A short time ago, Kos made pithy use of polling data to demonstrate what a rarified group of
total nerds we are. Putting this observation, namely, that very few people know who Ann Coulter is, into context is a crucial next step. (Please bear with me during the post as I iterate some points you already know.) Indeed, in an ever-splintering media environment, different groups of people are exposed to vastly different types of information. The implications loomed large this weekend while I was hanging out with a Republican State Senator from South Dakota. It quickly became apparent that we had completely different understandings of even basic truths and facts concerning the Schiavo case. And I think this short story offers substantial reason to heed
eugene's call to arms. We really ought to be loudly boycotting the news channels, not merely avoiding them for self-gratifying chest puffery.
More on the flip...
I had taken the Senator around Berlin for the day (long story how he ended up in Berlin and how I ended up escorting him), and we sat down to a drink as the day was winding down. I had been treading lightly on political conversation the entire day, since it was my professional obligation to entertain the Senator and political palaver was no way to endear myself. Yet, I fucked up and we started talking about Terri Schiavo. I knew I had to tread lightly when he began so matter-of-factly: "Well, what we know for sure is that this husband guy is essentially a murderer." (Bear in mind, this is a socially-liberal Jewish politician. He and the Christian right come from different planets, and the legislation he has tried passing in SD testifies to this.) Aghast, I simply couldn't react. He later explained that she'd had a stroke, possibly precipitated by spousal abuse!
Now this is a busy man, and as he informed me, he only has time to watch roughly one newscast a day, whether it's CNN or Fox News. But his case is pretty common. And here we have a legislator, a decision-maker of fairly profound intelligence, completey incapable of making a reasoned policy decision, or rather, forming a reasoned policy opinion, because he had been so badly misinformed by whatever nattering morons had been thrust on the nightly news.
The news networks have been engaged in years-long campaigns that, intentionally or not, are pure misinformation. I'm preaching to a very weary choir, I know. But think on that for a second. The confluence of profit-seeking news outlets, lying news makers, and truth-filtering time constraints and deadlines has rendered the entire populace fundamentally misinformed. Again, we know this. We've known this since the run-up to the Iraq war and its attendant propaganda campaign. But I'm trying to drive this point home in a way that resonates and stirs us to appropriate action. Read eugene's post and take the Nazi experience as parable.**
It's about fucking time we act on it. Hence, I agree with eugene. A loud and forceful boycott is needed, at the very least to point out the news nets' flaws to that group of people who are our ideological allies, but who continue to value CNN based on accrued credibility from years of honest reportage. My mother falls into this category, and I wince every time she mentions how CNN said this or that. She is fundamentally misinformed, and for the millions more like her, we must begin a movement against the lying liars. Our individual living rooms have become dens of private loathing and protest, so now let's turn that energy outward.
**Btw, while I sympathize with objections to the profligate and gratuitous use of Nazi history in contemporary political analysis, especially given its unique psycho-historical heft, I think we just have to be careful not to let emotion cloud understanding. Indeed, as the most vigorously studied phenomena in history, the Nazis and the Holocaust are replete with lessons, some more and some less applicable, such that I would think we could derive a few helpful examples, e.g., the stepwise elimination of Jewish rights, whose emotional content should be divorced from its factual content so that we might gain new insights. We know more about the Nazis than we know about any other historical event. Let's exploit that.