Another Problem With the Media

If I'm off-base about any of the following, I'd love to hear a reasoned argument as to why. No fact-free left-wing political rants, please:

First of all, let's establish that, by almost any parameter, life in the US today is, on balance, better than life anywhere, at pretty much any time in human history. If you don't buy that, I'd love to hear your example of when it was better. Yes, there are plenty of anecdotal stories of suffering and inequities of all sorts; but if you have studied history, you know that the entire grid has moved upward, and most of what we consider problems today would not be recognized as such by our ancestors, from the caves forward. The "problems" we have today have generally existed in some form throughout history, but were so far down the list that they were accepted as facts of life (disease, standard of living, life expectancy, infant mortality, incessant warfare, oppression -- you can pretty much name it). Now that we have solved so many of the issues that flummoxed our forebearers, those previously seen as less serious, have risen to the top and, for lack of the previously-solved ones for comparison, are seen as just as serious (even more threatening) than they were. Anyone who has studied history or Abe Maslow understands this.

So why are we so discontented? In my humble opinion, it is the result of two primary causes: first, the study of history has gone out of fashion among the general public. Without that, there is no way for the average person to put current events into any context other than what he has known during his own lifetime. What seems to result is a tendency to gauge our condition against perfection, an unattainable and counter-productive goal.

It is important to realize, when comparing our condition to that of our ancestors, that until recently history was generally written by and about the upper classes. Why? Because they were the only ones who could read and write and who had the luxury of time to do it -- most people were too busy just trying to survive, which also speaks to the general improvement in our living standard. So, unless one has the time and interest to really dig into it, one can easily have an excessively rosy picture of what life was like for the average person in, say, Elizabethan England. Very few people were dressed in frilly outfits, writing poetry, and eating grapes by the River Tyne.

Secondly, the rise of the 24/7 media and its voracious appetite for "news", combined with the ability to spread it instantly from coast to coast. Absent the study of history for context, the constant drumbeat of negative news ("if it bleeds, it leads") in aggregate from coast to coast, gives the impression that these are the worst of times. Every mother in California hears about the kidnapping of a 3-year-old in Florida (and over and over, to boot), and news of robberies, murders and other bad stuff is spread all over the country so that we are bombarded with the sum total. This was not true until about 20 years ago, prior to which, with rare exceptions, these were local events (24/7 news really ramped up for the first Gulf War, which ended so quickly that they were left looking for something, anything, to fill their time). Unless one has a good understanding of what has gone before, this can leave one with the impression that crime is higher, the economy is worse, poverty is more widespread, government competency is lower, partisanship is greater, and life is generally tougher, etc, than at any time in history. All of that, of course, is absolutely untrue, but I'll bet if you asked 100 people on the street, most would think it was.

It would be nice if the media themselves would provide some context but, except for such as PBS (which has other objectivity issues) and a few columnists such as Charles Krauthammer, George Will, and William Bennett, the evidence points to their being unequipped to do so. Note that the above examples lean to the right; I have said elsewhere, and I will say again, that most of those on the left side of the political spectrum simply lack the knowledge and depth of analysis, absent which the shallow appeal of liberal arguments prevails. If you doubt this, watch Rachel Maddow or Keith Olberman on MSNBC as long as you can stand it. There is utterly no evidence that either of them (and they're among the higher profile leftist commentators) have the least understanding of the historical context of the events which are the targets of their shallow rants. Television news hires almost exclusively young, attractive people as news readers and reporters. While I am sure this works for them ratings-wise, I do think the over-emphasis on looks and on-screen persona crowds out general knowledge and perspective . . . which, of course, tends to promote a liberal viewpoint.

So why does this matter? One reason is that we lose sight of why previous decisions were made. Take the banning of DDT: used to be that crop failures and insect infestations with their attendant diseases were a rampant, everyday fact of life. DDT came along and ended much of that. Time goes by, and we take for granted that there are not massive crop failures, bubonic plague, typhus, etc; with no historical memory, all we see are the supposed ill effects based upon an early '60's book by some whacked-out chick, and the supposed effects on a few species whose value is questionable against the lives lost and now at risk for want of DDT. Africa is a textbook example.

And now we've got to tear down all these dams because the fish are dying. The folks advocating this are the same ones who are against building any nuclear power plants (primarily because they don't understand the technology and inclusion of the word "nuclear" is sufficient), coal-fired generators, etc. I suppose a few of these left over '60's hippies can live in the woods without electricity, but where would the country be without it. Wind farms? The fine (and environmentally-conscious-until-it-affects-them) residents of Hyannis won't stand for any to be built in a windy location in Nantucket Sound because they will see them. Perhaps they're hoping for a revival of the New England whaling industry to supply whale-oil lamps in lieu of electric ones . . . that is, until they see how the whales come out of it.

Or, more currently, repeal of the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act in 1999, which had required that banks keep separate their deposits and investments, the idea being that profligate speculation with the latter had done much to cause their failure when the stock market crashed in 1929. After all, the banks were now behaving themselves and there was much money to be made in exotic instruments via Wall Street. The fact that we couldn't have it both ways was just waaaay too arcane for the pundits. There was more to it (the Community Reinvestment Act being the biggest), but this was one of the watersheds that led to the current economic mess.

Or the decline of religion in much of the population and the ongoing effort by such nut-jobs as the ACLU to stamp every vestige of it out of anything connected with the government. I hope I'm not breaking any big news when I say that religion (primarily Christianity) has been woven into the fabric of this country from before Day One, and was such a part of every day life and belief at the Founding that the Founders couldn't imagine it necessary to address every aspect of its relation to government. Unfortunately that, fostered by a general public ignorance of the extent to which (primarily) Christianity as been at the center of our development as a nation, has been used by some in an effort to expunge it from all forms of government and public life in this country. The inter-weaving of Judeo-Christian ethics and beliefs into the forming and framework of the US government and institutions is a significant part of why this country has evolved to be the envy of the world.

By the way, I suspect that the recent reports of the reduction in the number of Americans who call themselves Christian have as much to do with the fact that the very term "Christian" has acquired an Evangelical connotation that many mainstream Christians don't identify with as it does with any reduction in faith.

Let's look at the last Presidential election. Absent an understanding of history, a sufficient plurality of the voting public was swept away by the shallow appeal of a good-looking, well-spoken Demagogue. Their gullibility allowed them to fall for a litany of promises that no Reasonable Person could possibly keep, from getting out of Iraq within the time frame required to insure election, to the immediate closing of the Guantanamo Bay prison, to universal health care, to economic aid to the needy, to winning the International Popularity Contest, World Peace, and on and on. The Miss Universe interviews have nothing on this Guy.

So He's inaugurated and son-of-a-gun the backtracking begins: "the generals say we can't get out of Iraq for 16 months and I need Congress to appropriate more money for the War"; "I've ordered prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay transferred within a year"; and "the economic problems of the country are much worse than We were led to believe" (the classic excuse of a new President, as it neatly lays the blame for renegging on campaign promises on the prior Administration -- seriously: who did not see that coming?). Our enemies must feel that their persistence will, after all, be vindicated, as the US shown that it has tired of fighting them, by electing a President who professes to want to make nice and be atop the international popularity polls; i.e, cave in. The current President is either very naive, very cunning, very cynical, or all of the above. Those who voted for Him were certainly naive (and many have now got their knickers in a knot because he's not doing what he said he'd do to get elected), and we are now saddled with having to go once again thru the learning curve trod by, among others FDR (the economy) and Jimma Carter (foreign relations), since we have failed to learn from the history of their administrations what works and what doesn't.

So that's why it matters.

The Basic Problem With the Media

It has become painfully apparent over the past 30 or so years, but especially in the last 20, that the electronic news business has lost whatever objectivity it might once have had, and has simply become a ratings- and revenue-driven business. This is fine for most of show business but, like it or not, most Americans (and I'm not talking about those who really keep up on current events, but rather those who just watch the TV news) get their news from TV. Since it is TV, advertising is a (perhaps the) major source of revenue and, since advertisers pay based upon the ratings a show receives, increased ratings become the goal of the news operation.

Ratings are enhanced by being first with the information (accuracy is secondary) and having physically attractive news readers (aka Anchors) and reporters. The evidence is overwhelming that physical attractiveness and sonorous voice are the #1 and 2 criteria TV news requires to be "on air". This results in a heavy skew toward younger "talent" since (and I know I'm going to get in trouble for stating the obvious) most people, in general, find younger people more attractive than older ones. I'm sorry, but it's true and you know it.

Again, as a general proposition, younger people simply have had less life experience than older ones and generally know less which, I am convinced, is the root cause behind their generally liberal slant. This, of course, is why college campuses tend to be such liberal places -- you've got a huge population of young people with simply no life experience and very little understanding of the world. A lot of things in life seem soluble (poverty, war, crime, etc) to those without a lot of general knowledge to understand beyond what they see. "If we [that would be the government] just give poor people a minimum standard of living, if we just would not become involved in wars, if we just would try to understand why criminals do what they do and get them help, just give everyone free health insurance, these problems would go away." See my forthcoming article on Abe Maslow for the sociology of this.

But back to the media: I don't think it's subject to debate that the media in general have a heavy liberal slant, and largely for the above reasons, in my opinion. They, of course, don't think so because a) they socialize with each other and it's all they see, so it's "middle of the road" to them, b) the few conservatives that slip thru have learned to keep their heads down, and c) it's not their self-interest to admit their liberalism, even if they did recognize it, as it calls into question the validity of their product. One recent survey found that 83% of the "mainstream media" identified themselves as Democrats. This cannot be by chance.

I've been kind of a news junkie since high school (45 years ago), and have been increasingly distressed by the general naivete and lack of general knowledge of those who give the news on TV -- they simply don't seem to have any general understanding of almost any subject they are reporting on. They mispronounce common names and places and generally don't seem to have the least understanding of the background on any of the stories they report, other than what might be currently in the news. There are, of course, exceptions -- the late Hal Fishman in LA stands out -- and I'm sure there are others, but they are just that -- the rare exception.

Hal Fishman -- a clear example of hired for brains, not looks (note Supermarine Spitfire in background)

I draw these conclusions, by the way, from their lack of knowledge on subjects I happen to know something about (military history, music, and real estate), and assume that that ignorance must extend across the rest of what they report. I really do think the primary reason is that outlined above. So why does this matter?

Let's take the Iraq War as a prominent, recent example: wouldn't you think that some general knowledge of the subject being reported on, especially one as important as the Iraq War, might rate a reporter with some understanding of the military going in? After all, they seem to find a doctor to report on medical matters, a "meteorologist" to do the weather, etc, but the media apparently could not find one reporter to send to Iraq who had ever been in the military, or had the least understanding of it or military history, past conflicts, etc, that would allow him to provide the slightest context for what he was reporting. This is not surprising, given that the type of person who would enroll in J-school is about as diametrically opposite from one who would enlist in the military as it is possible to imagine.

With no other source, the American public is forced to see (and judge) the war thru the eyes young reporters starting at the very bottom of the learning curve (or older ones starting there), reporters who have no idea what they're looking at, no idea whether what they just witnessed is a major engagement or a minor skirmish, no understanding of what responsibility the "expert" they interview has (was that a colonel or a corporal? Not that the reporter would know the difference), no understanding of how casualties, tactics, civilian casualties, or pretty much anything else compares to previous wars. To someone who has never seen warfare, it's horrible beyond anything in their life experience -- especially some coddled young snot fresh out of some Ivy League journalism school. Warfare is, indeed, terrible, but it's a fact of human existence. The repeated characterizations of this particular War as "costly" and with "many casualties" are disproved by historical comparisons to other wars which, as noted above, are well beyond the knowledge of these reporters.

So the perception of the Iraq War, molded as it was by reporters wholly unqualified to report on it, is a negative one. What a surprise. Objectively, and leaving aside for a moment the undebatable issue of whether or not the War was justified, this was the least costly war in US history in terms of US lives lost per day, easily surpassing the previous standard, the Spanish American War.

On a related note (and I say this as a Marine Corps veteran), the insistence of most of the media (and especially talk show hosts, including conservative ones) on referring to anyone who serves in the military as a "hero" is distressing, and demeans the valor of those whose deeds were truly heroic. While I respect the heck out of anyone who has served in the military, there is a huge leap between simply being in the military and "hero", as anyone who has "served" would tell you. I have no doubt that the military is a big mystery to most reporters and talk show hosts, which adds to their aura in reporters' eyes. Guys like John Basilone, Col Maurice Holmes, and Jackson Pharris were heroes. If you're in the media, look them up.

I think I understand at least part of what's behind it: most of the media today cut their teeth when service in the military was either very unfashionable or voluntary, and almost none of them have seen the inside of a military uniform. Given the outstanding performance of the US military in recent wars, and the graphic depictions of what they endure now being brought to us courtesy of new technology and that very media, I believe there is an underlying guilt in the media at not having served when it was "their time"; so they attempt to atone by obsequiously conferring the title "hero" upon anyone who actually served. All it does in the mind of anyone familiar with the military is expose the reporter's ignorance of the subject. So please don't refer to me as a "hero". Anyone familiar with my time in the Corps will know I was anything but.