say. I want them to push more! I want them to ignore and violate our laws, and Constitution more! I want the breaking point to come to America....
If the NWO Fascist Freakzoids can not wake from their utopia made up delusion of "everything is fine" attitude, and can not stand to reason with the people, and for the common good.... I say bring it ON!
I want the "breaking point",,,,,, when that happens, they better hide under a rock..... cause the people of this Nation will "have a good time"
Coffeelover,,,,,,,
Over lo, these many years of visiting progressive blog comments, I'm well aware of the "Know Thy Enemy" argument that it's wrong, or foolish, to avoid or ignore wingnut demagogues and websites.
I respect that argument, and respect those who are able to tolerate snorkeling in such seas of liquid excrement. I suppose that the conventions should be televised for the purpose of being inspected by such hardy souls.
But of course the modern-day duopoly's political conventions are no more than infomercials and pep-rallies to preserve the illusion that the decadent and moribund Amerikan political process is meaningful and worthwhile, and to further stimulate True Believers to orgiastic ecstasy. I personally know normally skeptical persons whose lemming circuits are tripped, and who suddenly engage in the willing suspension of disbelief involved in becoming absorbed by the spectacle of the conventions. It's like going to a really high-class magic show, if one goes in for that sort of thing.
PBS, which the author touchingly credits as if their alternative approach isn't just a complementary approach to corporate hucksterism, is obviously better positioned to cater to the "willing suspension of disbelief" target demographic.
I wouldn't dream of taking the chance of seeing the visages of Nancy Pelosi or Hillary Clinton on the teevee after dinner. But if political pathologists are able to vivisect the monstrous events and gain important intelligence that bear upon the lives of humans living outside their thrall, the networks ought to be willing to clear away the usual dreck and make room for the conventions!
Little Brother!!!
DogLeg!!!
Has it ever once occurred to Tom Rocksnaw that HE is an infomercial? Journalists alone decided who was going to be a candidate rather than the voters (Olbermann pronounced "Kucinich is OUT" one night as K's poll ratings were reaching 6%)...They are still telling us about "the two" candidates and there are what---five? Have they freaking noticed that Nader is at EIGHT PERCENT in New Mexico, at SEVEN PERCENT in Pennsylvania, and nationally at at least six percent? That is going to be THE DECIDING factor and they're so cravenly afraid of stepping out of the corporate-designed box that it's as if none of this is happening. How many Americans, 300 million? Are there 200 million voters? What is six percent of that---18 million people whom Tom Rocksnaw has decided don't matter? If you watch MSM coverage of anything you're too lazy to mentally masturbate....
watch on cspan. no talking heads, no spin. do we really need anybody to tell us what we just watched??
This is part of the corporate agenda. The people need to be disengaged from politics. Low voter turnout is good for corporate power. The major media has become simply a tool for corporate interests.
Stop Corporate Power
Redstone, Ailes, Eisner, Zuckerman, and on and on.....
Americans are such suckers. They can not see the facts
about WHO owns, or controls, essestially ALL of the media outlets in this country, print, broadcast, or cable. This is WHY Americans do not know about the USS Liberty, or UN Security Council resolutions 242 and 338, or Lazar Kaganovich. Americans are largely sheep.
Karr's piece seems to indicate that the news media's taste for idiotic programming in the face of a national crisis in our government is a recent event. The corporate-owned media has been feeding citizens government propaganda since CNN invented the 24-hour news cycle in 1980.
tom brokaw was right. They are informercials. The MSM just takes the circus to a lower level. I refuse to watch the circus. If anything important is said I'll read about it the next day.
The trouble with the media isn't how little they cover, it's the subtle (or not so subtle) undertone of negativity and doubt whenever they report on Obama and the Democrats. When speaking of McCain or the Republicans, the wording is active and positive. Democrats are always "Trying to" do whatever it is they are reporting to be doing; Republicans are always reported as "doing" whatever. The subtle undercurrent is that Rs are competent and sure, Ds not so much.
The author sounds like a wanna be media whore auditioning for the left. He knows how far he can go, so he never dares to blame the real destroyers of the Constitution. Including his own boss at Huffington. This article should be on FOX.
Hoa binh
Yeah... this article came from the Huffington Post... when the HuffPost first started out, they were good... but now, they're just another mouthpiece for the DLC. As well, HuffPost practices the most censorship than any of the so-called progressive sites. I myself, out of 285 comments posted, have been censored 53 times for strictly political reasons.
"While the networks yuk it up with sitcoms and teen libido, the message they're sending the American public is that the most important political gatherings of the last four years don't merit the nation's full attention"
Most important political gathering? Hardly. It's strictly scripted theatrics. It's just an opportunity for the delegates to get drunk, get laid and hobnob with the money guys. Nothing to do with democracy.
The most striking thing to me about a modern convention is that there is no democracy in the hall.
What is the role of a modern delegate? Apparently its to wear funny hats and dance in the aisles and be a backdrop to their infomercial.
Have you seen the delegates debating anything? Have you seen the delegates voting on anything?
I guess I'm old enough to remember when it didn't used to be that way. I remember back when the convention was the coming together of the members of the party. They used to debate and vote on things like platform planks. This was democracy in action. 4000 or so representatives of the party coming together and debating and voting on what they believed the policy of the party should be.
These days, all policy is set from the top. There is no discussion or debate allowed. The big money guys tell the party leaders what the policy is that they want, then the party leaders carry it out.
Or, think of the vice presidency. Didn't anyone notice that they could announce the winner a week in advance? What does that tell you about the amount of 'democracy' in the party? What does that tell you about how much of a role the delegates play these days in making the decisions of the party?
These conventions are nothing but a long, scripted infomercial. I can't blame the networks for not showing most of it. Its not worth showing. Its not news. Even if I wasn't out in the streets of Denver, or going to see Ralph Nader speak tonight, I still wouldn't watch that @#$%.
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"It is not if we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists will we be" - Dr. MLK Jr.
We have never been offered coverage of the “smoke filled room,” which is where all the most important decisions are made, as everyone knows.
If we were offered coverage of the Bilderberg meetings, the G8 conventions, the Trilateral commission meetings, the Council on Foreign Relations meetings, and the Bohemian Grove addresses, we might think much less of our “democracy” and find that conventions are simply the enactment of decisions made in other venues that are presented through the media in Punch & Judy fashion.
I could care less about coverage of democratic conventions when they don't even present green party or libertarian parties coverage AT ALL. We're not even presented with the option of third parties, many of which are growing. Amongst my friends who are completely invested in Obama, they've never even heard of the Green party, of which I am a member. They also only seem to care who is in the white house and can't even name their state representative.
I work with people from overseas. The other day, someone from New Zealand asked me if I supported Obama or McCain. He was very confused when I said that I supported neither of those and was instead a Cynthia McKinney supporter.
That was just such an image of what someone who only sees what the corporate media says that it really struck me.
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"It is not if we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists will we be" - Dr. MLK Jr.
The conventions are examples of democracy? I thought they were infomercials about how we should be proud that our democracy is being raped by corporations and warmongers.
The only thing worth covering is the police state that has been created outside the conventions.
Excellent comments, every one of them. Mordechai, the analogy to Karlof was quite true... what bothers me about the article is that its hidden implication is that the media has been telling the truth, and that the democratic convention and its scripted speeches have any remote value; and that our vote counts. The article assumes: 1. media is doing its job 2. the convention matters 3. that voters have a real choice 4. that there are significant differences between the pre-selected contenders, granted celebrity in the manner of a beauty pageant and that 5. our votes count. ALL of it is bah humbug stuff...
The "Big Three" have decided that democracy is bad for business, and are treating viewers to excited hormones (ABC's "High School Musical"), miniskirts (NBC's "Deal or No Deal") and bachelor hi-jinks (CBS's "Two and a Half Men") instead of Democratic and Republican convention coverage in Denver and Minneapolis.
The Democratic Convention (aka The Blob) and the soon-to-be and even more repulsive Republican Convention (aka The Invasion of the Body Snatchers) also deal in excited hormones, miniskirts and hi-jinks (though not always by bachelors). These conventions are as eye-poppingly vapid and meaningless as any of the programs mentioned above. "High School Musical" won't kill you (at least not immediately). The Republicans and the Democrats, however, will have you in a pine box lickety-split. Or out in the gutter with your home foreclosed, your car repossessed and your children unable to attend college. McCain, whose stiff, halting movements and rictus of a smile are eerily similar to Boris Karloff's portrayal of the Frankenstein Monster, will be the next president. He will then throw the United States into the deep water to drown like the little girl in that Big Daddy of all monster movies.
And to cheap and snotty nosed to give us a wet T-shirt contest. Where's my beer?
What does it matter? There is no point to the conventions. Politicians get up, talk about values and other vague ideas without ever offering anything substantive or talking about policy. The candidates are already chosen. It's just a big show that does nothing for people who actually care about the country and who try to be informed. Perhaps if there were no coverage, the parties would either stop soliciting all that money from corporations so that they can throw a party, or heaven forbid, make the conventions something actually worth watching.
Even though PBS is showing the conventions, I'm not watching. That isn't to say that I'm going to watch "Deal or No Deal." I'll just read a book or magazine. The conventions have nothing to offer me.
Even the gavel to gavel coverage we do get, such as that on MSNBC, is disgraceful. The MSM doesn't even recognize facts at all. Every story is based on a he said/she said scenario. Call (the latest zinger/sound bite) and response (another zinger/sound bite). Truth or facts rarely come into the equation. I guess facts can ruin a perfectly good newscast. No wonder the polls seem to show McCain still close to Obama (if not leading in some others). We will end up with more war, more economic disaster, and who knows what else. I've finally had enough and have just about stopped watching TV "news" altogether. It's just too frustrating. I read blogs (mostly Common Dreams and Huffington Post, etc.)which are infinitely better than anything the MSM has to offer.
The quote from Jeffeson is correct, but our free press, the supposed watchdog of democracy is not just asleep, but has deserted his post entirely. We are in very deep trouble, here.
Best example: When more than half of the people believe that Saddam Hussein/Iraq had something to do with 9/11, it is the fault of the press, period. They should be ashamed of themselves for their role allowing such a blatant, and destructive, falsehood to exist. The results of their failure are manifest.
Perhaps this is why we were force-fed the enshrinement of Tim Russert as THE journalist of our times (which I agree with totally, but not in the way they intended). The media spectacle surrounding his unfortunate death was unbelievable - a state funeral not unlike a head of state. And the tributes to his journalistic bona fides, his tough questioning, were complete and utter nonsense to anyone paying attention to his interviews. There was an article last week about how Dick Cheney loved to go on Meet the Press; it was his favorite venue....for lying to us all. That tells all one needs to know about Russert's supposed journalistic chops.
So, if Russert was the quintessential journalist for our times (and he was), we are, indeed, alone in this fight. Since most of us rely on the MSM for what we know, the outlook is grim.
I agree with you BeForKids.
I am 25 so I might be a little to young to know when this started. But Since I started to pay attention around 10 years ago, I slowly watched the people give up more and more of their power. I watched other countries fight for their rights to work, and to have health care. And I saw my own country just consume and consume. I saw more and more jobs shipped over seas, more scandle more and more evil. Yet, people were so distracted by gays they just couldnt see the evil right before there eyes.
Now the evil is so well hidden by the media it seems impossible to untangle the web.
Being that the public interest is not in the interest of the networks, why ever would they deem to inform the public. They're doing what they do best, put everyone to sleep. Then they can get on with their own priorities unobstructed by such nuisances as an informed and involved populace.
When the people fear their government there is tyranny,
when the government fears the people there is liberty.
~ Thomas Jefferson
Welcome back Kathy
Namaste
As much as I admire Mr. Jefferson, I'd say he's wrong on the second part of that one.
Its clear that the government and both parties fear the people. To see that, just look at the amount of effort they spend lying to everyone. Just look at the amount of effort that goes into controlling news and information ... burying some stories and coming up with meaningless other stories to take their place.
Or, from the streets of Denver it is perfectly clear that the government fears that any protest at all might get quickly out of control. That is the reason that protest is so locked down and forbidden, and that is the reason that when even a few people stepping off the sidewalk into the streets is met with such an overwhelming police response.
Its clear that this government is very afraid of the people. But that doesn't mean there is liberty. That just means there is more tyranny.
The one thing that gives me hope during dark times is just how obvious it is that the government is scared to death of the people. They of course try to convince us that we are powerless. But that fear you can sense from them in their overcontrol and their overreactions is palpable. And if they are that afraid, there must be a reason.
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"It is not if we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists will we be" - Dr. MLK Jr.