On November 21, CNN published an op-ed by conservative journalist S.E. Cupp called “Why conservatives lost faith in mainstream media,”[1] in which she opines over how the mainstream media has become—in her words—an “elitist outfit with a blind spot for conservative America.” In it, she calls for a higher level of integrity among the conservative media, while ironically using the same sloppy rhetoric that’s kept their bar low for so long. While her call is commendable, she demonstrates the choice that many in the conservative media have made to embrace mythology and entertainment over logic and truth. This choice is not only morally dubious, but it is one that endangers the health of our democracy in the era of Trump. These are dangers Cupp herself shows she is clearly aware of, yet she’s unable to conceive a strategy to mitigate the threat. Since the best defense the American public has against these practices is awareness, Cupp’s words are worth observing and unpacking.
Her essay begins with typical conservative complaints about the failings of the mainstream media, celebrates the rise of Limbaugh and Fox News, then decries the current state of affairs in the Trump era, then ends with a call for higher journalistic standards among the conservative media.
It is that last part, where she laments the loss of trust in the media and makes what appears to be a sincere and significant call to the conservative media at large that I found to be of greatest worth.
Sowing distrust in [the media] ... not only creates confusion and chaos, it leads to ill-fated uprisings
(like white nationalism), needless paranoia, increased hostilities and a collective sense that no one
can be trusted.
Hear, hear. Her prescriptions for fixing this situation are also sensible and straight forward:
Journalists can help themselves by, simply put, being better at our jobs. ... The media must prove it is
deserving of the trust it desires. Mistakes, which will happen, must be corrected swiftly. ...
Conservative journalism, in particular, must provide clear-eyed commentary and analysis in the era of
Trump.
... the uniting principle among conservatives in media must be truth.
These are all commendable sentiments, but she fails to acknowledge the role of the conservative media in creating the current state of affairs she so deplores. This is a common failing among otherwise respectable conservative commentators. They are awake enough to see the dangers present in our society, but are not willing or able to look inside their own house for their share of the cause and cure.
While I very much agree with Cupp that conservative media should have the quest for the truth as a foundational principle, it doesn’t, and it’s not going to any time soon. That’s because although the driving intent behind the mainstream media is to inform, the driving intent behind conservative media is to influence. When informing the public is your overriding goal, adherence to truthfulness is a very necessary principle needed to fulfill that goal. When influencing the public is your goal, bringing hearts and minds into your cause becomes the measuring stick of success, and the degree to which the truth is employed becomes a secondary consideration.
Cupp extols the rise of figures such as Limbaugh and Fox News, who ushered in a wave of popular media that brought conservatism to the masses by making it easy to understand and abide, but did so at the cost of journalistic integrity. Yes, these commentators and networks got the conservative story out that she feels the mainstream media failed to adequately represent, but they did so using vitriol, rhetorical fallacies, and, at times, willful dishonesty.
If that last charge seems outrageous, one just needs to look at the Daily Show’s list of 50 false statements made on Fox News, compiled by Politifact in February 2015.[2] Each statement was made either by one of the network’s hosts or by its guests and left unchallenged. Politifact also analyzed each falsehood, demonstrating why the statement can be reasonably considered untrue. To my knowledge, Fox News has yet to retract, clarify, or otherwise rectify any of them.
By contrast, let’s look at some recent examples of sloppy reporting on the part of the mainstream media—for example, CNN’s reporting that Anthony Scaramucci had met with members of a Russian investment fund.[3] Or the time the Washington Post erroneously reported that Russian hackers had successfully penetrated the U.S. electric grid.[4] In both cases, the Post and CNN owned up to their mistakes and took responsibility. Both posted retractions; in CNN’s case, two journalists and one editor resigned over the story.[5]
Mistakes will always be made, but those are the actions of professionals who hold the truth as a uniting principle. Yet there were no recriminations over Fox’s false statements in the mainstream media or from the public at large, except for left-wing media monitoring sites and blogs, which were largely ignored.
The reality is that Fox News is not held to the same level of accountability as outfits like CNN and the Post because the erroneous statements made on its network are the business’s product, and not anomalies to be corrected. Each of the false statements in the Daily Show’s list was intended to influence public opinion toward the conservative point of view at that time, and turning around and publishing a retraction or apology would have only worked against that intent.
So when Cupp states, “Mistakes, which will happen, must be corrected swiftly,” who is she talking to? The mainstream media already adheres to this principle, and most of the conservative media have no motivation to abide by it. (For another side-by-side comparison of this difference at work, I recommend reading the article “A tale of two networks” by Laurel Raymond.[6])
These false or misleading statements are not random or without purpose. They are designed to build a well-crafted narrative intended to sway public opinion towards the conservative media’s favored policies and representatives. This narrative takes different forms depending on the issue, audience, or events at hand; a popular one is the “us vs. them” myth. This myth is built using a paradigm called the persecutor-victim-rescuer triad. It typically goes something like this: “You are the victim having your way of life threatened or assaulted; they are the liberal media persecuting you for not abiding by their dangerous and unseemly ways; we in the conservative media are your rescuer, standing up for you against this assault.”
If you think I’m exaggerating at all, you can find an example of this paradigm right in the title of Cupp’s op-ed, “Why conservatives lost faith in mainstream media.” The title states conservatives “lost faith” in the mainstream media, as if there was a time when they had it. If there was, her op-ed does nothing to illuminate when that was, and fails to describe the form that faith took. That’s because there was never a time when conservative leaders and publishers had “faith” in the mainstream media, because it didn’t serve their goals. As far back as the 50s, in conservative papers such as Human Events, there was an inherent distrust of non-conservative media, and Richard Nixon was famously hostile to the mainstream press.[7] So with a few clicks on her keyboard, Cupp has deftly set up a takedown of the mainstream press based largely on a false premise that sets the reader up for a persecutor-victim-rescuer triad.
Cupp makes it clear that the mainstream media has been the persecutor, with statements such as, “As the [mainstream] media merged with Hollywood ... it grew even bolder in its disregard for the common man ...” Who were “the common man” being set up as the victims? “... the commuting salesman, the farmer, the churchgoer, the truck driver.” And who is coming to the rescue? “When liberal anchors or editorial boards ... slammed conservatives ... we called them out” (emphasis added).
With the triad in place, she cements the mythology in one sentence:
But with Drudge, Limbaugh and Fox flexing their considerable muscles, the conservative skepticism of
"the media" became a conservative skepticism of the "liberal media," or as Sarah Palin liked to say, the
"Lamestream Media."
Here she presents the essential drama, with conservative stalwarts “flexing their muscles” like superheroes, being “skeptical” of any media that’s not on “our” side— i.e., “lame.” The narrative we’re being served here also glosses over the misdeeds and occasional cruelty (anyone remember Sandra Fluke?[8] ) these figures perpetrated in order to gain their stature, while laughably praising them for their “skepticism.” I would be trolled right off the blogs, both conservative and liberal, if I went in there writing about how powerful Rush Limbaugh became through the force of his “skepticism.”
The purpose of going through this analysis is to demonstrate how easily credibility can be conjured by spinning a self-made myth. The frequency and audacity with which the conservative media employs these methods not only puts the free press as a whole in danger, but it also destroys the credibility of any honest conservative media and ideas. When they choose to rely solely upon methods of influence, conservative media may be effective at winning hearts and minds in the short term, but that support is built on fantasy. In the long term, the unrelenting force of reality will ultimately destroy the fantasy. The question then becomes not when reality will crash the party, but who will suffer when it does.
If you don’t believe that reliance upon fantasy can have dangerous consequences, then let’s talk about Donald Trump.
Now the consequences are getting real, and that’s reflected in the radically different tone Cupp takes when she moves to the subject of Trump. Now we hear distress:
As he faced incoming fire from both sides ... being mad at the liberal media wasn't going to cut it.
Suddenly, ALL media was bad, and ALL news was fake.
...
Trump has bragged about that fact that more conservatives trust him than they do the media. But it's
nothing to be proud of. It's something that should deeply trouble everyone ...
Yes, yes indeed, it should. We have elected a man who exists deep in a realm of fantasy, compulsively spinning lies and half-truths that are shocking both in their venom and transparency.
Cupp’s prescription for this state of affairs is a stronger, “more clear-eyed” conservative media that prizes truth as its uniting principle. We should all be in favor of that. But the hand-wringing is too little, too late. In truth, Trump’s ascent was enabled by a public zeitgeist that had already been put in place over the course of years by the conservative media’s deliberate choice to employ mythologies like the persecutor-victim-rescuer triad, rather than exercising the higher ideals Cupp now implores them to use. This choice created a bubble that insulated candidate Trump from losing the support of the American electorate in the face of events that would have tanked any normal candidate—the Access Hollywood tape, the numerous groundless and transparent lies, his policy ignorance, and his un-presidential demeanor.
I’m disappointed that it has taken until now, when she sees her own camp being threatened, for Cupp to decide it’s time to raise the journalistic bar. The damage the conservative media’s influence-peddling has done to the spirit and clearheaded thinking of the American public—those commuting salesmen, farmers, churchgoers, and truck drivers she proudly defends—is devastating, but I’m also encouraged that she sees it is time for a change. To recover, this country will need all the truth-loving journalism it can muster. At this point, though, that’s no longer enough.
Nixon didn’t give in to the charges of Watergate until Senator Barry Goldwater came to the White House to tell Nixon he’d lost the support of his own party. Nixon, understanding the truism from baseball, “When your own man calls you out, you’re out,” resigned shortly thereafter. Nixon’s scandal damaged the Republican brand, but there was a point where the party leadership had to put the needs of the country over the needs of the party.
Today, Trump feels completely empowered to do all the disservice he’s been doing to the country and its free press because his own team will not call him out on it. I wonder if Cupp is willing to uphold those principles of journalistic truth she expounds, even if it means calling her own side out. Because that would mean having to take responsibility and stand accountable for the role she and her camp played in creating this mess. That would mean having to make the choice to face reality and move away from the fantasy. That would mean choosing to inform the American people about the strengths and benefits of conservative ideas and letting them choose which course is best for them, instead of trying to sell them on a mythology.
The consequences of failing to do these things are now more dire than just the behavior of Donald Trump or the loss of conservative influence. We’ve seen that state actors like Russia are copying the conservative media playbook. They are using the same methods to build myths of their own and wield their own influence over the public.[9][10] A public that can be influenced by a set of tactics and mythologies used by domestic media is vulnerable to influence by the use of those same tactics and mythologies by a foreign power. That should be a rallying cause for all American journalists—conservative, liberal, and everything in between. But inoculating the populace to these tactics would involve waking them up to the lies, myths, and fantasies that have been perpetrated upon them for so long. That’s not something established political powers will want to dismantle on their own, but the process can begin if we have conservative journalists who are truly willing to place truth above all else, including their own ideology and influence.
If Cupp, along with other conservative commentators like her, chooses to place the needs of the country above the needs of party or ideology, America has a chance. I hope for all of our sakes that the intentions behind her call are sincere, and that her words are heeded.
Citations:
[1] S.E. Cupp, “Why conservatives lost faith in mainstream media.” CNN, Nov. 21, 2017: http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/16/opinions/conservatives-and-media-distrust-opinion-cupp/index.html
[2] “The fact-checks behind 'The Daily Show's' 50 Fox news 'lies' ”, Politifact, Feb. 26, 2015, http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2015/feb/26/fact-checks-behind-daily-shows-50-fox-news-lies/
[3] Retracted story, CNN: http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/23/politics/editors-note/index.html
[4] “Russian operation hacked a Vermont utility, showing risk to U.S. electrical grid security, officials say.” Washington Post, Dec. 31, 2016: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/russian-hackers-penetrated-us-electricity-grid-through-a-utility-in-vermont/2016/12/30/8fc90cc4-ceec-11e6-b8a2-8c2a61b0436f_story.html
[5] “CNN retracts story about Russia ties with Trump campaign.” Washington Post, June 27, 2017: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2017/06/27/the-cnn-retraction-and-the-danger-of-relying-on-one-anonymous-source/
[6] “A tale of two networks: How Fox News and CNN handled recent retractions.” Think Progress, June 27, 2017: https://thinkprogress.org/fox-news-cnn-retraction-6fffbc589fe6/
[7] Nicole Hemmer, Messengers of the Right: Conservative Media and the Transformation of American Politics. University of Pennsylvania Press, ISBN 0812248392: https://www.amazon.com/Messengers-Right-Conservative-Transformation-American/dp/0812248392/
[8] “Sandra Fluke, Georgetown student called a ‘slut’ by Rush Limbaugh, speaks out”, by Maggie Fazeli Fard, The Washington Post, March 2, 2012, https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-buzz/post/rush-limbaugh-calls-georgetown-student-sandra-fluke-a-slut-for-advocating-contraception/2012/03/02/gIQAvjfSmR_blog.html
[9] “Russian operatives used Facebook ads to exploitAmerica’s racial and religious divisions”, by Adam Entous, Craig Timberg andElizabeth Dwoskin, The Washington Post, September 25, 2017, https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/russian-operatives-used-facebook-ads-to-exploit-divisions-over-black-political-activism-and-muslims/2017/09/25/4a011242-a21b-11e7-ade1-76d061d56efa_story.html
[10] “How Russian Propaganda Spreads On Social Media”, NPR, October 29, 2017, https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2017/10/29/560461835/how-russian-propaganda-spreads-on-social-media