Quillnews sent a copy of a recent post to Jay Rosen, NYU Journalism Prof, and editor of PressThink. Rosen is a thoughtful observer and I had linked to PressThink several times in the post in which I argued how freedom had to be the first value in the emerging media world. Uh-ho. In a manner of speaking, Prof. Rosen called Quillnews in after class and gave him a talking to! (Editor’s aside: I was not aware the blogosphere could be such an intimidating classroom. I haven’t had that kind of demanding instruction since grade school.)
Rosen said the Quillnews post was a good roundup with lots of links, but he urged me to redo my post and submit again. The two very big nits he had to pick: 1) Rosen said my comparing elitist reporters and their arrogant news executives to pedophile priests and their enabling bishops was a bridge too far; and 2) to paraphrase Prof. Rosen: there was no basis for believing that journalists on balance or as a whole wished the United States ill in Iraq, or wanted ‘our side’ to lose, and you have no basis for claiming most journalists thought the US would go down, either… I know from talking to them how desperately reporters there wanted the US to win. Now if your reply to that is, ‘well their coverage does not reflect that, not at all.’ then you have a much more interesting story if you accept both facts at full value. Most reporters wanted the US to win, and their coverage actually made it harder, and showed bias to the negative. Now you have a mystery to explain, for how does such a thing happen? You should do a post on it.
Fair enough. I completely agree with Rosen that not all reporters or their editors were or are “against” the war in a uniform way. His post on this subject is excellent. What motivated Quillnews to cry foul about the “media” in the wake of Sept 11 was the entire work product of the collective media as a whole. Quillnews’ mission is to discuss “real-life” in the wider inter-connected world I call Media-ville. Real things are happening to real people, but in the public square of today's Media-ville these facts are portrayed and refracted in manufactured images and consensus narratives by a diverse professional population that includes global communications corporations, their profit center executives and news managers, Hollywood production outfits and pampered stars and fawning enablers, the broadcast news nets, and the national newspapers chains and syndicates, from The New York Times, The Washington Post, to the wire servcies, regional newspaper publishers, managing editors and slot men, to beat reporters who attend village meetings at night.
Like those entrusted with keeping the faith in church who were tainted by the criminal behavior and management of the bad priest and his boss, so to do all in the “media” for the incredible (un-patriotic) mess the entire media community has made of the telling of Americans’ response to Sept 11 and about the wider war on Islamic jihadists Americans must wage. The shameless and even willful way this communications-information-production matrix has allowed itself to be manipulated and used by the actual killers themselves, anti-American political forces, partisan opponents, professional malcontents and anti-social deviants, earnest policy critics and even careerist opportunists is a seditious scandal. To make matters worse, the participants in this collective communications collapse – journalists who are supposed to tell truth to power – are blind to the entire corrupt enterprise. (Editor's aside: yes, for this collapse of responsibility I include the whole gang – Fox, Viacom, Time-Life, Sony, GE, Diller, Murdoch, Redstone, Eisner, Mooves, et al – top to bottom).
And yes, Quillnews admits that those who some apologists like to dismiss with labels like "right-wing" and "warbloggers" have influenced his views. I hadn’t thought of it quite like that until Rosen’s note, but in fact on this subject, Quillnews is a right-wing warblogger. That’s one of the missions of Quillnews. The people – all people everywhere – are on the hunt for more: more freedom and more prosperity. This real-life quest by humanity, led by America in our time, is underway and, in Quillnews' view, is being challenged by evil forces who must be and will be destroyed. Pretty simple. Like Bush 43 asked sovereign states in the wake of Sept 11, Quillnews' questions the manufacturing sector in Media-ville: are you with us, or against us?
The problem is the professional American journalist sees him/herself in a way that has neutered his ability to act with force in the community’s wider self-interest. They practice a craft that has traditions, standards, codes and habits of conduct that are honorable and developed to match the technologies of their times. The hardworking (and remaining) 54,000 professional newspaper reporters and editors do their duties honestly every day and are not personally or professionally corrupt or ill-intended. And it is these people, their fate and condition in the current economic collapse and technical revolution of today’s news business that Prof. Rosen defends and in whose cause he advocates.
All that is fine. I’m an ex-reporter and know exactly what Rosen is saying. However, the rest of the wider public who are the audience in Media-ville do not. The professional reporter and editor may understand the nuanced differentiation among the actor in a movie or TV series, a news reader on cable news, a straight news reporter, editorial writer, features editor, classified ad manager, circulation department supervisor, video tape editor, field producer, on air talent… and on and on. The rest in Media-ville do not. To the reader, viewer and listener all these professional individuals are like characters or manufacturers in the latest media production staged for the public to consume as information, news, entertainment, art, etc. Politics morphed itself to this new reality. Joe Kennedy, the former Hollywood producer, sold his son to the American voter “like soap flakes.” Americans loved him, and his tragic murder gave this young man mythic celebrity status that has lasted in Media-ville to this day. Americans elected genial movie actor Ronald Reagan president. Americans loved him too. It is not my view that these two political figures were unworthy on a policy basis; it is my contention that they understood their duties as public performers in the articulation of that policy perfectly.
Journalism has morphed itself in Media-ville too. High-profile celebrity journalists, who have more in common with movie stars than a police reporter working the overnight shift for the wires, are encouraged in Media-ville to present themselves as independent arbiters of truth. The massive international corporations that sell this “news” product in Media-ville care less about the real-life impact of this as long as it makes money, or doesn’t threaten the enterprise itself. (QN - Cronkite quote) Which until recently it has… (See Viacom’s litigation strategy paper prepared by a former Attorney General who now is a DC lobbyist).
Aggravating the Media-ville phenomenon in American’s public square, are the well-educated journalists from elitist private-sector neighborhoods who have a professional self-perception that enables them to separate themselves from the reality of everyday citizens. Too often today’s journalists consider it their duty to use an “outsider’s point of view” in completing their work. The professional standard to these journalists is that they are “neutral observers” or said another way, their profession requires that they use a balanced, fair, social science approach to news so that they evaluate the truth or accuracy or motives of the participants to get at the truth as they can deduce in a news story narrative. This translates in Media-ville as arrogant indifference to the ordinary sufferings and sacrifies required and willingly offered everyday in real-life. Faithful citizens who are the audience in Media-ville are treated as if they reside in lower orders, and despite the fact it it from their ranks that freedom's defenders overwhelmingly come. It is precisely on this point that I believe the profession has failed the people. Completely.
Every policy assertion from those charged in our democracy with responsibility is snearingly questioned for unseen and base motives. Every act of war is scrutinized as if it was also a crime. Every battlefield maneuver is treated in Media-ville as if also could be incompetent and examined critically by safely-housed talkers with no command or staff military experience to test their theory as the battle is underway and as American lives are lost and at risk. Every critic and advocate for a change in authority is considered equal in a debate setting regulated by politically-correct rules engineered by these same elitist social science devotees. The story’s narrator (the reporter) adopts a neutral position in presenting the developments in the story’s narrative. As a result of this moral neutrality (what Benedict XVI in the context of religion has called the “dictatorship of relativism”) today’s reporters have allowed hard news (and certainly the analysis and policy debate think-pieces) to be manipulated if not taken over by the malcontents, dissidents, killers, critics and just the undecided to paint a snotty cynical question mark on the entire American response to Sept 11. (Editor's aside: the glaring exception has been Geraldo, who I recall as a tireless self promoting show boat in New York press trades back in the day, but whose post Sept 11 performance as a "war correspondent" for Fox has been brave, relentless, respectful and consistent over time. Good on ya, mate.)
Use of the "neutral" professional standard in the corporate communications mix of modern goliaths of TV, movie, news production companies like (News Corp., Time Life, Viacom, GE, Sony, Disney et al) and you have a total mess. Michael Moore can be feted by the fund raising hungry DNC at movie opening night event in DC, seated with Carter at the D Convention, be a reporter at the R convention, win an Oscar and rant against defending America, be a "People's Choice" winner in a Time Warner/CBS ballot stuffing exercise… and that is just with that clown! (Moore's seditious antics in the wars led by Washington, Lincoln and Eisenhower would have had him shot!)
How about the Pulitzer Prize to the AP for using “anonymous” photos of murder meant to terrify Iraqis and their US supporters at their moment of greatest trial? Why is this picture series - a depraved snuff film - not treated as the enemy ammo it is rather than treated to the most coveted award in the profession, while AP is not held to account for the questionable methods of obtaining the images in the first place? This mindless enabling of the evil perpetrated by America's enemies is a disgrace.
And it is wrong.
Rosen challenged Quillnews to offer suggestions about what to do about it. The first thing, in my view, is to admit the reality of the situation. We all, including today’s patriotic hard-working reporters and editors, are trapped in a communications system that has simply lost in its ability to adequately differentiate right from wrong, fact from fiction. Web logs like PressThink and Quillnews in their divergent ways, among millions of others, are calling these matters to account.
I’m not a neutral outsider. I am an American whose country has been attacked by an enemy I know is a lethal threat to my family and country. My country is at war and I know why. Quillnews worked as an oil company soldier for years, knows oil industry issues, how the oil industry thinks and behaves and possess a bit of knowledge about the stakes and issues at hand. I’ve got lots of skin in this game; even wrote a book about it. The oil the world needs comes from the jihadists' neighborhood and they are using our money to pay for their war against us. History will credit Bush 43 and his crowd for responding magnificently to this challenge. (I could care less how Social Security is repaired! Just balance it out guys.) I love reporting but I love editing too; and editing means making choices on content, form, presentation and context. Today’s professional journalism standards enable, encourage, and reward the choices made that threaten America righteous efforts to destroy its enemies.
This view is shared by millions who through statements, purchases, attitudes, and votes are making their views known. Because news products are bought and sold in the free market everyday, the media market place is in revolution, slowly, but surely. (WQ, Pew, Carnegie, WSJ) News Corp chief Rupert Murdoch gave an excellent speech on this account to newspaper editors last month. Among those who helped the corporate chief’s speech writers navigate the nuances of what lay ahead was Jeff Jarvis of BuzzMachine. Murdoch is a big deal in Media-ville. Setting aside his politics or tastes, this is a world-class capitalist who knows how to create and leverage a successful business model in the communications industry. Money quote: "the new generation wants their news on demand, when it works for them. They want control over their media, instead of being controlled by it. They want to question, to probe, to offer a different angle. One commentator, Jeff Jarvis, puts it this way: give the people control of media, they will use it. Don’t give people control of media, and you will lose them."
Quillnews view: As for possible solutions to this communications crisis involving blogs, as Rosen requested, Murdoch’s ideas are a good start. Others underway include Roger L. Simon’s Pajamas Media. The free markets of free people will work it out. As I mentioned in an earlier post, free people demand news they can trust and will reward those who provide it; ignore those who don’t. Free people will find and select the information they need to ensure their continued freedom. Whether this information is provided by today’s news companies where journalism’s practitioners become part of the new wave of internet based media outlets opening up in new business models, or whether those practitioners devolve into a fringe social science cult supported only by rich patrons but which free people have passed by on their continuing hunt is, well, up to them.
PS – Quillnews question of the day: It is an axiom of history that those who do not defend themselves shall perish. Q: Why does an otherwise excellent school like NYU, where Rosen labors in the journalism department, not have an ROTC program? Q2: What about NYU’s uptown neighbor Columbia, whose campus houses an elitist j-school and whose president approves the Pulitzers? No ROTC on Morningside Heights either. Stay tuned...
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