Sunday Discussion Group

November 13, 2005

The president’s Veterans’ Day speech, apparently part of a new White House offensive against, well, everyone who doesn’t agree entirely with everything Bush believes, generated plenty of media attention, but probably not the kind the Bush gang had hoped for. The Washington Post made it clear — on the front page — that the president wasn’t telling the truth.

President Bush and his national security adviser have answered critics of the Iraq war in recent days with a two-pronged argument: that Congress saw the same intelligence the administration did before the war, and that independent commissions have determined that the administration did not misrepresent the intelligence.

Neither assertion is wholly accurate…. Bush and his aides had access to much more voluminous intelligence information than did lawmakers, who were dependent on the administration to provide the material. And the commissions cited by officials, though concluding that the administration did not pressure intelligence analysts to change their conclusions, were not authorized to determine whether the administration exaggerated or distorted those conclusions.

The New York Times, in its coverage of the speech, also detailed the president’s misstatements of fact. Indeed, in an online report yesterday, the Times even compared the remarks to the infamous “Mission Accomplished” speech that has become such an embarrassment to the White House. Similar analysis was offered by other news outlets.

Today’s discussion group topic: Is the national media making a comeback? Are the days of passivity and stenography officially over? Or, conversely, is even the coverage we’re now getting too timid?

Perceptions differ, but a reasonable argument could be made that the kind of fact-checking that was common in the wake of the Veterans’ Day speech was sorely lacking throughout Bush’s first term and the presidential campaign. Now, major dailies seem to have no qualms telling readers, point by point, when the president is selling a bill of goods.

It’s not just in print coverage. Watching the White House press briefings, the deference shown to McClellan and the WH line also seems to be gone. Jon Stewart even joked recently, “We’ve secretly replaced the White House press corps with real reporters.”

Has the news media turned a corner? Will it last? What prompted the change?

Discuss.

November 13, 2005 at 9:38 am

I believe that the corporations that control the media have changed news coverage to be more cravenly about profits than, perhaps, ever before (but I’m no media historian). I believe that now it’s about telling us what they believe we want to hear. In other words, news coverage, along with politics, is poll and focus group driven. If Bush’s ratings go back up above 50%, the coverage will go back to what it was. And, yes, it does matter which party is in power.

For the life of me, I can’t figure out why the media has finally come around & is starting to question this administration. They’re finally asking all the questions they should’ve asked in the lead-up to the war.

Better late than never, maybe?

There’s no way they’ll keep this up – no way.

I imagine that a large number of the story-tellers in the media want a bush recovery. It would make a great story – a failed president makes a comeback & restores greatness to his country, and that’s what they’re after – a great story.

To hell with the truth.

What prompted the change?

I think the press “recovery” began as they (primarily TV) were covering Cindy Sheehan. They were also beginning to feel a little of the heat generated by several years of press-related scandals — problems within the NY Times, the whole Dan Rather mess, in WH manipulation of presumably legitimate journalists, the Jeff Gannon affair. The TV anchors (notably Anderson Cooper) got some up close and personal views of Bush administration effectiveness (New Orleans, MS) which they would’ve otherwise breezed through from their studios. Harry Reid pulling the Senate into closed session.

Has the media turned a corner? Will it last?

I don’t think they’ve crawled out of their hole or come to life yet, frankly, though they’re showing some minor signs of life. They’re still primarily a bunch of corporate media (mostly TV) performing monkeys following polls and fucus groups. Someday they might read a book or look at an old movie about real journalists, or actually dig up a good one who hasn’t yet died or gone senile and interview him/her. Good journalism doesn’t take place in Ivy League alum clubs, or in expensive suits in expensive bars, or in WH press rooms or press releases. It’s going on all the time in the darker, sleazier places in the company of unpleasant people who may be willing to blab to a rewarding source. It’s going on on very dangerous battlefields far away, covered not by our “embedded journalists” (an oxymoron) but by the occasional military person who sends out a photo or two.

I take a rather dim view of all this, don’t I? I just don’t seen the increasing corporate mergers, bottom-line bean counters, poll-focus watchers in the MSM ever getting back to journalism. That is increasingly the work of bloggers. The folks at Air America are good, too. So’s Jon Stewart. God knows where we’d be without them.

They’re still only getting half the story. What about the claims of ties between Saddam and al Qaeda (and hints of links between Saddam and 9/11)?

Lots of countries have WMD programs, but the administration fabricated claims that Saddam had ties with al Qaeda. Those fabricated links were the pretext for invading Saddam instead of focusing on al Qaeda.

And why did Bush stop the UN inspectors from finishing their job? My reading of Congress’s resolution seemed to order follow through on the UN inspections.

So until the media starts focusing on the whole story, I’ll say they’re turning a corner but not very well.

when did it change?

i felt at the time that the broadcast reporters’ dinner where w went looking for wmd’s in the oval office was the first crack in the wall. while maybe the electric media guys thought the bit was funny, i got the distinct feeling that the print people (i live in chicago and read the tribune) were not nearly so amused.

why? tv looks first to entertain. newspapers, even conservative ones, have that old fashioned duty to reason and inform. i think a lot of editorial boards across the midwest saw the wmd joking and were appalled. needless to say nothing in the interim worked to improve that outlook.

Remember, when Chris Matthews had the gaul to question Michele Malkin’s assertion that Kerry shot himself, Matthews was then forced to have the Swift Boat Vets’ lawyers as a regular commentator on his show as pennance for the rest of the campaign.

Every time I start to smell comeback, the media ends up letting me down. All you see happening is the media slowly catching up to the public who is slowly catching up to us. Bush had to have approvals in the 30s before their knees stopped quaking, but make no mistake, these guys have been sucking up to the right wing for so long, they don’t know how to do anything else.

You won’t see a media speaking truth to power until a Democrat is elected.

The media are showing something that looks like contrition. They’re a little like a kid who’s been slacking off and getting D’s. When he’s told “no work, no bike, no camp next summer,” he shapes up just enough to get the pressure off.

I watched a few bits of Arthur Sulzberger on the Charlie Rose show and saw, well, not even contrition. Just willful laziness and dishonesty. I don’t see radio stations dropping O’Reilly though he’s given them plenty of cause. And there are plenty of stories of national importance that MSM don’t carry.

It would be a really useful exercise, I’m convinced, to find out why the media (and the right in general) cling to the Bush presidency and to the illusions that America is a healthy democracy. Why, for example, can so little coverage be found of the very wide gap between what the (very solidly Republican) Columbus Dispatch predicted the outcome would be for the reform issues in the recent Ohio referendum (50% for, 30%) to the actual outcome a day or so later — reform thrown out by new e-voting machines?

As long as profit margins determine everything from whether our car brakes are safe to whether we can open the packaging around our groceries and to whether we can get honest and thorough reporting, we’re allowing democracy to slip away into memory.

Somewhat comically and certainly by default, bloggers have acquired enormous importance — the kind of importance that won’t be quantified and acknowledged for years.

The MSM has been shamed into doing it’s job by a FAR more tenacious and irreverant blogosphere. They have been quite willing to drop or ignore stories and to accept without question whatever palaver was put to them.

The reporters might want to do a better job but I must echo smiley and figure that the corporate leashholders will see how much the public likes RepubCo today and they will let out that much bad news.

The internet, first and foremost, has been our salvation and will continue to humiliate the MSM into doing it’s job as best is can muster.

And though it catches a lot of hell, I am still a big fan of NPR. It may not be perfect but considering the background upheaval going on there since Shruby descended, I think the reporters have kept their eyes on the ball pretty well.

It’s the Plame affair and the revelations about Judy Miller. The operation methods of the MSM have been dragged into the open. The press is having to look at themselves and how they bear a large part of the responsibility of the disaster that is the Bush presidency.

I’d agree that the coverage of Cindy Sheehan’s vigil marked the beginning of a sea change in Bush’s press coverage, i.e. the moment when the mood of the press turned against him, but Katrina was the true watershed (if you’ll pardon the expression). Many of those reporters were on the scene at the Superdome, the Convention Center, and in the streets, and after a day or two of that you could plainly see they were enraged. There’s something about watching rats nibble corpses in the streets of an American city that just didn’t feel right.

I think it’s no coincidence that Bush’s polls haven’t recovered since then. Katrina was unforgettable, the stench lingers, and the administration has only bungled everything since. And even if they get a grip and start scoring victories again– and there’s no sign of this happening anytime soon– I don’t believe the fawning from media stenographers will resume (except at Fox, but that’s a given). The press has turned a corner and I don’t think they’ll be going back. Right now Bush is in a situation comparable to where Nixon was ca. 1973-74, and it looks like the news is just going to get worse for him.

An earlier post suggested that the MSM would prefer a “comeback” story because it makes better drama, and maybe that’s true of some individuals in the news business, but before it can happen the Bush Administration is going to have to do its part: by admitting mistakes, cleaning house, and then by getting something right. Almost anything, you know, like appointing someone to an important office who has the proper credentials. Or getting a bill passed. Anything. If the White House does SOME-thing right then the media can begin constructing a comeback scenario, but I don’t see any evidence of competence from the administration these days, do you?

The failures of the Bush presidency are now manifest and impossible to ignore. Empiricism has finally caught up to W.

The news media has been consolidated under the control of a very few, giant business corporations, which are run by and for the same people, who run the government under Bush, Frist and DeLay. A better question would be, when are liberal Democrats going to recover from misplaced faith in the professionalism of journalists?

The Democrats absolutely need to take control of at least one major media outlet. And, the Democrats should adopt slice-and-dice as the first priority of a Media/antitrust policy to be adopted in the wake of Bush’s collapse.

I think you have to look at this on two levels.

First, at the corporate level (media is, after all, big business), I completely agree with those above who have argued that the media companies follow either (a) the prevailing sentiment or (b) the most cinematic story line – and if they get lucky, (a) and (b) are in alignment. So they have a pit bullish inability to let go of Clinton’s sex scandal despite his publicity because the story line sells. They are willing to turn on Bush when his poll numbers go south because the money is in telling people what they already believe.

Second is the “ground level” — it starts with the reporters, subject to eventual correction by the suits. As for the reporters, I think the real turning point (as it was, to some degree, with Clinton) was when the conclusion became inescapable that the White House had flat out lied to their faces through Ari and Scott and others. That is something reporters really don’t take very well, on a very personal level. I think the next big step was New Orleans, where the administration was pushing them to tell viewers things that the reporters could see first hand were not true — and none of them were willing to impale their own credibility by saying one thing while the live footage showed viewers the opposite.

Let’s be fair. The mainstream media has reported quite a lot of details about Bush’s shortcomings — otherwise we wouldn’t know about them. It’s true that the blogs have had a significant impact, but the content of blogs are often links to MSM reporting.

That said, the gory details negative to Bush are frequently marginalized by media clutter and an imitation of real journalism that causes TV news in particular to “balance” a story with the opposite point-of-view. Right-wing screamers simply drown out discussion unfavorable to Bush, and they do it with lots of out-of-context babble or plain fiction.

The state of affairs above is directly connected to a major cable news shift away from actual reporting to non-stop talking heads. Talking heads are cheaper than news crews, and they’re more entertaining because they are primarily opinion, not reporting.

Bear in mind that the talking head guests are asked beforehand what they want to discuss, so the anchor sets them up with an appropriate question and lets them cruise.
This facet is based on the fact that anchors are not reporters and don’t know squat about the issue.

Entertainment, pictures, and simple, short content is critical to TV news. (Richard Nixon once said, “Television is to news what bumper stickers are to philosophy.”)

The media also goes with the “hot” story, depending on the players to provide information (regurgitating press releases rather than digging out facts).

If the media appears to have suddenly shined light on Bush’s negatives, it’s because so many interested parties are making noise — making it easier to find effective talking heads. Joe Wilson, Cindy Sheehan, angry former generals, etc. are counterweights to the Bush domination and control of the news. Also, the Democrats have actually shown signs of life, and as the loyal opposition should have been loud and relevant for the past five years.

I don’t think the media has turned a
corner, so the second and third
questions aren’t relevant. The Bush
policies and administration have been
an unmitigated disaster, and the
news media now report some of
that. It’s that simple. But they are
basically the same group of rich
corporate owners whose fortunes
fare far better under Republican
administrations than Democratic ones,
and they will never lose sight of
that.

But their fortunes, too, are dependent
upon the whims of the public. News is
entertainment now, a matter of ratings.
Whatever grabs the attention of their
viewers and readers most gets
covered. That’s how they make their
bucks – tax breaks and deregulation
from the Repubs, advertising dough
from the public.

Sometimes, the two sources conflict.
So we get real news when the public
gets interested in real news.

Think about it. If the insurgency suddenly
fades in Iraq, all will be forgotten, Bush
will be a hero, his ratings will soar, and
nothing that this administration has done
or failed to do will matter.

It’s really simple. Journalists have to
make a living, just like the rest of us.
They have to please their bosses.
Their bosses are pleased when the
Republicans are in power.

Things I have not seen in the MSM.

1. Detailed diagram of the Cheney/Libby/Miller to NYT/Rice/Cheney/Rumsfeld echo chamber to establish the ‘fact’ that Saddam Hussein was reconstituting nuclear WMD.

2. Editorial boards of major newspapers questioning WHY there has been no Senate investigation into the leadup to the war or pointing out the duplicitous role Sen Roberts played in keeping things from voters, and stalling “Phase 2” of the investigation.

3. Media pressure to expose the incredible looting carried out by Halliburton. More than any other member of the Mil/Ind Complex, the ratio of no-bid contracts, in spite of documented waster, fraud, and abuse, versus less connected players is truly astonishing.

4. A full and credible expose of Ahmed Chalibi. He’s about three jumps away from securing his position as the new Dictator of Iraq, and I have seen very little press detailing his Petra Bank adventure (Did Bush ask the king of Jordan to pardon Chalibi?), his connections to Iran, his manipulation of intel for his own ends. The two worst ends to the Iraq war are Chalibi as President and/or an islamic state.

All of these things are relevant to the future of the United States and the future of Iraq, yet not widely talked about in the press.

The media both smells the blood of a limping GOP and feels backed into a corner itself. It’s a positive for us for now, but they will jump back on the Republican Party bus in a heartbeat if they sense an upturn there of any kind, if only to save face.

We have to keep hammering on them, forcing them toward the light. The media is ours as surely as our government is ours – only the levers are different.

Simple. The powers that be have decided that Bush is bad for business. Plus, there’s bound to be good ratings in muckraking if the presidency really starts to implode, and they probably figure they might as well be on the right side of it. Think of all the faux outrage they can feign (without any regard for their part in creating the mess), and thet always gets people tuned in.

In other words, business as usual for the media.

They are not on “our” side. Our side is just becoming more useful to them right now.

Personally, I think the press is currently feeling enboldened to question the actions of the President and the rest of his administration now, only because things have just gone too far, and Dubya’s shortcomings as a leader are a little too evident to go on unreported. The press, throughout his administration previous to the Iraq war, had been lazying around, enjoying their “embeddedness,” getting their news stories spoon-fed to them. Where was the investigative journalism surrounding Cheney’s closed-door energy policy meetings, for example? This administration’s foibles and – dare I say – corruption existed pre-9/11 as well, and the MSM hasn’t done a great job doing what they’re supposed to do – that is, being a watchdog on the government.

ZombieOne’s post suggests a question: will the media assist or support a Bush comeback?

I doubt it. Bush fell from grace with Hurricane Katrina. That got press attention of past and ongoing scandals and mistakes. I think the media is circling for the kill, making its mind up when to pounce. Bush is too weak to regain control, and as I’ve said before, I just don’t see any scenario that will significantly raise Bush’s poll numbers. With the public souring on Bush, the media will not argue with mainstream opinion. (And a Bush collapse is a good story.)

Very good point, Zeitgeist.

Jeff Gannon
Swift Boaters
Obvious lies from Scotty.
Downing Street Memo
Plame
Polls that show a majority of Americans do not think Bush is honest. (A conclusion reached without help from MSM)

Bush vacationing as New Orleans drowned is probably the event you could point to, but I think the slow accumulation of the other events provided the critical mass.

Hurricane Katrina was when I saw people in the news media getting angry on air with what was going on. I imagine their ratings went up around then, too, and they remembered how their numbers did well when they were on the attack against Clinton…

But mostly, I think that the corporations who run the media may no longer be so wholehearted in their support of these people.

I don’t know, Alibubba, 3 years is an awfully long time in the present media universe (hell, 3 days is — and I use awfully on purpose). A lot can happen and I would not discount the possibility that shurb’s poll numbers could rebound (and, thus, the media’s return to reverential coverage).

I know CB’s question was about the media but part of the problem about this is whether we want good things to happen (that Bush can/will take credit for) or bad things to happen (that can/will be blamed on Bush). How the good and the bad are covered will determine whether or not the media have “turned the corner”. Personally, I want good things to happen. I only hope there’s no credible way the repubs can claim credit. Whether or not the media give credit where credit is due or blame where blame is due is the key. In the recent past they’ve often given credit where blame is due. We shall see.

Good points, smiley. My contention that Bush’s approval cannot significantly rise is loosely based on the military concept of “lines of retreat.” In my view, Bush has not only gotten into debacles, he has gotten into them in ways that make it impossible to cleanly extract himself and the nation from them. In other words, I don’t think the spin juju works anymore.

Three years is indeed a long time. But the time allows Bush the chance to reinvent himself — or dig himself (and the nation) deeper into a hole. Based on his idiot stubborness, I think he’ll keep digging, and I don’t think Karl Rove or Fox News can save him.

Why have they suddenly wised up? The answer is so obvious, it almost should be unneccessary:

COMPETITION.

The clubby little cartel of media conglomerates has been a monopoly for 20 years. It’s down to what, 3 or 4 corporations now, that owns *all* the media? It’s certainly less than a dozen. That’s why they’re slacking; because they can.

What has happened is BLOGS. Specifically, blogs like TPM keeping the Plame story alive when nobody else cared, and doing what the press should have been doing during the BamboozlePalooza tour: debunking all the Repug lies about Social Security.

And blogs like dKos and online orgs like MoveOn producing media boycott and phone/email/fax shitstorms like the Sinclair one during the election. For 20 years the wingnuts have conducted an orchestrated campaign to blackmail the media into going neo-fascist; now we are getting organised ourselves and applying pressure.

Plus the media is looking at their readership and viewership diminishing as more citizens go online– and overseas to the BBC, RAI, LeMonde, etc– for REAL news from organanisations that still fund news-gathering operations and do in-depth research and reporting.

This is America. Anyone with a license to print money, without doing any work or providing any value, is going to do it. These media monopolies have been given that. Now it’s getting taken away.

It’s wonderful. I hope they don’t find any new ways to “leverage market consolidation and economies of scale to assure continued market dominance” anytime soon.

I do think the media is doing a bit better – but considering how whipped they were that may not be saying much. Of course individual writers and TV people might be trying but what happens up the corporate food chain? Sometimes the media foot soldiers are going one way and their bosses are going another.

Comments are closed.