Journalism 101: False Equivalence

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Republicans Are Bullies With Very Thin Skins

Back in the 2004 Presidential Election, various Republicans delighted in ridiculing the Democratic candidate John Kerry.  The vicious Swift Boat campaign converted John Kerry's combat experience in Viet Nam into allegations of cowardice and lying. Starting with the 2008 Presidential election, various Republicans (now called TeaPublicans), have spent countless minutes and column inches calling Barack Obama a list of names too long to list, but including fascist, communist, socialist, Islamist, traitor, and, let's not forget, un-American and not even AN American. 

In the face of these clearly false and defamatory claims, the so-called Liberal Media has dutifully reported (and still report)  these claims and accusations as "news" with little fact-checking.  Later this week I will be detailing this journalistic technique called "equivalence," lazy and dishonest reportage that gives equal weight to "both sides" of a story when, in fact, only one side is credible and/or honest.

Now, however, we have another example of the Bully who can't take it.  Sean Duffy, the WI representative who complained that he couldn't feed his family on a Congressperson's salary, was hoist on his own petard by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC)  that ran an ad highlighting Duffy's  complaint that he has to have his sushi flown in.  Poor Sean.

Duffy has his defenders, in particular the National Republican Campaign Committee that has accused the DCCC of being "childish." What gall that the same folks who have spent many years using every rhetorical device to diminish and denigrate their opponents are shocked that Democrats are allowed to play the same game.  I suggest there is one major difference between the concerted and coordinated attacks on Dems and the Dem's attempt at the same tactic:  The charges by the TeaPublicans are lies while the Dem's at least have truth on their side (they even used Duffy's own words in context).

This first lesson in "false equivalence" is simple.  When TeaPublicans accuse falsely and the Dems accuse truthfully, the so-called Liberal Media will report both cases the same way:  just the facts ma'am.  Except those facts are not equal:  one is a pack of lies and innuendo while the other is the truth.  To TeaPublicans and the media, it doesn't seem to make a difference, as long as the names are spelled correctly,

Free-Form Friday

*  Haven't been diligent this week in producing daily posts.  I am not sure if it is because, for all of the events in the news, nothing much has changed over the week.  I am glad that the Occupy [fill in the blank] story has finally moved into the so-called Liberal Media.  I am also not surprised that the media reports still seem to echo the false notion that the Occupy movement is leaderless with no specific aims made up of dope-smoking smelly hippies (or slackers).  The corollary to that frame is that the Tea Party idiots were in fact patriotic Americans driven to protest (and violent rhetoric and behaviors) by the mean Democrats in Congress and the White House). That the Occupy protests target the actual perpetrators (the Wall Street banks and pseudo-banks and their collaborators in DC) while the Tea Party agenda just coincidentally matches up with the most conservative wing of the Republican Party (aka TeaPublicans) seems inconsequential to the reporters and pundits who have jobs and other cool stuff.  One cartoon says it better than I can.

*  I have been watching some of the new television season (dramas only, I gave up on sitcoms long ago).  Two shows in particular are interesting to me: Person of Interest (CBS) and Homeland (Showtime).  Both shows are products of our post 9/11 security apparatus, but unlike  24,  the most (in)famous show to emerge in the 2000s, these shows focus on the personal impact of our increasing lack of privacy.  What I find fascinating is that both shows accept this security state as the status quo.  In one show, the "good guys" use the now ubiquitous technology of surveillance to save a single person.  In the other, a CIA analyst believes a returning POW is actually a sleeper/mole for Islamic terrorists and uses illegal  (at least unwarranted) surveillance technology to find evidence for her suspicions.  While the shows have the look and feel of  "quality television," I find both shows disturbing in their blanket acceptance of the "end justifying the means."  I wonder of George W or Darth Cheney are paid consultants.

* Tonight is the beginning of college basketball season with various schools staging opening night extravagances.  To me, these Midnight events are of marginal interest (they are for the students), but what it really means is we are on the road to March Madness and the NCAA Final Four to be played here in New Orleans.  As a graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill, I have only one things to say: "Go Heels!"

When Will TeaPublicans Be Satisfied?

I just don't get it. (Actually I do get it, but this is a rhetorical gambit).  It was just a few years ago that the real frustration and anger at the Washington/Wall Street alliance for sinking our economy became palpable. Bailouts of banks and investment firms stood in stark contrast to the foreclosures and layoffs that bedeviled the average American.  A few random protests by angry voters were covered by the so-called Liberal Media.  Some of the protests referenced the Boston Tea Party and so the Tea Party "movement" became fodder for the evening news and the Faux News/CannedNN anchors and hosts.  (We will leave out of this story their unfortunate initial moniker of Teabaggers). These sounds and images looked like a true grassroots revolt against the powers elite in NY/DC. 

There were some tell-tale signs , however, that all was not what is seemed. Right-wing media personalities and politicians stepped to forefront, officially organizing rallies.  Tea Partiers were funded and transported to these rallies even though there was no real fundraising practices.  How did these folks coalesce when there was no visible leadership.  Then it slowly leaked out that various right-wing lobbying groups, Freedom Works in particular, were picking up the tab and offering logistical support.  Folks like Dick Armey and Koch Brothers were pulling the strings behind the scene, much like Wizards of Oz.  They, and their Faux News/CAnnedNN brethren, maintained the fiction of the Tea Party as a grassroots movement even long after it was clear that the Tea Partiers, although genuinely angry, were an astroturf operation:  real folks in real pain being manipulated to support the agenda of those same people who screwed them in the first place.

To this day, the people who most benefited from the Tea Party activities try to maintain the fiction that their agenda is mainstream anger, when in fact their agenda is consolidating more political and economic power in the Wall Street/DC axis, if such a thing is possible.

Here's what I don't get. The same politicians and pundits who valorized the astroturfed Tea Party protests now see great public danger from the Occupy Wall Street protests that have spread across the country. A peaceful grassroots effort to make the average citizen aware of the true perpetrators of our economic mess is being compared to violent mobs. Just a few years ago,  Tea Partiers invaded and took over town hall meetings.  Tea Partiers called for violence against their perceived "enemies."  Tea Partiers used extra-legal means to influence elections.  And the Occupy Wall Street protesters are a menace to country?  Today, law enforcement agencies have been pepper spraying and beating non-violent OWS protesters sitting in public places. Give me a break.  When will TeaPublicans be satisfied?  When the economic elites can walk to their offices safely while the rest of us keep our mouths shut and accept the crumbs from that fall from their plates.Then the average American who has been gulled by these bastards will discover who their true friends are. And they are not on Wall Street or K Street, that's for sure.

The First Amendment, Hank Williams Jr., and the World's Smallest Violin

One of the things I find both frustrating and humorous about TeaPublicans and other Dominion-obsessed wingnuts is their selective use of the U.S. Constitution.  They seem to have this very idiosyncratic view that seems to boil down to "I am a strict Constitutionalist -- except the parts I don't like or agree with."  I would add that there is also much misunderstanding and ignorance of the actual words and phrases in the document in their historical contexts.  Much of this right-wing blather about the Constitution is focused on the First and Second Amendments, but there are plenty of other examples, such as the Tenthers, who maintain that the Tenth Amendment allows states to opt out unilaterally of federal laws and regulations.

This week we had a public example of the confusion that underlies the faulty Constitutional arguments that continually flow from the mouths of these self-righteous pseudo-patriots.  Hank Williams Jr., son of the sainted Hank Williams (the famed singer and songwriter) appeared on Fox and Friends on  Fox News and made the mistake of talking. His remarks included an analogy that certainly can be understood as linking President Obama with Adolf Hitler.  Even the Fox host had to distance the show from his remarks.   As a result, ESPN has dropped his iconic theme for Monday Night Football after twenty years of service to the cause of NFL football and television profits.

So what does this have to do with my comments about Constitutional ignorance? Well, in the inevitable aftermath of Bocephus apologizing and claiming he was misunderstood, he added,

"After reading hundreds of e-mails, I have made MY decision," he wrote on his website. "By pulling my opening Oct 3rd, You (ESPN) stepped on the Toes of The First Amendment Freedom of Speech [his emphasis], so therefore Me, My Song, and All My Rowdy Friends are OUT OF HERE. It's been a great run." His claim of victimhood is a constant refrain from these so-called Constitutionalists who base their whining on a fundamental ignorance of, in this case, the First Amendment.

So, for Hank II and his rowdy friends, here is why you are wrong.  The First Amendment was designed to protect an individual's right to self expression in the public sphere. The Framers included freedom to worship, speak, publish, and meet in public to discuss public issues without GOVERNMENT censorship and interference. Last I heard, ESPN/Disney is a for-profit company that can schedule whatever they please (within some limited exceptions such as pornography or state secrets). The executives at ESPN decided, without government coercion, that Hank II's inane comments were damaging to the network's reputation and therefore the network's profits.
In fact, Disney was simply responding to the "free market" philosophy that the bozo wingnuts claim to revere.

Most importantly, he was given the opportunity to speak on Fox and Friends. No one stopped him from expressing his opinion.  When his words evoked a negative response from others, his employer decided to terminate their relationship. Not the FCC. Not Obama. Not Karl Marx. Not Groucho Marx. Poor old Bocephus was afforded his Constitutional right to speak and he paid the free market price.  I hear the world's smallest violin playing that age-old tune:  be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.

Everything You See And Hear In The Media is FAKE!

For many years, I was a professor of communication who taught, among other things, a course in media aesthetics and analysis. As an introduction to that course, I gave students a few handy phrases that summarized the points I was trying to make during the semester.  For this course, I had a few, but the most direct, and I feel most pithy, was "Everything you see and hear in the media is Fake!"  This disturb some students, those who were actually listening, and often someone would respond, "But what about the news?"  My response was simply that the news was the most fake of all.

Last week I wrote a piece called "Reality Television Is Anything But Real" that touched on this subject, but I want to delve a little deeper.  The most obvious issue is the use of the term "news." Often, news is described as information that is timely (happening now), topical (subject of contemporaneous public interest), proximate (some local connection or location).  These attributes are appropriate in order for the medium (newspaper, radio station, etc.) to serve its audience (and it's advertisers).  At least one other attribute identified in the journalism textbooks is conflict.  This is where the problems arise.

The reason that I maintain that news is fake is highlighted by the word we use to describe these individual news items: stories. By it very definition, a story has a predefined narrative structure.  Aristotle identified this structure 3,000 years ago and dramatic structure still dominates our communication environment.  The structure is simple:
Exposition (the starting point, the status quo)
Complication (something that disrupts the status quo)
Climax (the point where the disruption/crisis can not longer continue
Resolution (the complication is resolved and  a new status quo is established),

This simple structure is evident throughout our fictions, but it also is evident in our non-fiction "stories."  We expect these elements and are often disappointed when they are not fulfilled.  That is why the news "story" is, by definition, fake.  We (the reporters, editors, audiences) impose or demand what we expect is the natural progression of our stories.  But life is not like that for most of us, its messy, unpredictable, and often downright boring.  But news in the 21st century is the the bait on the advertisers' hooks, not an end onto itself.  Just look at Faux News and CNN some night and pay attention to the structure, not the content.

So, media practitioners force all information into the Aristotelian structure to satisfy our Western sense of order and to keep our eyes on the screen or the page.  That makes these stories understandable and inviting, but does not make them real.  Even when there is much truth in a story, it is still first and foremost a story.  Add to this the ways in which we mediate the reality that is being reported (we use words, pictures, sequences, order) and it is clear, at least to me, that everything you see and hear in the media is fake, especially the news.  If you don't believe me, apply the Aristotelian structure frame to a news story (or an advertisement for that matter) and then tell me I am wrong.  I am waiting to hear from you.