I have not yet had the pleasure of reading Al Gore’s new book, The Assault on Reason, but given the excerpts I’ve seen, the former Vice President laments the breakdown of public discourse, and holds the traditional national media largely responsible for the problems.
At first I thought the exhaustive, nonstop coverage of the O.J. Simpson trial was just an unfortunate excess — an unwelcome departure from the normal good sense and judgment of our television news media. Now we know that it was merely an early example of a new pattern of serial obsessions that periodically take over the airwaves for weeks at a time: the Michael Jackson trial and the Robert Blake trial, the Laci Peterson tragedy and the Chandra Levy tragedy, Britney and KFed, Lindsay and Paris and Nicole.
These “serial obsessions” extend beyond celebrity mishaps and, of course, shape the way campaigns are covered. Gore wants political coverage to focus on substance, and wouldn’t you know it, media outlets have other ideas. (He notes in his book, “There are countless examples of this, but perhaps understandably, the first one that comes to mind is from the 2000 campaign, long before the Supreme Court decision and the hanging chads, when the controversy over my sighs in the first debate with George W. Bush created an impression on television that for many viewers outweighed whatever positive benefits I might have otherwise gained in the verbal combat of ideas and substance.”)
With this in mind, watching this clip from Good Morning America was like nails on a blackboard.
In her interview with Al Gore this morning, ABC’s Diane Sawyer displayed the media’s propensity to focus on their “serial obsessions” rather than substantive issues that currently affect the country.
Sawyer’s first question to Gore was “You’re not going to tell me again that you have no plans to run, are you?” Gore quickly disposed of the question, saying, “Well, I’m not a candidate and this book is not a political book, it’s not a candidate book at all.” That answer didn’t prevent Sawyer from re-asking the question three more times, consuming airtime that could instead have demonstrated how to raise the level of debate.
Obviously, this is neither new nor unusual, but the interview added a degree of irony that usually isn’t so obvious. Gore said the nation needs to reconsider how we engage in political discourse, and the media needs to stop obsessing over the horserace. Sawyer almost literally said, “Good point. Now let’s talk about the horserace.”
Indeed, Sawyer knew she was practically using the book as a script, but couldn’t help herself. At one point, she asked Gore, “Again, not to come back to this and fall into your thesis that the press only wants the horserace of the political campaign, but one way–” at which point Gore interrupted, “But back to the horserace.”
All the while, whenever the camera turned to Gore, the chyron read, in all caps, “Al Gore on the attack: Will he run for the White House?” Behind Gore and Sawyer, a giant screen showed a graphic: “The Race to ’08.”
It was as if Sawyer and the producers read the book and thought, “How best can we make ourselves look ridiculous, proving Gore right?”
Faiz added:
At the conclusion of the interview, Gore mocked Sawyer’s line of questioning. “Listen to your questions,” he said. “You know, the horserace, the cosmetic parts of this — and, look, that’s all understandable and natural. But while we’re focused on, you know, Britney and K-Fed and Anna Nicole Smith and all this stuff, meanwhile, very quietly, our country has been making some very serious mistakes that could be avoided if we, the people, including the news media, are involved in a full and vigorous discussion of what our choices are.”
Reason #1,684,350 why I do not watch television news