Politics and Journalism as Spectacle

The ideal of journalism is that reporters serve the public interest by pressing the powerful - political, commercial, social, religious - to explain themselves and justify their decisions which affect the rest of society. The reality of journalism is that reporters are part of the class of powerful and tend to serve their interests.

In Culture Industry, Heinz Steinert writes:

Representing politics in democracy involves press releases and press conferences, as well as all the other forms of political announcement that take place via the journalistic apparatus. Only occasionally does anyone ever ask a question that is not entirely predictable or that has not been ‘cleared’ beforehand, and when they do, it usually happens in the course of an interview or a political talk-show. In order to make politics look exciting and dramatic, political activity has to be represented in a way that takes in conflicts and controversies, plans and counterinitiatives, schemes and struggles to implement them. ...

Political journalists have become ‘insiders’, and they are treated as a kind of courtly entourage. They are invited to all the important events, and have themselves turned into politicians. Journalists are political players, for they have power over a particular resource. They control access to an audience, and the size of this audience determines the extent of their power (just as it does in other types of advertising).

Journalism is part of a media culture where everything is turned into entertainment of some sort, so it’s not surprising that “spectacle” has become an integral part of even political journalism. When we see spectacle, though, we should ask ourselves who is supposed to be lulled into comfortable passivity and who ultimately benefits.

Journalists are supposed to have a vested interest in afflicting the comfortable and the powerful, but in today’s climate they have a vested interest in keeping the powerful in comfort — and in power. This interest is personal, as Steinert describes, because of all the personal benefits they get, but also professional because they work for large corporations which have political and economic ties to the current power structures.

The manner in which “journalists” (it’s hard to apply this label seriously to most of those in the profession these days) have become reliant upon the powerful was made evident in the political campaign on behalf of John G. Roberts’ nomination to the Supreme Court, as US News explains:

When John G. Roberts is approved as chief justice of the United States, as expected, he can thank President Bush ‘s “Friends & Allies” program, which went to work on him immediately after he was nominated. The project, started by the Republican National Committee in the 2004 re-election campaign, is simple and effective: Give opinion makers, media friends, and even cocktail party hosts insider info on the topic of the day. How? Through E-mailed talking points, called D.C. Talkers, and conference calls.

For Roberts, it worked this way: A daily conference call to about 80 pundits, GOP-leaning radio and TV hosts, and newsmakers was made around 9 a.m. On the other end were the main Roberts gunslingers like Steve Schmidt at the White House and Ken Mehlman and Brian Jones at the RNC. D.C. Talkers would then be distributed to an even larger list filled with positive info about Roberts and lines of attack on his critics. “The idea,” said one of those involved, “is to feed them information and have them invested in us.” It has even created addicts, he added. “Now they come to us before going on TV.”

So, “journalists” and pundits are taking their cues from and following the lead of the political power brokers who seek to have stories spun in a very particular way. If reporters don’t play along, they lose access to the information being provided and risk being out-done by rivals. Therefore, in order to continue, they perceive a need to allow themselves to be led by the nose; in doing so, however, they fail to do their real job, which is to be an independent witness to what the politically powerful are doing.

Even Dan Rather recognizes that things have gotten pretty bad:

Addressing the Fordham University School of Law in Manhattan, occasionally forcing back tears, he said that in the intervening years [since Watergate, when reporters were more protected from political pressures], politicians “of every persuasion” had gotten better at applying pressure on the conglomerates that own the broadcast networks. He called it a “new journalism order.”

He said this pressure -- along with the “dumbed-down, tarted-up” coverage, the advent of 24-hour cable competition and the chase for ratings and demographics -- has taken its toll on the news business. “All of this creates a bigger atmosphere of fear in newsrooms,” Rather said.

Rather was accompanied by HBO Documentary and Family president Sheila Nevins, both of whom were due to receive lifetime achievement awards at the News and Documentary Emmy Awards on Monday evening.

Nevins said that even in the documentary world, there’s a certain kind of intimidation brought to bear these days, particularly from the religious right. “If you made a movie about (evolutionary biologist Charles) Darwin now, it would be revolutionary,” Nevins said. “If we did a documentary on Darwin, I’d get a thousand hate e-mails.”

So-called journalists are engaging in what is a mere illusion of journalism; in reality, they are engaging in little more than rewriting press releases on behalf of powerful interest groups. One way or another, they are doing more to reinforce traditional assumptions, stereotypes, and power structures than they are to challenge the status quo, ask hard questions, and encourage greater popular participation in the democratic system.

It’s no wonder that the public isn’t taking the news media very seriously anymore and regards comedians like Jon Stewart to be more reliable sources of news and information. As a comedian, he actually has a vested interest in challenging those in power rather than reinforcing their legitimacy. That used to be the job description of mainstream journalism.

One consequence of this incestuous relationship is that the role of the people is marginalized, if not forgotten altogether. Instead of being made to think, they are made to think that they are thinking. False controversies are presented in place of the real ones; the range of possible choices in any given issue is narrowed to include only those which the powerful political and economic interests have pre-determined; contradictory information is left out; dissenting voices are ignored as if they didn’t exist at all.

 

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