One Utah

People who know me know that I love the model of thinking known as the pyramid of rational ignorance.  This model essentially says in a world of information overload, people rationally choose to not know things they don’t need to know to lead their lives. 

One of the most common complaints in the blogosphere concerns the raving, endless incompetence of the national media on political issues.  The media breathlessly reports right wing talking points as if they’re facts, repeats swift boating charges, even when they’re patently, demonstrably untrue.  John at Americablog, for instance, is all over CNN’s complete failure on the Speaker of the House’s travel problems with the Pentagon; some networks reported the facts, not CNN which simply repeated untruths invented by Republicans and their lapdogs in the Pentagon.  Again and again, the national media believes presenting both sides of an issue is the same as unbiased reporting - even if one of those sides (almost always the conservative side) is lying, distorting, misrepresenting or simply inventing reality.  In a week in which Republicans have blocked debate about Iraq in the Senate, in which 11 Americans were killed in Iraq in 48 hours, in which the Scooter Libby trial is going on, during which the President delivered an insane budget the national media is managing to report competently  on . . .

The Death of Anna Nicole Smith.  (Don’t believe me?  CNN MSNBC  and CBSNEWS have issues of her death as their top stories on their websites as of 10:15 a.m. today.)

If you look back over the last ten years, the media have spent massive, inordinate amounts of energy on issues such as Monica Lewinsky, Chandra Levy, Ted Haggard, a bunch of missing white girls, and celebutantes.  They’ve barely managed to talk about policy - the Iraq war?  It’s complicated and difficult.  The budget?  Complicated and difficult.  Civil rights?  Complicated and difficult.  Actually reporting on these things requires challenging politicans, refusing to accept their spin and their talking points, doing in depth research and hours and hours of preparation.  It’s hard work and if you offend someone, they may not talk to you again since everyone else is giving them puff pieces and fluff questions.

The Media has done an amazingly detailed job on Anna Nicole Smith’s death - they’ve talked knowledgeably about drugs and autopsies and scandals around her marriage, divorce, and child.  Why?  Because these things are easy.  You can easily bloviate about the issues without much or any real work. 

If the real media - not Faux News - were to do their jobs, you’d see Republicans only on Fox.  Not as a result of media bias, but as a result of not being able to get away with their spin anywhere else.  When Atrios asks why the media can’t seem to graps the simple notion that 70% of Americans are opposed to the surge and that is the mainstream viewpoint, it’s not a rhetorical question.  Understanding that simple fact would require our national media to actually challenge George W. Bush and his enablers on matters of fact.  And the media as an institution, is constitutionally incapable of demonstrating such backbone.  Anna Nicole’s death is easy.  Real reporting, real journalism, is hard work.  It is - or can be - extremely adversarial and hostile.  And most journalists desperately want to be popular - so they avoid the hostile, adversarial work of journalism.

This entry was posted Friday, February 9th, 2007 at 10:37 am and is filed under 4th Estate (Media), This Blog. Both comments and pings are currently closed.