James Fallows, while commenting on Elizabeth Edwards' op-ed in last Sunday's New York Times, says:
The more heartfelt and bitter complaint is about the way press coverage seems biased not against any particular candidate but against the entire process of politics, in the sense that politics includes the public effort to resolve difficult issues. (Medical care, climate change, banking crises, military priorities, etc.) For twenty years I have heard this from frustrated politicians -- Gary Hart, Newt Gingrich, Jimmy Carter, Dick Gephardt, Bill Clinton, they may not share a lot of views but they are as one in this frustration. What galls all of them is the way that the incentives created by most coverage bring out the very worst in most politicians, and discourage them from even bothering to try the harder, more "responsible" path. No one says that press incentives turn potential Abraham Lincolns into real-world Tom DeLays. But the incentives push in that direction rather than the reverse. (emphasis mine)
Indeed, that one line is the take-home point of Fallow's oft-linked 1996 essay, "Why Americans Hate the Media," and it is just as salient today as it was ten years ago. But what I'm finding increasingly intriguing is the press' conception of what it thinks the public wants or thinks about matters such as, say Jeremiah Wright. Tellingly, the only story able to compete with the Wright coverage in terms of sheer outrage this week is this tabloid nonsense about a fifteen year old girl being photographed by Annie Leibovitz.
There isn't an equivalence between these stories in terms of content but in terms of why they are considered newsworthy. In both cases the presumption is protection of the public -- by informing them -- from religious figures and tasteful photographs which can be interpreted as controversial. It doesn't matter if apologies are issued. It doesn't matter if denouncements are made. The story still exists. And why? Because someone made an editorial decision to keep it alive because they assume that's what the public wants.
Here's another way to think about it. Perhaps you've seen this obnoxious Nextel advertisement that features a quorum of firefighters getting stuff done in Congress. You see, these American heroes simply look at an issue -- say, "clean water" -- and vote for it. Wouldn't it be great if legislating bodies actually worked this way! Joking aside, my point is that whoever made this ad was making an assumption about the public. They were assuming that a) Americans believe Congress doesn't get anything done because they are incapable of making decisions, b) firefighters make quick decisions all the time. If they don't, people die, so c) firefighters would make great legislators. I'm not sure what is more insulting, the degradation of democratic deliberation or the cynical use of public frustration to sell phones.
But what's crystal clear is that Nextel knows this isn't what's wrong with Congress works (I assume they have an army of lobbyists on the hill), but is betting that this is how the public thinks Congress works. Just like media elites deciding what stories live and die based on presumption of public demand, business elites make those same presumptions to sell products. And God forbid a Democratic politician tells other elites what the public thinks in rural America -- that would be elitism!
--Mori Dinauer
