Word
Gems
What is a
man but the sum of his thoughts?
Deception
& Propaganda
Howard
Fineman:
The
'Media Party' Is Over
The 'Media Party' is over
CBS' downfall is just the tip of
the iceberg
ANALYSIS
By Howard Fineman
MSNBC contributor
Updated: 12:43 a.m. ET Jan 13, 2005
WASHINGTON - A political party is dying before our eyes — and I don't mean the
Democrats. I'm talking about the "mainstream media," which is being
destroyed by the opposition (or worse, the casual disdain) of George Bush's Republican
Party; by competition from other news outlets (led by the internet and Fox's canny Roger
Ailes); and by its own fraying journalistic standards. At the height of its power,
the AMMP (the American Mainstream Media Party) helped validate the civil rights movement,
end a war and oust a power-mad president. But all that is ancient history.
Now
the AMMP is reeling, and not just from the humiliation of CBS News. We have a president
who feels it's almost a point of honor not to hold more press conferences —
he's held far fewer than any modern predecessor — and doesn't seem to agree that the
media has any "right" to know what's really going in inside his administration.
The AMMP, meanwhile, is regarded with ever growing suspicion by American voters, viewers
and readers, who increasingly turn for information and analysis only to non-AMMP outlets
that tend to reinforce the sectarian views of discrete slices of the electorate.
Yes, I
know: A purely objective viewpoint does not exist in the cosmos or in politics. Yes, I
know: Today's media foodfights are mild compared with the viciousness of
pamphleteers and partisan newspapers of old, from colonial times forward. Yes, I know: The
notion of a neutral "mainstream" national media gained dominance only in World
War II and in its aftermath, when what turned out to be a temporary moderate consensus
came to govern the country.
Still,
the notion of a neutral, non-partisan mainstream press was, to me at least, worth holding
onto. Now it's pretty much dead, at least as the public sees things. The
seeds of its demise were sown with the best of intentions in the late 1960s, when the AMMP
was founded in good measure (and ironically enough) by CBS. Old folks may remember the
moment: Walter Cronkite stepped from behind the podium of presumed objectivity to become
an outright foe of the war in Vietnam. Later,
he and CBS's star White House reporter, Dan Rather, went to painstaking lengths to make
Watergate understandable to viewers, which helped seal Richard Nixon's fate as the first
president to resign.
Good crusades at the time
The crusades of Vietnam and
Watergate seemed like a good idea at the time, even a noble one, not only to the press but
perhaps to a majority of Americans. The problem was that, once the AMMP declared its
existence by taking sides, there was no going back. A party was born.
It was
not accident that the birth coincided with an identity crisis in the Democratic Party. The
ideological energy of the New Deal had faded; Vietnam and
various social revolutions of the ’60s were tearing it apart. Into the vacuum came
the AMMP, which became the new forum for choosing Democratic candidates. A
"reform" movement opened up the nominating process, taking it out of the
smoke-filled backrooms and onto television and into the newsrooms. The key to winning the
nomination and, occasionally, the presidency, became expertise at riding the media wave.
McGovern did it, Gary Hart almost did (until he fell off his surfboard); Jimmy Carter and
Bill Clinton rode it all the way.
Republicans
always have been less dependent on, or concerned about, the AMMP's role in their internal
politics. Richard Nixon hated the AMMP, with good reason, and learned just enough to keep
it at bay — until, as president, he put its leaders on various enemies lists. Ronald
Reagan, using his own actor's craft and the stage management of Mike Deaver, realized that
he could co-opt the AMMP with the irresistible power of pretty, inspirational pictures.
Conservative activists, tapping their own pocketbooks or those of sympathetic corporate
tycoons, learned to work around the AMMP with mailing lists, grassroots politics and
direct-mail, first through the Postal Service, then the Internet.
Some
Republicans learned how to manipulate the AMMP, especially its growing obsession
with personalities — and its desire to be regarded as even-handed. The objective
wasn't to win the AMMP's approval, but to isolate it by uncoupling its longterm
relationship with the Democrats. At least that's what happened in the Monica Lewinsky
Years: The party that had nominated Clinton in 1992
eventually impeached him, thanks in good part to information supplied by GOP
investigators.
Bush turns a blind eye
Texas Gov. George W. Bush arrived on the national scene in the 1990s intent on dictating
the terms of dealing with the AMMP — or simply ignoring it altogether. Already
well-known as the son of a president, he focused on raising money and holding private
chit-chats with donors and political supporters who would journey to Austin for
off-the-record talks. His guru was not an image-making man (as Ailes had been for Nixon,
and Deaver with Reagan) but a direct-mail expert, Karl Rove. Rove and Bush decided that
most forms of "exposure" offered by the AMMP would be likely to do more harm
than good. So why bother unless they could completely dictate the terms of engagement?
Bush
doesn't hate the AMMP (indeed, he likes his share of reporters on a personal basis). He
just refuses to care about what it's up to. The terrorist attack of 9/11, and the added
security concerns it fueled, have given the White House a new reason to keep the AMMP at
bay. Pools are "tighter," more and more events are "closed press," and
those that are open are to be viewed at a distance, if at all.
In
this situation, the last thing the AMMP needed was to aim wildly at the president —
and not only miss, but be seen as having a political motivation in attacking in the first
place. Were Dan Rather and Mary Mapes after the truth or victory when they broadcast their
egregiously sloppy story about Bush's National Guard Service? The moment it made air it
began to fall apart, and eventually was shredded by factions within the AMMP itself,
conservative national outlets and by the new opposition party that is emerging: The
Blogger Nation. It's hard to know now who, if anyone, in the
"media" has any credibility.
And,
as Walter Cronkite would say, that's the way it is.
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