- A curtain of prescribed patriotism has dropped over our
TV news screens, obscuring all but the most ratings-driven stories.
-
- That sounds mighty like business as usual, as if the
war on terrorism were the O.J. trial, the Monica/impeachment process or
the travails of Gary Condit. Even the barely readable and often dissonant
crawl of "other news" (Paula Jones remarries in Little Rock as
bombs fall on Kabul) across the bottom of our screens is not reporting
what's going on backstage of the red- white-and-blue curtain of war and
national unity.
-
- Three media-related factors are converging to produce
the gap-toothed smile of self-satisfaction we now see on the screen. First,
the ratings climb of Fox News, a blatantly biased, conservative news
service
that is challenging the long-time supremacy of the more balanced news
networks.
Fox News is gaining viewers and, consequently, ground in the all-important
revenue race.
-
- That's not because there is a larger conservative
audience.
It is because Fox is more passionate, less inhibited and deliberately more
dissident, especially to the mainstream press. The Fox formula provokes,
engages - entertains, if you will. It's not a signal to imitation or a
press pass to the Right, as some less imaginative media executives appear
to think. It's more an incentive for other news outlets to find the missing
voices and fresher formulas, without betraying their bedrock journalistic
principles.
-
- Also behind the "seens" are business interests
that ceaselessly seek to advance their own ends, in shameful exploitation
of the national mood of generosity of spirit and muted politics.
-
- Coincident with them are their media colleagues and
cronies,
including Fox, who themselves, war or no, are lobbying to get rid of the
remnants of broadcast regulation. Despite ongoing giveaways to them, the
media industry wants more: relaxation of cross-ownership rules, tax rebates
and final burial rites for the requirement - some would say the patriotic
requirement - that it serve the public interest, convenience and necessity
in exchange for the license to broadcast. In other words, the corporate
owners of the news networks are looking for favors from an administration
they are covering. In journalistic circles, this is known as conflict of
interest and a breach of ethics.
-
- Finally, there's the right-wing media watchdog, the Media
Research Center, which states, "We are training our guns on any media
outlet or reporter interfering with America's war on terrorism or [trying]
to undermine President Bush." It has already targeted the presidents
of CBS and ABC, both of whom flinched in the face of its attack.
-
- But even if the news reports are focusing on the hunt
for Osama bin Laden and the fallen Taliban, the politics of Washington
go on. What's not being covered are the previously debated policies of
President George W. Bush and his administration and the wheelings and
dealings
of lobbyists that are going on in the dark wings of our threatened national
security. There are issues and actions deserving of daylight and debate.
There are decisions being made that could - that will - have as profound
an impact on the future as an international web of terrorists.
-
- The budget surplus has disappeared down a rabbit hole
of tax cuts and post-Sept. 11 emergencies that sprung the lock on the
lockbox
of Social Security. This matters to a lot of citizens dependent on Social
Security benefits in the future, who will find they are as poor as the
Enron employees whose retirement funds were tied up in a politically
well-connected
company engaging in deceptive accounting processes.
-
- Then there is the falsely labeled "economic stimulus
package," aimed not at temporary measures to get the economy going
again but at long-term and retroactive tax giveaways to corporations and
the wealthiest Americans - gifts that come without any quid-pro-quo
requirements
that could connect legislative intent to the desired outcome. Even news
organizations could not ignore the recession that made the stimulus debate
so urgent, but anyone looking for facts or genuine philosophical
disagreement
about how to get the good years rolling again would not have heard anything
but headlines or the blame game from television news.
-
- Not to mention energy policy, campaign finance reform,
setbacks for anti-trust laws, defense spending, the health-care crisis,
the impending states' deficit crisis and many other issues that comprise
the serious and essential side of informing the public.
-
- It appears the news media, no less than the politicians,
have been swayed by the Bush ultimatum "either you're with us or for
terrorism" - which is more a non-sequitur than a syllogism. It's not
just Dick Cheney, our fearless vice president, who is hiding in a secure
location because of the terrorist threat. The entire government, aided
by the shield of the press, is concealing itself in the cave of crisis
and war.
- ___
-
- Joan Konner is professor and Dean Emerita at the Columbia
University Graduate School of Journalism. Copyright (c) 2002, Newsday,
Inc.
-
- http://www.newsday.com/
|