Posted on 10/15/2005 6:20:40 AM PDT by twas
The Elephant in the Room
Craig Crawford takes aim at the war against the media but misses the biggest target.
By Margaret Sullivan
From Middle America's point of view, the conflict between the media and politicians is like a vicious dogfight with a mangy pit bull on one side and a snarling Doberman on the other. The average person's assessment might be this: a pox on both their kennels.
But Craig Crawford begs to disagree with any such dismissiveness. A columnist for Congressional Quarterly and a familiar TV talking head, Crawford has gone a few rounds in the ring himself. In his first book, Attack the Messenger, he makes the case that every American should be concerned about the eviscerated state of the press following the fabrication/plagiarism scandals at top newspapers, the Dan Rather debacle at CBS, and the government's latest attacks on journalists and their confidential sources. (He might have a slightly different view in this post-Katrina era, given that the press has raised its bloodied head off the mat, at least momentarily.) As he sees it, the victory of politicians over the press is not only clear, but also deeply alarming. American democracy, Crawford argues, depends on a viable press: one that not only aggressively pursues the truth, but is also believed and trusted by the public.
Politicians have triumphed in recent years, Crawford goes on, by turning the tables on the traditional questioners and attackers and making the foibles of journalists into the issue, thereby deflecting any blame that might fall upon themselves. Their weapon of choice? The public's growing distrust of the media, wielded like a cudgel.
Crawford has taken on a worthy subject here—and a big one. The problem is, he's written a small book. Not just in size, though the volume is nearly as thin as Michael Brown's list of disaster relief credentials, but also in vision, and, most of all, in depth. This dashed-off treatment seems more like the overblown draft of a long magazine piece than a fully realized book. But a book it was to be, and toward that end, the 160 pages of Attack the Messenger are padded—none-too-subtly—with such things as the nasty emails Crawford has received from readers and an off-the-point chapter on how news consumers can go about getting the “real story” from media sources.
Worse, Crawford delivers familiar ideas as if they were profound discoveries. “The major news organizations are under siege,” he says breathlessly, “[t]hey've been replaced by an agenda-driven rabble of pseudo-journalists on the Web and on cable news networks.” He explains, as if to a not-very-bright junior high class, that the public's trust in mainstream news sources—taken for granted in the glory days of Walter Cronkite or the Pentagon Papers-era New York Times—is no more: “The role of the news media as an honest broker is shattered. Instead, [people] are drawn to sources that tell them what they want to hear.” Those who care about the subject—academics, media people, politicians, government types, and the blogerati—have talked, written, and read about all this ad nausuem. A less plugged-in general public, for whom this book seems to be written (“how politicians turn YOU against the media”), may never care. That leaves Attack the Messenger without an obvious audience. That's a marketing problem at the very least.
Still, Crawford often writes engagingly and has his moments of perceptiveness and clarity. In a clever-enough device, he identifies some key battles in this war—the Gettysburgs and Antietams of the raging conflict. There was, for example, “the day the politicians began to win the war against the media.” That was Jan. 25, 1988, when Dan Rather's efforts to pin down Vice President George H.W. Bush on Iran-Contra backfired. Bush successfully attacked the messenger with a pointed reference to Rather's controversial walk off the anchor desk the year before. Bush emerged triumphant; Rather was cowed. Years later, there was “the day the politicians won the war against the media,” or in Crawford's well-turned phrase, “the day they drove old media down.” It was Nov. 23, 2004, when Dan Rather, his reputation wounded by the network's flawed report on President Bush's National Guard service, announced his reluctant resignation.
In each battle, Crawford argues, the media lost ground because it had no effective way of defending itself against the aggressive attacks of politicians and partisan groups. The press simply got pummeled and seemed to have no choice but to take the hits. In the National Guard dust-up, the Bush campaign turned the tables on CBS—making Dan Rather the issue while Republican partisans attacked John Kerry for his Swift Boat experience in Vietnam. It all amounted to what Crawford calls “a miraculous feat of political jujitsu. The candidate who had avoided conflict during Vietnam benefits from attacks on the credibility of the combat veteran in the race.”
Amidst all this, problems of logic emerge. Crawford writes constantly about “politicians,” but is this generality what he really means, or is it a euphemism for “conservative Republicans and their echo chamber”? Many of his examples include one Bush president or the other, especially the current one. In an unusual case in which he uses an example from the other side of the aisle, it seems a strain. He describes as a milestone event in the taming of the press the day when a president blatantly lied to the public while the press let him get away with it. That was Jan. 26, 1998, when Bill Clinton made his infamous “I did not have sex with that woman” statement about Monica Lewinsky from the Oval Office. But did Clinton really get away with his lie? Not only did the media, in the weeks and months that followed, gleefully lay out every detail of Clinton's extramarital escapades for a drooling, though disapproving, public, but in addition, there was that little matter of the president's impeachment. The Clinton example seems included here for political balance rather than because it fits Crawford's premise terribly well.
One wonders: If Crawford means to talk about conservative Republicans when he talks about politicians, why doesn't he just say so? Ah, there's the rub. Doing so would give weight to the apparently terrifying charge of liberal media bias. While Crawford never adequately explores this issue, it's the elephant (an appropriate-enough symbol) in the room. He harps on the idea that the mainstream media can't defend itself, but he never fully nails down the reasons, other than to blame the wicked expertness with which “politicians” spin the facts.
Another reason—a more complicated one—is on display right here in Crawford's writing. The mainstream media can't, or won't, defend itself against raging Rovism—the politically astute ability to turn the tables and “attack the messenger”—precisely because it's so afraid of not seeming completely objective: down the middle, fair to all, taking no sides. That's a nastily effective trap, of course. Crawford not only fails to identify the trap, but tumbles into it, quite fatally, in his own book on the very subject.
Margaret Sullivan is editor-in-chief of The Buffalo News.
Organized news media in the USofA is all but dead, and good riddence. We have the net, we don't need talking heads.
He was sooo happy at the prospect.
The constant mantra that no president could be re-elected with less than 50% in the polls. Therefore, Kerry will be elected President.
Never mind that Kerry was at about 42% to Bush's 49%
Why would I care what he has to say now?
Or the Buffalo News.
They have made such a big deal of Rove supposedly outing a non-covert operative when they lie and speculate everyday. Where is the GJ for Rather and Maples? Freedom of the press is what helped make this nation great but when the press is being subversive and actually harming our country there should be some journalists who have to account for their lies.
Craig Crawford is a Beltway slut, and he's very proud of it.
One thing that frustrates is that, in regards to Hurricane Katrina, Michael Brown lost his job because the MSM went on a witch hunt to blame a federal official (of course the Mayor and Governor are Dems so we can't blame them!). Meanwhile, the MSM gives coverage that includes the rapes, murders, etc., that occurred in the dome and other shelters. We also heard about the 10,000 deaths that most likely occurred (thanks to the Feds, of course!) When it comes out that these were completely erroneous, not one person in the MSM has his/her feet held to the fire. Evidently the MSM is free to manipulate and downright lie about occurences with absolutely no consequence to themselves. It is no wonder that they feel free to create fairy tales and manipulate the news.
As opposed to being told what the MSM wants you to hear.
I like the idea of being able to get my news from "agenda-driven rabble of pseudo-journalists on the Web and on cable news networks." It's called having CHOICES and FREEDOM and pursuit of the TRUTH, principles the MSM and this guy doesn't seem to understand.
In their desire to over sensationalize, (because that brings in ad revenue), individual outlets have stretched the truth too far. Trust cannot be recovered, and what they report is no longer considered fact.
Rather-gate is a perfect example of how those in the media do not understand this. Rather thought all he had to say is "trust me". It did not fly. It would have and did fly 30 years ago. Now people are left wondering how much of his reporting was ever true.
The main stream media of today is a greedy pig. It is self destructive. If the messenger is shot the only reason is because he shoots himself.
Exactly. What he and Margaret Sullivan don't pin down, because the point is radioactive, is that the press has to try really hard to play it up the middle, precisely because pressmen and media people are so heavily biased personally, in their own POV.
They can't effectually defend themselves against charges of bias and unfairness because the charges are essentially true.
I remember, just as one anecdote, the day NPR's Mara Liasson foregathered with the rest of the kids at the end of a tough newsweek on the set of PBS's Washington Week in Review. The subject of the day was the school shootings in Littleton, Colorado, and Liasson was almost literally on fire. Now, now, she seethed, is the teachable moment, the moment to get "real" gun control at last!!!
She wasn't acting or speaking as a correspondent at that moment, but as a single-issue NGO activist. But liberals don't see it -- or they don't care, except when they have to engage someone who's willing to kick ass and take names on the subject of media bias.
Then, when they've been beaten up and their favorite candidates have lost (when they should have won, as usual), they write whiny books like this one.
This may be true, but American democracy has not had this in the 50 years that the Old Liberal Media constantly deceived us to advance their agenda.
If the Old Media really was concerned about "the truth" they could defend themselves. But, it is hard to defend yourself as a seeker of the truth when you continually deceive the people to advance your agenda.
Crawdad Crawford, in his book, reports that, “The major news organizations are under siege, they've been replaced by an agenda-driven rabble of pseudo-journalists on the Web and cable TV."
It helps to be reminded that college grads in journalism enjoy an average starting salary of $26339. That's even below psychology ($28230) and elementary education ($30059). Given that we're not getting the brightest bulbs in the chandelier joining the "profession" of journalism, competition from amateurs is inevitable. Judging by the way the bloggers carved up Rather and Mapes over the bogus National Guard memos, such competition is sorely needed.
This the Left's latest tactic.
"Don't attack the messenger" (even though the messenger has no credibility whatsoever given the previous bias and lies the messenger has promoted.)
They want you to try to discuss the (fake) message rather than point out the messenger is usually full of it so don't pay attention to this tripe.
It is just a trap trying to get you to discuss some issue as if it had merit.
Did he mention that the reason the press isn't trusted by the public is that they have been lied to too many times? I didn't think so.
Exactly.
If the press really did live up to the standards inculcated by the J-schools, if they were honest storytellers (okay, okay, when have they ever been that? -- they sure weren't in Jefferson's day, either), then things like what this guy complains about wouldn't happen.
It's their mass bias, their flocking to one side of the political spectrum, that opens them up. They don't want to deal with that.
Outstanding example of what has happened to media cred -- they flew it into a cliff, trying to "get" some guy they disagreed with and despised passionately. Mary Mapes's passion destroyed her and Rather both, and damaged CBS pretty badly.
So now we get, from their Hollywood pals, a movie about Ed Murrow taking on Joe McCarthy -- like that was his job, not the Democratic Party's. These guys really don't want to learn, do they?
In other words, this appears to me to be more MSM booshwah, blaming MSM credibility evaporation upon evil conservatives rather than upon its own "echo chamber" of slippery ethics, credentials, and alliances with liberal politicians and entertainment vacuumheads.
The beauty of Sullivan's approach to the topic is that MSM decay will continue. Denial is a disease's best defense.
She doesn't seem to believe that it is the role of the media to provide objective facts so that 'we, the people', will have unbiased information we need to make informed decisions.
For Ms. Sullivan, it is the role of the media to decide what is important for us to know. And that is always the liberal view point.
She doesn't seem to believe that it is the role of the media to provide objective facts so that 'we, the people', will have unbiased information we need to make informed decisions.
For Ms. Sullivan, it is the role of the media to decide what is important for us to know. And that is always the liberal view point.
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