This morning (December 9) on NPR, Cokie Roberts commented on the attacks, by Republicans, on Newt Gingrich and other Republicans for saying nice things about Mandela. To “balance” her observations of actual reality, she made something up.
“I’m sure the President is getting blowback for bringing [President Bush] on the plane with him.”
As MoDem points out in their Daily Kos post, this is “Today’s Winner in False equivalency.”
Cokie’s fiction also got some well deserved attention on the NPR website as well, under the ironic title “Praise For Mandela Crosses Borders, Partisan Lines.” I especially liked the comments by David Frye, melish46, schoolmarm, and patwm. By the way, searching the internet I have found NO ONE attacking Obama for taking Bush on his plane, nor did any of the other commentators on Cokie’s fiction I’ve referenced here. She just made it up.
To see how real journalists might actually handle this story, I recommend the article on Time’s website (!) by Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy:
“Obama and Bush Share a Ride on Air Force One: State funerals like Nelson Mandela’s have often given presidential adversaries the opportunity to heal wounds and start new friendships.” It is a beautiful piece of analysis that actually sparks a bit of hope in my old cynical anarchist heart that even those who rule us so thoughtlessly are human and capable of change.
The bigger question is why is mainstream media so bad? Why do people like Cokie Roberts get a national platform to invent things to fit their preconceptions while thoughtful people, like David Frye, melish46, schoolmarm, and patwm, are relegated (after being forced to register) to the comments sections of web sites like NPR? And, by the way, I consider NPR corporate media not just because corporations mainly sponsor it, but because the way they cover the news is the same as the corporate media, with false equivalencies, the usual suspects being asked the same old questions, and a desperate desire not to offend the rich and powerful. Try Democracy Now! for some real journalism.
And why is the main stream media so bad? It is the economy, stupid. The political economy. Not in a simple left-right schema, an almost irrelevant mapping going back to debates in the French Estates-General during their revolution over 200 years ago, but in a “what is the easiest way to make money” kind of calculation that makes theoretically “left” forums such as NPR as unhelpful to the political discourse as Fox.
Having an established “brand” and/or talking head is more important than being thoughtful, helpful, or even accurate. Why was Henry Kissinger the go-to analyst for all mainstream media for decades? Because he was so right about nuclear weapons? Vietnam? The effect of letting the Shah come to the US for medical treatment? The outcome of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan? No, no, no and no. He was wrong on all of these. He made a career of being wrong on major issues. But he was establishment, he had name recognition, he dated models.
Why is Francis Fukuyama a major voice on world wide politics and even on such issues as “posthumanism” when he started his career declaring the “End of History” (a claim that collapsed along with the two towers) and he knows very little, as far as this discerning reader can tell, of science, technology, or anything other than Hegal really? The bottom line. He is a known commodity, whose pontifications fit into what the mainstream media hopes to hear. No disturbing insights, no surprising shifts in his thinking…just good ol’ neo-conservatism (despite Fukuyama's rejection of the label) to go with Cokie Roberts’ neo-liberalism. So we can enjoy the full range of acceptable opinion, from moderate Right to Hegalian Right. Nothing else is profitable.