I have long felt that the two biggest obstacles the progressive movement faces are the system of legalized bribery that passes for elections in the U.S. and the pathetic state of the modern media. If there was any question about the sad state of journalism in this country, the disgusting spectacle of the current health care debate should answer it.
We have a broken, crumbling, inefficient health care system that is killing people and bankrupting the country. To fix it we need to rationally debate complex moral and economic issues but the utter failure of the media and the juvenile antics of Republican leaders have turned the debate into a three-ring circus and stifled serious debate.
Who could have known that replacing responsible journalists with spokesmodels, stenographers, party hacks, and entertainers and replacing informative journalism with corporate controlled, profit-driven sensationalism, breathless 24-hour coverage of the trivial, endless horse-race reporting, and "fair and balanced" disinformation would result in an electorate that is ignorant, confused, angry, and led by the loudest screamers and biggest liars.
The ombudsman for the Washington Post recently surveyed his paper's coverage of health care reform and concluded that there was almost no substantive coverage of what the reform proposals actually contained. Almost all of their reporting focused on who was winning and losing in the polls. This is in the Washington Post! It is even worse in other news sources. Think about that, the media is using all their resources to tell US what WE think about something we know nothing about! And they wonder why no one reads newspapers anymore.
The void left by the media’s failure has been filled by the Glenn Becks, Rush Limbaughs, and Sarah Palins of the world. There is no one left to contradict them, tell us when they are lying, or to stand up and say ‘at long last, have you left no sense of decency?'. The result is an electorate that is sure Iraq was involved in 9/11, Saddam Hussein had WMD’s, and President Obama wants to set up death panels but can’t find Iraq on a map and doesn't know that Medicare is a government program.
Our electorate is so poorly informed and easily manipulated that they sat idly by while George Bush claimed the government has the power to read our letters and emails, torture detainees, and imprison U.S. citizens without charges but views incremental change in the health insurance system as an unbearable government takeover akin to fascism (or communism, socialism, or some other ism). So numerically challenged that they don’t notice when George W. Bush adds $5 trillion to the debt with absolutely nothing in return, but thinks foreign aid is bankrupting the country.
I don’t know how to fix the media, but I have some unsolicited advice for pundits and journalists. First of all, realize that what you do is important, political choices have life and death consequences so stop treating politics like a sporting event.
- We don’t care what politicians wear, what the average man on the street thinks about something he doesn’t understand, what windsurfing says about a person, or how people that like arugula are not to be trusted. These may be good reasons to vote someone off an island but they aren't a strong foundation for a representative democracy. Elections and American Idol are two different things, don't get them confused.
- Grow up, get serious, start cramming. Learn something about the issues you cover so you will know when a politician is lying to your face, and then please tell us. If you don't know what you are talking about don't tell us what to think. Stop repeating what anonymous officials and industry funded think tank "experts" tell you, and let us know when someone is being paid to support a position.
- Don't mindlessly transcribe competing Republican and Democrat quotes like some elementary school matching exercise. Analyze the two quotes, give us some background information and tell us who is telling the truth and who is lying. If both of them are lying, tell us that too. And don't stop there, actually go out and do some, you know, reporting. Describe the issues, find out what experts think, what is working and what isn't. Don't be afraid of complexity, we can handle it.
- Disagreeing with the DFH's doesn't make you serious, it may very well make you wrong. Just because something is bipartisan doesn't make it good and sometimes the majority of people disagree with both political parties. Don't be afraid of bloggers, but don't let Drudge rule your world. Being invited to a Washington D.C. cocktail party doesn't make you a journalist, sometimes it means you aren't doing your job.
- Editors, use the Google, fact checking has never been easier. Don't let people lie on your oped page and print a correction when they do. And there a million euphemisms for lying that you can use, but sometimes the word lying is the most appropriate.
It is, of course, far easier to report on the latest polls than to read and understand a complex bill, but that is too bad. If you can't handle it, become a sportscaster. The decisions made by Congress, the President, and the courts have major effects on our lives and our future. Elections have consequences, even arcane budget decisions affect who will live and die. We need journalists who understand this, stop hurting America. Politics is not a Sport!