When the medium becomes the massage!
In looking back on the manufactured spat between the Washington Post columnist and famous Watergate figure Bob Woodward and White House economic advisor Gene Sperling that occurred a week or so ago, we are reminded of just how self important some people can become. For those who don’t know, Woodward and Sperling had a series of E-mail exchanges over just who came up with the idea of the sequester that took effect recently which will trim around eighty five billion dollars from the discretionary spending in the federal budget. Woodward took offense at the idea that Sperling would say to him that he would regret that he has pinned the blame for this idea on President Obama and his White House.
Woodward effectively went to war in the media by publicizing the quote that Sperling made, taking the whole thing out of context. Woodward wanted us to think that he had been questioned about a supposed fact and, by inference, had been questioned about his honesty and integrity. To take the longer view, it is alright for reporters to question those qualities in others but it is not alright for them to be questioned themselves. Exactly who keeps track of a reporters integrity when they re not even expected to reveal sources in a court of law when someone else’s very life and freedom may be on the line. The prevailing wisdom is that the reporters organization--his editor--will help to accomplish that feat and the idea that the medium that the reporter operates within can be sued for slander if it can be proven that they have published the wrong set of facts.. If one wants to see this in action, one has to look no further than what has been going on over in England surrounding the massive news conglomerate News Corp and actions taken by some of its print publications surrounding their methods used to find out information about celebrities. At least one Rupert Murdock publication has been forced to shut down due to what has been revealed in court over their actions, such as tapping into telephone accounts and voice mail accounts.
The issue with Bob Woodward is more subtle.
Woodward is a celebrity in his own right and his celebrity was founded on his activities when he was a young reporter during the Watergate era when he and his partner, Carl Bernstein, helped to bring down a presidency. Since that time Woodward has gone on to write many books and countless articles in which he has been the medium for the instigation of many investigations and debates around the country over various issues through the years. Woodward is one of those “go to” people inside of the beltway and he and many of Washington’s many political characters have “done business” throughout the years. Some repeatedly!
In the spat with Sperling, Woodward committed one of the great political sins: he isolated a quote to make his position look better and to create a negative position for his adversary. In other words, Woodward manufactured some news and created an issue that, upon subsequent inspection, was not really there. The media came to his defense and created, in the eyes of many, the image of an overbearing White House bent on trying to control the news. Some media darlings stated that although they couldn’t do that to Woodard because of his position, they could do that to less well established younger reporters who depended on them for the news tidbits and access that founded the basis for their very livelihood and professional existence.
When the truth came out, Woodward and Sperling had a series of e-mail exchanges that were quite cordial and the isolated quote had been taken, by Woodward, almost completely out of context. The conclusion by some who bothered to continue to cover the issue was that instead of a thin skinned executive branch, just perhaps there might have been a thin skinned reporter who did not like to be questioned at all because of his image and his celebrity.
There is a problem in this nation with its media and it does not bode well for this country’s long term well being.
At this time in our history, in this writers very humble opinion, there has never been a greater need for media scrutiny into some of the things going on in our political system. We have a political party--the Republicans--who are using straw issues to try to destroy this nations government and to render it ineffective in all areas outside of defense. They have used every presidency that they have been elected to since Ronald Reagan in order to run up the federal debt and their extreme aversion to any sort of governmental regulation--called by them, small government--led, in late 2007 and on through early 2009, to the almost complete collapse of the nation’s economic system at the end of the Bush administration. We may never know how close we came to a ruinous depression and the media seems to have forgotten those facts as we face a future that is still very uncertain.
The idea that there must be objectivity and fairness in coverage of events in light of what we just previously pointed out seems to exist more on the left leaning liberal press than it does on those who represent the right. Organizations such as CNN try their best to give coverage to both sides while organizations like Fox News make no real attempt to do so on their side of the equation. Fox always has some in-house paid token to represent the lefts views while their commentators and most of those whom they have on their payroll are rabid advocates for their positions of no tax hikes and small government and of debt reduction at any cost. It was almost amusing to watch potential Republican presidential candidates agonize over whether to run for president in light of the fact that they would have to give up their lucrative Fox contracts and leave their cushy on air positions if they ran.
To give an example of how the left operates, the conservative talk show host Joe Scarborough was allowed to apparently out talk Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman on the issue of deficit reduction versus continued pump priming on PBS’s Charlie Rose Show for an hour the other night. Joe Scarborough has become a professional broadcaster while Krugman remains what he has always been, an economist who writes some columns for the New York Times. Scarborough is, among other things, somewhat overbearing and interruptive and he constantly displayed those traits during the hour in question. And much of the media seemed to think that Scarborough won the debate. However that does not belay the fact that if we do not continue to stimulate this economy until it fully recovers to full employment, we may yet go into a worldwide recession or depression. The simple fact is that the media on the right would have never allowed this type of discussion to take place on any of their venues. Those on the right are spoon fed what their neoconservative leaders want them to hear. To think that someone like Joe Scarborough might be an expert on the economy is a simple joke! He represents the views of the right and he represents them well!
The left views much of this media activity as an intellectual exercise while the right views it as essential to the completion of their program to eviscerate this government and to forever destroy the lefts ability to enact programs that are good for the nation and all of its population. There is too much at stake to allow characters such as Bob Woodward and Joe Scarborough to continue to have an outsized influence on what goes on in this nation. Public opinion is key to winning elections and both sides need to know it and the left needs to stop fighting with either one or both hands tied behind its back . There are two sets of essential truths in play here and whichever set wins out will determine what kind of government and nation that we have. There are countless lives at stake in this war just as well as we determine whether we will be a nation who follows the Bush doctrine of going to war at any provocation, manufactured or not, or the Obama model of treading carefully and preserving American lives. Public opinion can turn on a dime and there are far too many pressing issues that could go either way such as immigration and gun curtailment to allow the right to continue to have the free sway that they hold in the continuing debates. President Obama’s favorable ratings have gone down five points in the last month or so, and much of it is due to the media reporting that he has overplayed his hand on the sequester issue when all he has done is to publicize some of the hurt that is going to come to average Americans due to these cuts. And the right is simply sitting back and chuckling over the whole thing as the mainstream media does their work for them.
To summarize, much of the left is swayable while almost all of the right is effectively dug in! And the media is almost totally responsible for all of that. And, if the right wins out, it is our opinion that the first thing that they will curtail is the precious freedom of speech that they will have used to win the day! It should be pointed out that eighty percent of all American media is controlled by a handful of corporations and so many local outlets such as newspapers are dying a slow but steady death. If Bob Woodward were to try to get started in the media today, he would have little chance of success if he did not tow the corporate line. And Watergate might not have ever have been reported at all! So, for him to cast aspersions on a White House in his old age instead of writing books and bringing up issues that affect the country’s very future, really makes everything he has done in the past potentially stand for nothing at all.
The bottom line on this whole issue of media is simply this: if the mainstream media do not start reporting on the Republicans for what they are, sooner or later, there will be very little pleasant left to report on at all as the draconian neoconservative policies take their final toll on this nation.
IOVHO,
Regards,
Joe
To say that "God exists" is the greatest understatement ever made across space and time.
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