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

'News' Without Context

Imagine that the MSM actually noted that democracy was under threat and
went so far as to say from whom.

I've criticized the reporting ethos at Politico: one that leads
journalists to focus on up-to-the-second micro-scoops whose significance
often does not last beyond the hour in which they were brought to light.
But perhaps I should have kept my mouth shut. I say this because, now
that its "Playbook" feels compelled to publish three times a day
(not including local versions), those later posts often indulge in
"big think" articles that unintentionally reveal how much worse
things would be if these people were given a wider berth to share their
"thoughts." What these also reveal, however, is the mindset behind
so much of mainstream media political coverage.

Exhibit A this week arrived in my in-box on Tuesday afternoon, while the
world was obsessing over the implications of the FBI raid of Trump's
private Florida residence. In it, Eli Okun, a Playbook producer and
Playbook PM co-author, mused that "One of the most striking features
of contemporary American politics

is the degree to which its participants cast their work in existential
terms for democracy. Policy achievements, campaign disputes and even law
enforcement activities play out not just for their own sakes but on the
grander battlefield of the American republic's future."

Lotta big words in that paragraph. Weirdly, however, nowhere in the
article does its author notice that:

(1) All the quotes in it are from, or about, Republicans. (By the time
he quotes a Democrat, we are on to semiconductors.)

(2) The quotes in question are in defense of a president and a party
that do, unquestionably, pose an existential threat to democracy. This
threat has so far taken the form of

* The attempted violent overthrow of an elected president;

* An attempt to rouse the military to shoot peaceful protesters;

* An attempt to bully public officials into supporting all of the above;

* The demand that elected officials refuse to certify authentic election
results both before and after the election has already been certified;

* An insistence that everyone in one of America's two parties lie
about all of the above if they wish to remain members in good standing
of that party.

In other words, it is only one side that is discussing "policy
achievements, campaign disputes and even law enforcement activities"
as (if the general of the fight against clichéd political writing,
George Orwell
,
will forgive me for typing these words) "play[ing] out ... on the
grander battlefield of the American republic's future." And one big
reason this conspiracy may actually succeed is that those charged with
being democracy's watchdogs lack the courage, the intelligence, the
professionalism or, truth be told, the necessary patriotism to tell
their readers, viewers, and listeners this obvious truth. I'm sure I
have exhausted my regular readers by enumerating all the reasons for
this over time in this newsletter, but the fact is, this is not going to
change.

Part of the reason for that is money; part is fear; and part is an
attachment to outdated professional mores that no longer work when one
party has been captured by a fascist cult in which telling lies is not
merely excusable, it is obligatory. There is not going to be any
"pro-democracy" push from any for-profit major media institution;
nor from any that-like NPR or PBS-receives government funding.
Instead, the media are busy hiring right-wing Trump apologists like
CBS's Mick Mulvaney

to help with their plans to suck up even more aggressively to the
Republican insurrectionists, because they expect them to take the House
in the 2022 elections.

Oh, and from the same column, this: "Reality check: If the FBI search
does turn out to be just about improperly taking classified White House
materials, 'bringing a case will be difficult and-if
successful-even the punishment would be open to legal fights,'
Bloomberg's Erik Larson and Zoe Tillman report
."

Here's a free headline I'm giving away to all MSM publications.
"Trump takes Fifth 440 times; faces FBI seizure of documents he
illegally stole and hid in his basement, likely to hide additional
crimes committed while in office; faces trials in Georgia for
racketeering; in NYC, for attempted rape; just had his tax returns sent
to Congress, likely to reveal even more crimes; complained that his
generals were not enough like Hitler's; and has been shown by January
6th Committee to be guilty of attempting to inspire the violent
overthrow of the government he is pledged to protect: Why this is all
bad news for Biden."

[link removed]

As someone who has written two books about presidential lies-much of
it focused on war-I can't honestly complain about a story about this
one
.
It's an accurate examination of Biden's exaggerations of the
importance of Ayman al-Zawahiri's role in specific attacks against the
United States. That's the traditional job of a watchdog press and it
does not indicate anti-Biden prejudice on the part of the Times for
having printed it. But the manner in which it is presented, I think,
displays a lack of a contextual comparison with his predecessor. This is
true of virtually every story about the many shortcomings of this
president and his party as published by the MSM. If Trump had maintained
this level of shortfalls in accuracy with regard to any action his
administration took during his four years as president, it would likely
constitute the truest words he'd ever spoken (just as the 440 times he
took the Fifth in New York constitute the most respect he's ever shown
for the U.S. Constitution).

Biden exaggerated his accomplishment the way most-but not
all-presidents have tended to. Trump declared war on the concept of
truth itself. Now his cult followers in the Republican Party have
adopted this tactic with regard to every proposal by Biden or his party.
Democrats do not have the answers to many of our problems, and in many
cases lack the courage to pursue them when they do. Republicans, on the
other hand, not only have no solutions, they refuse even to recognize
them as problems and respond to questions about them with attacks on
liberals, Jews, Muslims, immigrants, and space lasers.

One important reason why this "context" and "history"-two
near-profanities in the world of daily journalism-are so necessary is
the likely conclusion from people not paying close attention-which is
most people-who will simply conclude that lying is part of being
president and that Biden is no better or worse than Trump.

[link removed]

I wrote a piece for Haaretz this week headlined "AIPAC vs. American
Jews: The Toxic Victories of the 'Pro-Israel' Lobby
."
(You might hit a paywall; some do, some don't.) Interestingly, AIPAC
could probably have taken out its public enemy number one, Ilhan Omar
(or perhaps number two, as Rashida Tlaib is an actual Palestinian Muslim
and holds the same views), had it dropped a few million into her
primary, as it did with Andy Levin ($4.2 million), Donna Edwards ($6
million), and so many others. This piece

on the right-wing website Jewish Insider offers an explanation from
inside AIPAC as to why they didn't. Another factor, however, is that
it is useful for the organization to be able to put a face on the (often
imaginary) threats it uses to gin up its fundraising, and losing Omar
(and Tlaib, whom it also didn't oppose, though it went after Levin
next door) would make that a more difficult task.

Odds and Ends
Story with a headline that deserves the Pulitzer Prize for Absolutely
Cosmic Insignificance, were there one: "Why Steve Jobs Chose This
Designer's Turtlenecks
."

I see that Yale University
is
advertising a job opening for an assistant director of its
"International Security Studies/Brady-Johnson Program in Grand
Strategy ." May I
suggest that anyone interested in applying read this

first?

I see also that Spider-Man is turning 60
.
It's the only comic in which I still feel emotionally invested. I
believe that my theory, that Peter Parker is Jewish and his parents died
in the Holocaust, has never been disproven, so I'm sticking with it.

Most people are familiar with Bobbie Gentry's wonderful, haunting song
"Ode to Billy Joe
"
but not much else of her work. Back in 2018, we saw the release of a
massive eight-CD box set of her entire oeuvre entitled The Girl From
Chickasaw County-The Complete Capitol Masters
.
Forgive me if I say that struck me as a wonderful job of archival
research but a little much for the casual fan. Now we've got a two-CD
version culled from it, which strikes me as just right, plus an
excellent booklet with a useful critical essay and a plethora of photos.

It is sensibly called The Girl From Chickasaw County: Highlights From
the Capitol Masters and is available to you wherever fine CDs and LPs
and streaming songs are sold. Its release gives me another chance to
plug what is perhaps my favorite of all podcasts, Tyler Mahan Coe's
Cocaine & Rhinestones, an often incredibly expansive (and discursive)
history of country music. If you have any interest at all in the topic,
I promise you'll get hooked, and maybe even throw some coin the
man's way, as the entire thing is self-financed (initially by credit
card debt). In any case, here
is the
Bobbie Gentry episode from Season 1. It's really surprising and
fascinating.

It's August 12 and time to shake them Summertime Blues! Start here
,
then go here
, then
here .
And if, like so many of us, you were wondering what Bruce was doing 50
years ago this week, well, he was apparently already developing into a
"fine young songwriter with a very special talent." See here

and here
.

See you next week.

~ 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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