|
For more than 40 years, the right wing in America, primarily in form of the Republican party, has attacked the major media as being biased in favor of “liberals” and the Democrats. In part, this was nothing more than a complaint that they did not control all of the nation’s media All through these complaints, the right wing had their own preferred media outlets: Major regional newspapers? Yes. Major local television news stations? Yes. Could they get their points across and be heard elsewhere, like on the networks and in the New York Times? Yes, but not as strongly as they wanted.
Newspapers, once the dominant form of information gathering for most citizens and voters, have always tended to reflect their local communities and cities. The New York Times, however, both reflected New York and its leanings and was the major newspaper in the country. The Wall Street Journal was mainly read by business people, so its influence beyond corporate America was limited. Around the country, local newspapers reflected their ownership, the biases within those cities and towns and the push of reporters and editors to cover and report stories in a way that was provocative and, at times, caused discomfort to powerful forces. Reporters took pride in this role, that of revealing weaknesses and mistakes on the part of those with power and with official positions. The right didn’t, and doesn’t, like this role of the media. (In turn, the right used its howling complaints about bias to build up its own right wing media and is now, to some extent, trapped in an echo chamber.)
Newspaper reporters, as well as those on television, try, or pretend to try, to be objective, but it is beyond human ability to achieve a perfect state of objectivity. In actuality, most reporters steer information in the direction of where they believe the truth lies. People who grow up and are educated in areas of the country where moderate or progressive ideas dominate tend to reflect, even unconsciously, those viewpoints. So too does their reporting and the work of their editors often reflect the same orientation.
American media have been made part of the political debate. Because of more than 40 years of complaints about bias, complaints that started with Spiro Agnew, the vice president, and were pushed by one of his speech writers, Pat Buchanan, we are now in an era when the media generally are afraid to risk being called biased, so they often bend over the other way. Stating it flatly, the major media now are afraid to tell the truth about what is happening in Washington, DC. They are “playing the story” as two sides opposing each other, bickering back and forth, not as one side, the Republicans, saying that nothing can happen in the government until they get their way. That’s the truth. It doesn’t depend on bias from one side or another to see that truth. In fact, many on the right are applauding the tea party inspired Republicans for taking that stand, why don’t they just admit that it is what they want?
The result, as in Paul Krugman’s column in the NY Times, is that the situation has to be explained again and again. If, however, you have become a victim of politics, of the idea that everything splits nicely in to right and left in America, then the truth of the situation is easy to deny (there are plenty of media outlets that will help you believe your version of the truth, too).
The fact is that the Republicans in DC have a lot of power, because they control one house of Congress. But, that power is limited and, to use it best, they would need to get down in the dirty business of trading back and forth with the Democrats. The victories for their side might be small and they might not get much attention at all. So, how much better is it to have a big deal, out in the open fight where the entire national media is tuned in? Create a crisis and hope to benefit from it, even if the benefit is only to say, “We fought the good fight. Now give us a majority and the White House and see what we can do!”
If the major media were doing their job, there wouldn’t be a need for Paul Krugman and many others to explain what is going on in an opinion column. It is not opinion to tell the truth, but the major outlets are frightened away from doing their jobs. It is so much easier to cast the story as one of general disfunction and under the heading of “Why can’t we get along?”. In truth, we can’t get along because one party, the Republicans, don’t want to. They have decided that it is in their interest either to wreck this presidency or to make a major show of trying. (This is not to say, of course, that the Democrats are perfect or that they make genuine efforts to accommodate the minority when they have power: they don’t. Politics is like professional football, you don’t win by being nice.)
Straight line reporters can’t deal, as in the two paragraphs just above, in the motivations of the various players, unless someone comes out as says what their motivation is. It is too speculative to deal in motivations because, 99.9% of the time in DC, motivations, beyond the obvious, are hidden behind of cloak of a million words. What reporters could do, however, is drop the stupid idea that this is a “back and forth battle” or a battle of “both sides”. The Republicans have taken extraordinary steps to try to get their way, even though they are losing elections. If every minority party tries to wreck government in the process of getting their way, where will we be as a nation?
Doug Terry, 10.14.13
|
