A Newsletter With An Eye On Political Media from The American Prospect
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A NEWSLETTER WITH AN EYE ON POLITICAL MEDIA

The Sins of the Mainstream Media

The many reasons why the media is failing to reckon with the loss of our
democracy

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As this benighted year comes to an end, you, dear reader, are no doubt
wondering why our media has failed so miserably when tested by a
political party that seeks to destroy our democracy and our planet with
it. The answer, sadly, is "it's complicated."

The media critic Dan Froomkin wrote an excellent column

recently which pointed to another aspect of the problem. Nina Bernstein,
a reporter who covered homelessness for The New York Times, tells him
that at the Paper of Record, "To write factually, up close, with what
I like to call intelligent compassion about these people's lives
basically invited charges of partisanship ... Many reporters across the
traditional news media are struggling against institutional tics and
timidities that make 'balance' a false idol." The result: "The
inadvertent normalization of existential threats to democracy and public
health by one party and its right-wing media echo chamber." Bernstein
points the finger at Times mid-level editors. They are often the ones
"who are more timid, more ready to water down or reject a story."
But, she notes, "They're trying to do what they think the top
editors want."

This is how an allegedly liberal newspaper ends up whitewashing
Republican corruption, cruelty, and purposeful (often, but not always)
faux stupidity, because it's really true that "reality has a
well-known liberal bias
."

Bernstein's comments cohere with a number of recent trends I've
noticed in the Times (and elsewhere). One is the numerous instances
where a terribly misleading headline will appear above a reasonably OK
story. Given the fact that the headline is all most people will ever
read
,
people receive a completely false picture of reality. The below is not a
perfect case because Jonathan Weisman's story is itself false and
stupid, though not nearly as false and stupid as its headline:
"Boebert Reaches Out to Omar After Incendiary Video, Escalating a Feud
."
The words "reaches out" are a flat-out lie that Boebert herself
admits. After making a phone call to Omar, Boebert explained (in the
same damn piece!): "I told Ilhan Omar that she should make a public
apology to the American people for her anti-American, antisemitic,
anti-police rhetoric. She continued to press, and I continued to press
back." If that's "reaching out," then Kenny G

is Duke Ellington .

Elsewhere in the article, the truth suffers from Weisman's foolish
framing. He introduced the piece with this nonsensical graf: "Some
gulfs are too wide to bridge, but it appeared at first as if
Representative Lauren Boebert, the far-right Republican from Colorado,
was trying to do so on Monday when she reached out to Representative
Ilhan Omar, the progressive Democrat from Minnesota." The word
"appeared" is a well-trodden journalistic weasel-word that invites
its author to spout whatever bullshit he or she pleases. In his "nut
graf," he explains, "Ms. Boebert, a freshman who has built her brief
political career on incendiary comments

and right-wing provocations, angered Democrats over the Thanksgiving
break when a video surfaced
of her
suggesting that Ms. Omar, a Muslim who wears a hijab, could be a suicide
bomber, and bragging to constituents about confronting Ms. Omar on an
elevator with an Islamophobic epithet."

Note, yet again, the foolish framing. Boebert "angered Democrats,"
not any actual people without an axe to grind, with her blatant racism
and proudly ignorant Islamophobia. (We pause to note that such rhetoric
routinely inspires an avalanche of death threats against Omar and other
high-profile Muslims in American public life.) But to Weisman and the
Times, concern lies only with "Democrats."

When I first read this story, I reacted as I often have during the Trump
era, wishing that the Times would fire its entire political headline
writing staff and find a bunch of people who can simply tell the truth
in a few words. Remember "Trump Urges Unity vs. Racism
"?
That one got a lot of attention, but it was hardly an outlier. But quite
obviously the problem is not the headline writers, or even the mid-level
editors to whom Bernstein points. It is with the culture of our
political journalism. Its timidity in the face of evil is connected to,
but also in some ways distinct from, all of the other problems one can
point to in the unfortunately complicated explanation for why our
mainstream media is not going to save us from fascism.

Some of the others, each of which deserves an essay of its own, would
include:

The word "news": Note that it contains the word "new," but not
the word "context," much less the word "history"-an actual
curse word in almost any newsroom-and so invites purposeful lies and
distortion on the part of anyone who wishes to exploit this.

"Savviness": Want to know why journalists treat politics like a
sporting event? Jay Rosen has this covered here
.

Professional/class interests: In other words, attempting to impress one
another rather than inform the public. Walter Lippmann and John Dewey
actually had a lot to say about this in their 1925(ish) debate. (This
has been an obsession of mine. I've written about that here
, here
,
and in most of my books, and given lots of talks about it, which you can
find pretty easily if you care to with this Google search
.)

Corporate interests: This is one of the many important points people
miss when they speak about the "liberal media." Yes, most
journalists are liberal on social issues like abortion and gun control
and even, God help them, evolution. But most also work, by and large,
for multinational corporations whose top executives earn eight-figure
salaries and hate taxes, unions, and anything that threatens their power
and profits. So, too, do most of the people they hire to run these
properties and represent them before the public. (Some of them pull down
eight figures as well. There's a chapter in What Liberal Media?

called "You're Only as Liberal as the Man Who Owns You" addressing
this conundrum.)

Ref-Working: It's no secret that "working the refs
"
works. I get credit for the phrase, but I originally lifted it from Rich
Bond, a former chair of the Republican National Committee, who explained
following George H.W. Bush's 1992 campaign, "There is some strategy
to it [bashing the 'liberal' media]. If you watch any great coach,
what they try to do is 'work the refs.' Maybe the ref will cut you a
little slack on the next one." Today, the far right has an entire
media-industrial complex that exists explicitly for this purpose.

Source-greasing: This one is actually more complicated than it looks at
first glance. It's not just that journalists need sources to do their
jobs, but also the fact that they are entirely dependent on them owing
to the fact that they are unable to witness most of what they need to
know. If those sources happen to be liars, racists, fascists, or
rapists, well, it's best not to mention this.

Republicans are from Venus, journalists and Democrats are from Mars: But
there is also the problem that in the case of elite MSM journalists and
Democrats, they are the same sort of person. They went to the same
colleges, go to the same parties, and see the world in a similar way.
When Democrats do not do what journalists think they should-which is
quite frequently-journalists take it personally and attack them,
regardless of how inconsequential the office. Republicans, whom
journalists tend to find weird and scary, might be attempting to
overthrow our government, but this turns out to be less of a concern.
(See under: "But Her Emails," for instance, here
,
here
,
and most infuriatingly, here
.)

Both-Sidesism: Journalists like to pretend to objectivity, but what they
really mean is quoting from "both sides" and failing to distinguish
between what they know to be lies and what they know to be true. In this
lengthy article on the 2016 election
,
I went into a great deal of detail about how it works and where it comes
from. It feels trivial now, given all we have experienced, but I do love
the example of the AP's Ron Fournier, who excused Republicans lying
about Obamacare because "The GOP would have no excuse to release a
biased survey had the White House bothered to conduct one of its own."
Actually, the White House did conduct its own. It was just that Fournier
made his complaint while they were still waiting for the outcome of
their study. "According to the precepts of Fournierism, it ma[de]
perfect sense to equate obvious Republican falsehoods with the Obama
administration's desire to secure accurate data."

Policy is "boring": Well, if you are a regular TAP reader, you
disagree with this. But you are also likely not your average mainstream
media reporter. Take a look at Politico or the Times or the Post or
MSNBC or CNN or really anything that purports to take politics
seriously. How much of it is about the content of legislation or the
effect of actual government programs on people's lives? How much of it
is about alleged personality conflicts? Is it any wonder that people
support the content of "Build Back Better" when it is explained to
them but disapprove of the president whose policies it represents?

I could go on, alas, but I already feel the breath of the space-police
breathing down my metaphorical neck.

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But Before I Go ...

Christopher Hitchens died roughly ten years ago. I published this piece

shortly before his passing.

In honor of the death of bell hooks, here

is a Boston Review roundtable she was featured in on the responsibility
of Black intellectuals.

Finally, for people obsessed with irrelevant medical opinions, you can
save yourself the tsuris with this version of "Layla."
It is almost as great as the great
anti-vaxxer/guitarist who shall not be named.

See you in two weeks.

~ ERIC ALTERMAN

Become A Member of The American Prospect Today!

Eric Alterman is a CUNY Distinguished Professor of English at Brooklyn
College, an award-winning journalist, and the author of 11 books, most
recently Lying in State: Why Presidents Lie-and Why Trump Is Worse
(Basic, 2020). Previously, he wrote The Nation's "Liberal Media"
column for 25 years. Follow him on Twitter @eric_alterman

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