Where's the Tipping Point for Stupidity?
By Brian Lambert
Case in point was coverage of yesterday's national tea bagging by omni-kvetching conservatives. But I won't belabor that again.
The "balance" thing is bad enough. But then it gets worse. Like when professional journalists, not cable TV "personalities," go out of their way to accommodate an audience that so often has so little regard for The Truth (the alleged grail of all journalism) because that particular audience has A: been so rancorous and disagreeable about previous attempts at truth-telling and B: has been deemed vital to propping up advertising revenue.
Having pretty well shot my wad on this obsession, I was delighted to come across a piece today by Will Bunch AKA "Attytood" at the Philadelphia Daily News. There's not much doubt where Bunch is coming from. But this one was particularly good.
He begins with a toss-off remark from the editorial page editor of The New York Times, mentioning that it is easier to get your letter published in The Times if you "defend Republican, conservative or right-wing positions ... ."
This should not be shocking. Much as the comments to many daily newspaper stories (with an ideological scent) rapidly fill with D-grade bar stool invective, most newspaper readers are actually sensible and liberal-minded. But the fact that they are makes them less publish-worthy on letters pages. They tend to echo the same earnest, concerned points of view. Zzzzzz. No fun! The letters page desperately needs conservatives—who can write in something other than crayons—to "balance" the feel of the page, never mind that this "balancing" act distorts the true composition of the readership/community.
(In fairness, conscientious letters page editors struggle to apply "proportionality" to what they publish.)
From there, Bunch jumps to the case of a Pulitzer-winning Atlanta editorial page editor Cynthia Tucker, getting yanked off her beat and demoted upstairs where, so it is insinuated, she'll be less an irritant to Atlanta's crayon crowd, who, if they are anything like they are here in Minnesota, don't want to hear another damned word about Al Gore's global warming hoax, know for certain Saddam shipped his WMDs to Syria . . . right after he attacked the World Trade Center . . ., and see no reason why the NSA shouldn't listen in on anything we say. ("I got nothing to hide!")
Bunch quotes from a local Atlanta story on Tucker:
"This article about Tucker's move to Washington and away from her key local post at the Atlanta paper does a good job of laying out the broader issues, of why journalists are so self-conscious about their alleged liberalism -- some of it real but a lot of it perceived -- and why we become so accommodating to conservatives that it quickly becomes a case of being too accommodating.
That could be because efforts at balance come across as what they are — a bit patronizing. But it’s also because the practice of journalism is an essentially liberal exercise in the classical sense of the word: It places faith in the ability of people to form their opinions based on facts and reasoning rather than on preconceptions and prejudice. Meanwhile, the South’s brand of conservatism — the brand that has taken over much of the Republican Party — is essentially reactionary: Any narrative, no matter how factual, that challenges a set worldview is seen as a threat from outsiders to be battled, no matter how high the cost."
It is this really not so new but reliably rancorous "brand" of conservatism so evident in yesterday's tea baggings that got me going on how much longer newspapers can reasonably bother to over-accommodate this crowd. Surely they're reaching a point where the crowd they're pandering to is so delusional and irrational it is are of limited interest to any advertiser other than cheap beer distributors and casinos.
We are, after all, well past the days of political
parity much less conservative majority in this country. Social
liberalism is the nature of the culture. Substantial majorities support
Roe v. Wade, gay rights, even restrictive gun laws. More to the point,
the flagrant stupidity on display yesterday—to the point where major Republican elected officials practically fell over themselves running away from
the events—makes it harder and harder for mainstream journalist types
to continue the hoary charade of applying moral/intellectual
equivalency to "both sides" of episodes. Or so so you'd think.
Bunch again:
"Ironically, as the Atlanta piece notes, none of this contorting to accommodate right-wing critics has brought in any right-wing support or, more importantly, news readership -- conservatives still hate us, and no amount of sucking up will change that. That said, what's the harm in bending over backwards to overly represent or kowtow to conservative viewpoints? Well, when pundits still believe that America is a center-right nation on the morning after the election of a center-left president and large Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, that might offer a window into how the greater political debate gets warped by this odd charade."
© 2008 MSP Communications, Inc. All rights reserved
We are well past the days of political parity, much less conservative majority in this country, you say?
Hmm. Depends on what you think it takes to get legislation thru Congress. And it depends on who you think the Democrats in Congress truly are.
My reading is that there are plenty of Democrats - newly elected and long-standing Blue-Dogs - who are more conservative than some well-known eastern Republican senators.
If these Democrats are not actually hostile to Obama, they are certainly willing to tell the new president - a la Harry Truman - "Show Me."
Obama has a High Wire Act to perform on so many fronts that it makes me dizzy even thinking about it. And times are not even tough for him as yet. He can still blame Dubya for a lot so far. But that time is soon to end in the minds of many - even if that is not a fair assessment. But that's reality.
I think America is still an essentially conservative country. But you can show them outrages, and get the public behind you for reform, if you do it in a surgical and smart way.
Obama, on the High Wire, has been able to do that so far. He's aided and abetted by stupid conservatives like Michelle Bachman. But she's no more at the center of the country than Al Franken is.
Like it or not, major change has to convince the key center, swing voters. That is still up for grabs.
LAMBERT: Paul, note my sly insertion of the phrase about "social liberalism". In terms of straight politics, there is a momentary swing to the Democrats, (rarely my idea of progressive liberals), and could very likely swing back in the event of another terror attack or the like. But extreme intolerance and generallly dunderheaded crotchetiness -- as witnessed on Teabagging Day -- is DOA in terms of winning over a majority of the country. Nevertheless, as a 5-10% cut of the population it is fully sufficient to sustain revenue flow to FoxNews and talk radio ... and keep ambitious, like-thinking (i.e. unthinking) politicians like Sarah Palin, Bachmann and Joe the Plumber in the headlines.
Posted by: Paul Gustafson on April 17, 2009 at 10:13 AM
Thursday's StarTribune's giant front page photo & story on "TeaBagging" would have been a cream pie in my face if I paid for the paper.
I'll consider myself even more educated about where their politics are at - as they can't manage to cover relevant news or true grass roots at all.
I do hope I'm not not generalizing ;)
LAMBERT: Most of the "teabag" coverage I read and saw included a line or two about either who produced/promoted the event, the counter "pro-tax" rally or something with a "wink, wink, nudge, nudge" interview with a protestor. But a paper the size of either of these two should have had space somewhere -- again, the op-ed pages -- to analyze the claims that this was real as opposed to "astro turf". To do so would of course meant angry comments and calls from each paper's valuable "base".
Posted by: John In Mpls on April 17, 2009 at 1:31 PM
"even restrictive gun laws"
No basis in reality. Gotta be Pauline Kael syndrome. I can expand at length.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/117361/Support-Gun-Control-Laws-Time-Lows.aspx
LAMBERT: Basis in reality ... http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/82300 ... and ... http://www.quinnipiac.edu/x1295.xml?ReleaseID=1194 ... and ... http://www.newsli.com/2008/11/20/voter-poll-data-shows-broad-support-for-stronger-gun-laws-in-obama-administration/. But hey, don't let me interrupt.
Posted by: 108 on April 17, 2009 at 2:32 PM
I love it--you're not a "balanced writer" unless you take it as an article of faith that conservatives are mindless automatons. What silliness.
What I take away from your piece is the notion that we should move toward the British model with clear conservative and liberal media outlets and get rid of this ridiculous "balance" concept. We don't seem to be able to execute it very well.
We're nearly there--I think the only media that hasn't fessed up yet is the AP so if they would just come clean we could get on with it.
LAMBERT: Did I miss something? Am i the only one making in distinction between coherent conservative thinking ... and the flash mob that turned out for Teabagging Day? I'm saying a skeptical press, the kind that doesn't take everything at face value -- to avoid annoying anyone -- owes it to skeptical readers to analyze the how's and why's of such events. That's not asking too much, is it?
Posted by: Henry Wolff on April 17, 2009 at 4:05 PM
I've come to think of the balance thing as the "some people say the world is flat" school of journalism. The coverage of things like global warming or "creation science" [sic] is a case in point. The Strib, responding to constant whining that it is Pravda on the Mississippi, made a over-commitment to sucking up to the right by hiring KK and Lileks and stuffing the op-ed page with routine right-wing wankers. And as far as I can see, all the paper got for bending over for the wing-nuts was more abuse.
Most of the polls I see, in contrast to the the routine assumptions in the beltway media, show a largely liberal nation in terms of socialized medicine, tax policy and all the social issues. The Republicans have become the Peckerwood Party. I noticed a favorable/unfavorable poll on places, specifically San Francisco, New York City, France and Europe. The results were 3:2 or 2:1 favorable for the nation at large. When the poll was disaggregated, all sections of the country had about the same results except the South which was around 45/45. The land of ignorance and insularity is also the land of Red States and moronic conservatism (there is intelligent conservatism but it's only found in museums these days). These are also the places that are asserting their patriotism by threatening to secede; they are certainly making calling their bluff attractive.
LAMBERT: I swear I'm having a hard time remembering the last conversation I had with someone who self-identified as a Republican that wasn't larded down with verbatim talking points of the day from some radio hero ... "creeping socialism ... ", "carbon taxes will cripple the economy ... ", "Obama's going to bankrupt us ... " ... and those are the ones I'll listen to for more than two paragraphs.I
Posted by: john sherman on April 17, 2009 at 9:12 PM