a New Hampshire summer morning (c) Doug McGaw
Toward a More Perfect Union: A Prescriptive Approach — Media
VII. Media
Print Media
The role of news media has always been central to political discourse and political campaigns, but never more so than in the election cycle of 2016 and the years leading up to it. Until about 1960, print media provided almost all the coverage of political news. Since then it has had to share that space with TV broadcast and cable news.
However, print media still plays a major role in politics, especially through investigative journalism. While TV coverage highlights events that are eye-catching, the coverage is mostly superficial and designed to hold the attention of a public that has a short attention span. There are exceptions to this with longer documentaries, but most of it is of the short-lived variety. It is the print media that still does the in-depth and investigative reporting which is responsible for a lion’s share of revealing truths that politicians like to keep hidden. The major newspapers that can be counted on to do such reporting include the New York Times, the Washington Post, and some of the other big-city newspapers. There are also magazines that do it as well or even better, such as Time, Mother Jones, Newsweek, Atlantic, The Nation, and others.
Worth noting is that when the pundits on cable TV have a breaking story to report, they almost always bring on a print media reporter, one who actually broke the story, to flesh out the story’s details.
The main point here is that the press, as protected in our First Amendment, is vitally important in maintaining democracy and openness in government. Whenever we hear a politician berating the press as “un-American” or “fake news,” we can be sure that the press is revealing something unsavory that the politician would prefer to keep hidden. As citizens we should all be on our guard against attempts to muzzle the press. This would mean writing letters to our representatives and voting for those who support a free press.
Electronic Media
Broadcast TV today, in the post-Walter Cronkite era, has yielded much of the dissemination of news to cable TV, most notably CNN, MSNBC, and Fox, most of which have 24-hour coverage of news. Fox News came on the air in the 1990’s with a blatantly conservative bias. Its owner (conservative Australian Robert Murdoch) and its effective CEO (Nixon apologist Roger Ailes) provided a platform for an extremely conservative slant on the news. In itself, this is not a bad thing. After all, MSNBC offers a notably liberal/progressive slant, and both are legitimate political expressions.
Where the problem arises is when news reportage is itself deliberately slanted by twisting or inventing “facts.” It is one thing to report that person X committed fraud or broke a law; it is another thing entirely when that report is invented out of whole cloth to slander person X. The Nazis in the 1930’s had a mantra, “If you tell a lie enough times, people will believe it.” Evidently this mantra has been adopted into the campaign and presidency of the current occupant, and Fox News has been almost uniformly complicit in promoting administration lies (Shepard Smith excepted.) On Fox one hears lies repeated over and over, lies such as the birther conspiracy aimed at Obama, presenting white nationalists as “good people,” treating survivors of the Parkland shooting as staged actors, condemning Hillary as a criminal even after she was cleared in multiple Benghazi hearings and by the FBI, presenting the inauguration crowds in 2017 as “largest ever,” glorifying war strikes as uniformly positive and accurate, and the list goes on.
Perhaps most interesting is that the president, an inveterate television news junkie, watches Fox News almost exclusively and even takes directions and suggestions from the network’s pundits. He even installs some of those pundits – such as John Bolton – in his White House entourage. He then goes on to defame all other news sources, especially CNN, New York Times, and Washington Post (which present actual news facts which often compete with Trump’s narrative) as “fake news.” This shows his predilection for projection, which is a psychological term for accusing others of one’s own failings. In fact, he reactively strikes at all sources of news and all persons that challenge his narrative by accusing them of lying, being dishonorable, and other nasty adjectives, characteristics that fit him better than anyone else. Consider that he tells – on average – six lies every day (weekends included), lies that have been debunked. That is over 2000 lies in only his first year in office. No other president even comes close.
Whenever conservatives try to justify lies or be complicit in Trump’s misdirection, they often point to CNN or MSNBC as also making occasional “errors” in reporting. The difference is that Fox News (now sometimes called “Trump News”) seldom if ever retracts its errors (and certainly never admits to lying), while pundits on the other networks bend over backwards to admit and retract their misstatements. A careful viewing of the networks in question can easily verify this reality.
While lying is technically legal, as discussed earlier, it needs to be punished in some manner when it is so egregious as it is on Fox News. The earlier suggestion to levy fines for verifiable lies, lies that are not publicly retracted, would be a good approach. The fines should be large enough to be painful, and those fines go to the victims of the lies. The FCC could be enlisted to administer fines, but we would need federal legislation to implement the fines, and that can only happen if voters reject many of the current legislators in favor of ones who support such a program.
Internet
The role of the internet today cannot be overstated. It is used for email, business transactions, education, generic surfing, and of course for social media. The social media platforms are numerous, but the most significant are Twitter (used by the president almost exclusively) and Facebook, which is used by about two billion people worldwide.
Access to the internet depends on the pipelines provided by internet service providers (ISP’s.) Access has historically been open and neutral to all users. Net neutrality means that access to available bandwidth on the pipeline is the same for all people in a given area. Neutrality is the most democratic way to administer the internet, and the internet is probably the most democratic form of interaction available today. Without net neutrality, ISP’s would be free to offer better (faster) bandwidth to users willing and able to pay higher prices, while those without financial resources for premium access would have to accept slower access. This would give the wealthy better access than the non-wealthy.
Unfortunately, the current administration opposes net neutrality, and has chosen for FCC chairman a man who is of a similar bent. Already, the effort to de-democratize the internet is underway. The only way to combat this is massive popular opposition and voting out legislators who support such regulations.
Social Media
The influence of the social media on the 2016 election is a matter of great debate today. The primary platform being discussed is Facebook. The only sure thing is that it played a significant, if not critical, role in that election. It did so by accepting advertising from questionable sources, including Russian operatives, and by allowing hate speech to be disseminated with little or no blocking. A major focus of the Mueller investigation is Facebook’s role, with the probability that it unwittingly helped the Russians influence public opinion in our own country.
Then there is the platform known as Twitter, on which the president displays his anger, ignorance, lack of control and spews many of his lies, and on which many in his base do the same. While that is technically legal, it is certainly childish, not conducive to meaningful dialogue, and demeaning of him and his office.
While it is obvious that social media has a place in our lives, it is equally obvious that some restraints and regulations are in order. The CEO of Facebook recently admitted the need for regulation. While he plans to implement changes on the Facebook platform, it is incumbent on congress to oversee social media with regulations like those imposed on other mass media via the FCC. Given the present makeup of the FCC, there is not much hope for meaningful change unless congress demands it, and the present makeup of congress also is not helpful. As in many other areas of controversy, we need a major change of personnel in our legislative bodies to enforce proper regulations.
Continued in Part 21 with War and National Security
Other options:
Return to Part 1 — Prologue
Return to Part 2 — Voting & Election Issues
Return to Part 3 — Gerrymandering & Courts
Return to Part 4 — Congress
Return to Part 5 — President and DOJ
Return to Part 6 — Campaign Financing
Return to Part 7 — Lying and Ethics
Return to Part 8 — Sexism and LGBT
Return to Part 9 — Abortion & Church/State
Return to Part 10 — Guns
Return to Part 11 — Healthcare & VA
Return to Part 12 — Big Pharma
Return to Part 13 — Environment
Return to Part 14 — Energy
Return to Part 15 — Education
Return to Part 16 — Economics
Return to Part 17 — Unions, Safety Net
Return to Part 18 — Homelessness
Return to Part 19 — Trade, Tariffs
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Above is the twentieth of numerous submissions wherein I suggest ways our country, our government, and the world can be made better. I am an old fart in my 70’s and have seen much: the turmoil of the 1960’s; Vietnam (where I served as an infantry officer and was awarded a purple heart and other medals); the anti-Vietnam protests (in which I participated while still in uniform); Watergate, the rise of the right wing attack on the poor and powerless during and after the Reagan years; the continued wars in Grenada, Panama, Iraq, Afghanistan and pretty much everywhere else; the Clinton years, the invasion of Iraq in 2002 and the never-ending war since; the brief glow of sunshine during the Obama years; and now Trump. While my dog in this fight is getting long in the tooth, I still deeply care about three things: my country, my country’s honor, and the future we leave to our descendants. My personal history, other than military service, includes college teaching, computer support, hospital IT supervision, consulting, and now — in my retirement — substitute teaching.
I make my recommendations in all seriousness, recognizing that most of them are not immediately attainable. Nevertheless, if we elect people who share our values as our representatives at all levels of government, we can accomplish much.
