Brian Johnson and Bliss Green write for the blog Postmanisms and have posted a thoughtful and at the same time depressing analysis of how the MSM have shamelessly abandoned any pretense of doing their job of elucidating for the American people the complex issues surrounding the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Instead, we've been given front-row seats to a circus of idiots trying to outdo themselves in irrelevancy and inanity, from Chris Matthews of MSNBC whining about having to hear, more than once, that President Obama's Energy Secretary, Dr. Steven Chu, has a Nobel Prize in physics, to the foolish clowns at FOX News repeating GOP talking points, calling BP's $20 billion fund to compensate those who were financially injured by the spill--calling it a "shakedown."
But I'll let these two talented writers explain it in their own words:
"The phylogeny of Immediacy, Nowness, Hysteria, and Contingent Finality came together this week in a mere 24-hour news cycle (more like 12 hours of real time) that saw President Obama described first as wishy-washy, bland, and listless, and then as a bully enforcer demanding corporate accountability, which would make him the most relaxed “bully” in history. Doris Kearns Goodwin, a respected popular historian, practices the craft of history in situ, because her expertise fools you into thinking her snap judgments have depth. Newsweek‘s Howard Fineman is upset that the President–like an eighteenth-century poet–didn’t have the “fingertip feel,” because after all the President is only a performer, like a reality-show contestant, and his “appearance” is therefore more significant than talking about what he is doing, is not doing, could be doing, or cannot do (i.e. swim down to the well and sit on it, as some critics seem to want). Chris Matthews is bothered that President Obama mentions Secretary of Energy Dr. Steven Chu’s Nobel Prize cred because, well, Chris, in his official TV role of “feeling” for the “ordinary American” believes that that fictional category of person feels condescended to when someone who might actually know more than they do renders a thoughtful opinion.
The staff here at Postmanisms don’t, like the “staff” at TMZ, “hang out” in “cubicles” “casually talking” about stuff they “just happened to see.” Would that our Instant Now media felt any obligation to think before speaking. An analyst’s gutbrain, the educated-person’s version of Beavis and Butt-head mocking videos on MTV, is the only thing TV wants. Let’s face it: serious thought is no fun to watch, and most viewers have been well-trained by the medium to have no patience for extended argument or analysis. At least Roger Ebert always had a longish essay of thoughtful critique behind his thumbs-up/-down. The daily reduction of serious issues (i.e. that a terminal addiction to oil is the only reason the Gulf is going to die) to matters of perception and style (a reflection of the shallowness of the medium itself) turns the entire TV-reported world into the equivalent of TMZ: the world exists only to be paraded in front of us and judged, minute by minute, each judgment final, until the next minute."
Watch this.
I'm thrilled that more and more people are aiming their cyber guns at the MSM. Now, if only the MSM would do likewise. Sure, baby, sure.
ReplyDeleteA friend in real life just dedicated an article to this. Ivan was a reporter at The Denver Post when I was there (plus stints at the Wash Post and LA Times) and has written a couple of books. There are many other "old time" journalists who are totally disgusted with the "news coverage" of today.
http://ivangoldman.blogspot.com/2010/06/trade-olbermannn-to-mexico.html
Unlike many of my fellow liberals, I have never cared for Olbermann and am beginning to tire of all these people. Maddow, imo, is better than the rest but needs to work on her delivery. Everyone wants to be an actor.
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ReplyDeleteThanks for the fine post, Shaw.
ReplyDeleteHaven’t read the Postman book, but the ideas are familiar to me – I think he may have overstated his case if he was saying that nobody takes the news seriously. Hasn’t one problem long been that people take practically everything they see on television as if it must be the truth? Form can trivialize important matters and scramble attempts to order or prioritize a series of events, to be sure, but I don’t think that’s an absolute – a tendency, yes, but a universal rule, no. The main problem, it seems to me, isn’t that people are being entertained into oblivion but rather that they so badly want to hear only things they find reaffirmative of what they already believed: they go to one network or the other and just tune out anything that might challenge them.
But in light of the comments you cite on "instant analysis," yes, I've found that sort of thing annoying at times: it is a down side of the 24-hour, always-on news cycle that tends to amplify and hype and mock almost anything it gets hold of. Gotta have something to say RIGHT NOW!
With regard to tnlib's comment,
I would say Rachel Maddow is the best journalist on MSNBC. In this lizard’s simple view, KO and Maddow make a 1-2 punch: he does the fun stuff very well (“Worst person in the world,” etc.) and makes blunt, sometimes over-the-top statements, and she does the fact-based reporting: excellent interviews, solid research and background material. A lot of people like KO, I suppose, in part because he was out front in questioning Bush 43’s policies when most media figures didn’t have the courage or intelligence to do so. What a fair number of people find annoying about him is probably the Edward R. Murrow persona, but it’s something he does self-consciously and with some irony: it’s an act and as such is half-serious and half-silly, for entertainment.
With regard to Rachel Maddow’s bent for a sarcastic “can you believe what this self-contradicting fool said?” presentation style, I think the old objective news presenter style is long gone and it was always more or less a sham anyhow, with a few honorable exceptions. I don’t see that style or approach returning, so a media person like her needs to find some livelier angle: she is popular because she combines “attitude” with solid reporting. But any style eventually becomes parodiable and begins to grate on listeners’ nerves, so maybe variety will be the key for her going forwards.
The others in the MSNBC lineup seem to me somewhat redundant – I mean, I generally agree with what they say, but they all say much the same thing and their shows strike me as personality-driven: sort of like op-ed pieces with a strong delivery thrown in. I don’t learn anything from that sort of show; when I watch them, they seem like background newzak. I would like to see MSNBC be more adventurous rather than add more opinionaters to their lineup. I have my own opinions and know how to express them – I don’t need half a dozen people doing it for me. How about doing something worthwhile and jazzy with international news, for instance? I know that’s usually a ratings killer on the networks, but the target audience on a liberal cable channel might find it more interesting than the broadcast network viewership or the FOX dittoheads.
I was just having a conversation not too long ago with my husband about how different the news delivery is today compared to when Huntley and Brinkley were doing it.
ReplyDeleteThe day Kennedy died, the raw footage of the motorcade and shooting sequence played over and over and while it was shocking and difficult to watch, at least is was real - no cobbled together footage of crowds that weren't there or slick splicing to bolster some outlandish claim.
Today, when I want to know what is really happening in the US I log on to foreign news sources.
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ReplyDeleteI guess I come from the old school - news is not nor should it ever be entertainment. And I'm not sure I can equate the likes of KO with an ERM. I think Murrow's drama was more low key. KO's is just silly.
ReplyDeleteI've always felt the tide turned the day the Clinton-Lewinsky story broke. I was stunned with the salacious, sneering, overly excited and dramatic reporting. You would have thought the man was walking down the hall nude in the WH and dragging her by the hair.
I kept asking myself, what the hell is going on here? And I wondered what had happened since the days of Conkrite, Huntley and Brinkley, Roger Mudd, Severeid and all the rest. Had this medium turned into a televised rag sheet.
Drama should be reserved for sports events and really, really major events, such as the Hindenburg. Compare Conkrite's coverage of the Kennedy assasination to how KO would probably handle it. WC's was a display of quiet, dignified, and reassuring coverage. KO's would no doubt be hysterical, over blown and dramatic - anything but calming.
I personally feel that the message and even the validity of a story is lost when the presentation is less than professional.
As a side note, Murrow had his problems. He was no saint, costing William Shirer his career - but that's another story.
tnlib,
ReplyDeleteI don't equate KO with ERM either -- I'm suggesting that KO is giving a performance based on ERM's style of presentation. He's good at what he's trying to do, which is by no means intended, I think, as straightforward journalism.
I used to watch the PBS News Hour, where they still present in-depth news, but I got tired of it because it seemed to me that what they're really offering is akin to the false, timid "objectivity" we see too much of on the commercial networks: "some say 2 + 2 is 4, but several prominent Republicans say it's pi, while the teabaggers argue that it's whatever they want it to be at any given time. We report; you decide." Which is hardly Walter Cronkite, no?
I no longer put much stock in statements about the good old days in journalism or anything else, even as I recognize my own tendency to conjure them as I grow older.
Simple Dino thought:
"Things never were the way they used to be."
That said, the good old days all trace back to the Jurassic, where I would much rather be if I had my druthers: temperate weather, none of this environmental devastation nonsense, and plenty to eat if you didn't mind a toothsome tussle now and then.
Anyhow, I don't believe most 2010ers will watch the news presented in the old-fashioned way -- it's all gone in the direction of The Daily Show and other such venues, which have their virtues and their drawbacks, to be sure.
I guess I think the problem comes with the public thinking these shows are news and interpreting it as such. We even see this on the Blogosphere. While KO may have his facts straight I'm not sure that this kind of delivery serves any purpose - just as I don't think Beck & Co. do (while also misinforming).
ReplyDeleteI do agree with you about PBS and I'm not too crazy about NPR either.
Yes, that's a good point -- I don't take much of it as "news" but rather as opinion or some mixture of news and opinion. If people fail to separate basic fact from someone's inflection or interpretation, that's not good....
ReplyDeleteAs an example of over-the-top reporting on a nonevent, just look at how Gen. Petraeus's mild little almost fainting incident was presented on the MSM.
ReplyDeleteThe worst example, in my estimation, was the nonstory of--I can't even remember her name, sorry--of that non-star blonde woman who died of an overdose on some island and left behind an infant daughter.
That dragged on for days. Why? She was not a major star, and had nothing to do with anything else happening in this country.
Michael Jackson? Sad, yes. Nonstop coverage of an entertainer? Why?
Oh, wait...it got lots of people to watch and that makes lots of money.
The really smart thing the networks & the cable companies have done is convince us that one can become 'informed' by watching half an hour of televised news five nights a week. It doesn't work that way. It takes a bit of effort to get a bit of a handle on the events of the day and passively watching television doesn't get the job done.
ReplyDeleteOnce we accept that television 'news' exists solely to sell us automobiles, life insurance and adult diapers then we can see it for what it really is. A means to keep us titillated enough to watch between commercials.
ReplyDeleteEven if television weren't either outright corrupt (Fox) or merely mediocre (ABC, NBC, CNN) the fact remains that as structured it is incapable of informing us. Crammed into the continually shrinking space between commercials and obligated to shower us with the endless inventions of the computer-generated graphics industry featuring 'reporters' (models) who seem to have been trained in holding a microphone and smiling rather than history or economics the 'news' is doled out in bite-sized portions to a public eager to have what they want.
Right. Now.
Nuance, context and continuity are all sacrificed to flow and reducing complex issues into bumper sticker slogans. The inability (make that unwillingness) of the "MSM' to distinguish between a celebrity automobile accident and the deaths of thousands of Chinese in an earthquake is, in my view, their greatest sin.
The ability to render every event equal and every event equally trite.