Friend and sometime Pileus commenter Damon Linker has a post in the New Republic that left me unsettled. I have to say that Linker’s usually measured conclusions are a tad unhinged.
He correctly points out that the historical norm of American journalism is not one of high-minded neutrality, but one of passionate partisanship. Still, can the following statement really be supported?:
…today there are thousands of political bloggers, each of them vying for attention and influence by screaming into computer-amplified megaphones. The numbers are greater and the medium is different, but the style is the same: libelous exaggeration and furious passions rule the day, every day, on every side of every public dispute, drowning out the few who resist choosing sides and joining the partisan battle.
Isn’t it odd to condemn exaggeration with a statement that so wildly exaggerates (perhaps I shouldn’t say “wildly” since I would not want to exaggerate my criticism of Damon’s exaggerating about exaggeration)? As I see it, there is a lot of muck and crap out there, but also a lot of honest, careful stuff–some of which is even produced by independent political bloggers.
According to Linker’s view, the fault for this rests with us (American citizens) because we are “especially receptive to the claim that [we] are being unjustly ruled–that all authority is arbitrary authority.”
I can forgive Damon’s hyperbole and disgust, but I think he is fundamentally wrong about the quality of news and public opinion in the pre-internet era. As one who gets almost all his news from traditional, mainstream media outlets, I have to say that I much prefer today’s media environment to the 50s and 60s Linker idealizes in much the same way that I prefer the entertainment options available today over the 4-channel TV of my childhood (even though I watch mostly network TV).
Sometimes (often, actually) I long for some old-fashioned civility and objectivity, but I would not relish returning to the days when ordinary folks listened as Uncle Walter told them the way things were. If they wondered if they were being told the whole story, or the best version of the story, or the most important story, or a sanitized version of the story, or even the true story. Well, they just got to wonder.
Imagine my surprise when, after a long day of teaching and car shopping, I returned home, began catching up on the day’s blogging action, and discovered a post at Pileus devoted to little old me.
I wish I had more to say in response than I do — but all I have to say is: to each his own disgust.
When I travel to my wife’s hometown in rural Ohio, I discover that her entire family thinks and speaks about politics as if they were reading from scripts generated by FoxNews. I’d prefer the good old days of Time, Walter Cronkite, and AP wire stories in the local paper. (The local paper in my in-laws’ town now contains no international news at all, and next-to-no national news either. It’s all local, police-blotter stuff. Meanwhile all the syndicated columnists are right-wingers who parrot conservative-movement talking-points.) I find none of this civically encouraging.
Meanwhile, the blogosphere is fine, if you know where to look (like here, for instance!). But much of it is just political propaganda of one kind or another. I prefer Partisan Review or Commentary of the 1950s.
Anyway, the TNR post was meant to be provocative and to bring some historical perspective to last week’s rancor over Breitbart’s scummy hyper-partisanship. I think it succeeded in that regard.
A question for you, Damon. Do you really think that if the aforementioned relatives of yours only had Walter Cronkite and their local paper to read, their level of political discourse would be more satisfying to you?
I have to say that I agree with you, though, about the sadness of so many people getting the bulk of their news from people like Hannity, Limbaugh and Beck–who are merely demagogues enriching themselves by dumbing-down political discourse in this country. But I’m not sure the causal arrow is as strong those on the left want to make it out to be. These guys (who are all very intelligent themselves) have figured out how to market narrow-mindedness–but they didn’t invent it.
I think you’re both right. I take your point, Sven, that the good old days were not as good as we might imagine. On the other hand, I think Linker is right that there is a lot of simply awful material on the web. Some of it is false, some outrageously so; some of it is in almost unimaginably bad taste; and some of it is, to use Linker’s word, disgusting.
Yes, not all of it fits these bills. And yes, I have no way of knowing whether the trash:treasure ratio has increased or decreased since the internet. But in my experience it certainly seems true that it is now much, much easier to happen upon trash than it was twenty, even ten years ago.
Maybe we weren’t getting the whole story with Uncle Walter. But we probably weren’t getting unconscionable, degrading garbage either.
I am young so I can’t speak for “the good old days” of journalism. But I’m sure it was better than some of the useless information we are fed daily by internet news. Go to anyhomepage and i bet you will find a story about what some clebrity has done than you will find a story about something acutally important that is going on in our country. I find it intresting that so many people are so quick to complain about the problems of America, oh wait, they have to finish there read about Lindsay Lohan’s issues first.
Sven,
I do think that the residents of that small Ohio town probably had a better, wiser (though still superficial) understanding of the world back when they got most of their news from Walter C and the local paper (when it ran AP stories about the nation and the international scene). They might not have known where Iraq could be found on a map (as many of them no doubt do now, thanks to FoxNews). But they didn’t receive all of their information about the state of the world through a hard-right partisan filter. There still was a filter, of course, but it was a more moderate one and one that strove for impartiality, even if it often fell short of that ideal. I’d rather the news try and fail than that it give up on that ideal entirely. (That Fox does that and then has the audacity to call it “fair and balanced” is just an added offense. I’d rather they take pride in having done more than any other single institution to overthrow the journalistic ideal of fair and balanced news coverage.)
Finally, no these guys didn’t invent narrow-mindedness, but they exploit and encourage and flatter it for monetary gain. I see that as a pretty serious civic offense.