[Cross-posted at The Left Coaster.]
This is how empires fall, it’s been written of the current American experience, a foolish empire of fear, ego and oil as liberty, freedom and infrastructure are slowly ground down by homeland security. Making a judgment to the degree of American political, economic and cultural distress is of course vastly subjective, but as Pat Buchannan yammers away on MSNBC, $20 billion is spent this year just for fueling the Afghanistan war, and the distressingly regressive Republican 2012 presidential field splats before the nation most would agree one word fits current American politics extremely well: broken.
One reason a Republican nominee very well may not accept the fact of evolution or even the basic tenets of science is our putridly awful, totally dysfunctional political journalism corps has become broken to the point where Republicans obviously feel they can be obviated, either through propaganda, relentless braying that anything negative about them has to be liberal bias, or through plain sick silent contempt as those fools grovel at before their corporate masters with worthless, insider horse-race reporting trash. My dear Politico brothers and sisters, the Republican nominee for 2012 won’t accept evolution and doesn’t give a damn what you’ll do about it. How good are you now?
As stated many times half the liberal blogosphere does nothing but desperately try to change the narrative of our sick politics, but it’s obvious our small beginning still has a long way to go. There are some excellent American journalists, too, who know the truth and are attempting change. One of these is Jay Rosen, ‘n courtesy of the incomparable Hullabaloo an incredibly valuable transcript is online of the speech Rosen gave to the Australian Broadcasting Company, I urge anyone interested in American politics to go read the whole thing.
There the sick oozing dysfunctionality of American political journalism is spelled out in depressing detail in its tripod of utter failure: politics as an inside game, the cult of savviness, and production of innocence. But Rosen offers a ray of real hope—a tiny sliver in the stifling darkness, perhaps—at the conclusion that bears as much scrutiny and duplication as possible. The hope lies in a proposed journalism structure that would force our terrible journalists out of their corporate sickness and into a mindset where it always should have been, presenting the political truth for the little people and the country. Does anyone think our journalism corps remotely comes close to that plain goal now? Sheesh.
At the top of every political publication in a horizontal band are partisan arguments. The left column reports on appearances, the manipulative showmanship of politics. The right column is straight political reporting of the current American reality, while finally at the bottom is a slot for facts and graphs similar to Harpers Index.
It isn’t difficult to tie this text structure into television with consistent plain collaborative web sites. One wouldn’t have to broadcast every slot every day, of course, just be sure to label what category the story falls under. Reporters can report, partisans can present their say, the manipulative aspect of politics gets the designation it deserves, and the plain truth of fact is reported every day. It so works for me, and I’m positive other little people would instantly gravitate toward it. Perhaps a web site will try the structure soon.
A thousand things stand in the way of it happening, Mr. Rosen writes, but I would most humbly and respectfully state only one real impediment stops this fine mental and publishing model, the abandonment of mission of the American journalism corps. When those poor bought sniveling fools decide to grow up and accept their mission—presenting political truth for the little people and country—then indeed change will occur.
When and if that holy day ever arrives it would be such a great service to us all to see Mr. Rosen’s model get a spin. As it stands now the little people grimly wait, hoping for any path that will lead to peace, jobs, and care for our people and country, not the savvy insider trash our current political reporting offers.