Media

My past Sundays were often built around your shows.  In Portland-unless there is sports or other special programming interruptions-we can have it all.  Face the Nation at 8:30; Meet the Press at 9:00; and This Week at 10:00.  We don’t have to choose.  Before 11 rolled around yesterday I was praying for a sports interruption.

The Newt Gingrich/Howard Dean face-off on This Week was good.  Watching Newt defend Sara Palin’s death panel comment left me amazed and sick-I couldn’t quite decide.  Howard Dean gave a strong, on-point performance.  I was puzzled, George, that some of your questions and set ups for discussion misidentified Dean’s current organizational connections.  Even after he corrected you, you still incorrectly stated he was airing ads aimed at conservative Democrats.  But given the guest segments on all the other shows Dean/Gingrich was a stand out.

Much of what I’ve found most helpful on past shows comes from discussions by panels of journalists, pundits and political operatives.  Perspective is clearly included in the opinions.  Often I disagree.  Yet I find illumination.  Increasingly you are standing my world on its head.

Consider the health care debate.  With democracy under attack by organized thugs taking over town halls, with Republican leaders mouthing lies conjured up in strategy plans written by health insurance special interest groups, with a former Vice Presidential candidate actually claiming health reform will bring “death panels,” you all manage to avoid even naming reality.  Hello darkness.

In the early years of America, journalism was practiced by a very large variety of local publications.  Nearly all reflected a political perspective, but choice was abundant.  Reading blogs on the Internet is technology taking us back to the future.  Of course there is a downside.  But we don’t have to settle for information from sources without the eyes to see or the ears to hear.  The health care debate is only the latest sad example.

Ah Bob, David and George, you seem headed toward sharing the fate of today’s newspapers.  God I miss Walter Cronkite.

Paul Krugman’s two columns this week in the New York Times are a great help in sorting through the health care debate.  It’s most effective to read them in full online.  Here’s a quick synopsis:

Monday:
Obama’s proposed reform rests on four pillars:
Regulation:  an example is requiring insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions.
Mandates:  everyone must have insurance.  Creating such a large pool of those covered helps manage costs because healthier individuals will be paying insurance premiums.
Competition:  a public option in which government would provide coverage in competition with private insurance companies.
Subsidies:  providing help to the poor to pay for health insurance.  This idea includes proposals for cutting medical costs-such as establishing a panel that would set Medicare reimbursement rates-to avoid future deficits.

Any attack on one of the pillars increases the future cost of the American health care system.  Republicans and Blue Dog’s are fighting for compromises that would remove one or more of the pillars.  That will increase future deficits.

Friday:
Our broken health care system remains marginally functional only because of government involvement.  Those obtaining insurance privately are at the mercy of private insurance companies that spend enormous sums on efforts to deny payment to those covered.  These companies, by the way, refer to payments for health care as “losses.”  Those of us with insurance through employers get the protection of government regulation.  Government requires employer provided, non-taxed health benefits, to cover pre-existing conditions and not reduce benefits to more highly paid employees.

There is some thoughtful work on this crucial topic in the generally vast wasteland of the media.  Thank you Dr. Krugman.

Conflict defines our era.  In its natural state it need not be a bad thing.  Grappling with big issues almost always includes conflict.  Ignoring or hiding from it isn’t healthy.  Organizations and groups unable to confront it are at risk.  Compulsively seeking conflict, however, is not natural.  It is an illness.

Today media demands it.  Politics exploits it.  The result is we’re all increasingly conditioned psychologically to need conflict.

Consider the President’s last news conference.  With one exception the focus is the most significant topic of the day:  health care.  Given the issue is mired in the legislative process (hardly ever a pretty site) excitement is not the adjective describing the event.  Dealing with difficult issues that are in process rarely is.  That our President can skillfully work through complexity is.  Few among the pundits give credit where it is due.

Then the final question tailor made for the modern media.  As the cable commentators dissect the President’s response to the arrest of an African-American Harvard scholar saliva fairly drips from their mouths.  Classic conflict with classic black and white sides has since filled countless hours of media time and space.  It is cheap and easy.

Two people with opposing views yelling at one another does not advance any cause.  The healthy experience of conflict involves process-one that allows those involved to work through the best available information.  Is there a doctor in the house?

In the darkness of modern America my best theraputic step toward sanity is watching The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.  Frankly, he has saved my ass.

Every practitioner in American media, and everyone who cares about it, needs to watch Jon Stewart’s interview with Jim Cramer of CNBC.  From the trillions of lost dollars and the resulting anguish for millions around the globe, an authentic, indignant voice climbs to the top of the rubble.  And that voice delivers truth.

In the process CNBC is indicted and convicted not of failed journalism but of complicity in the criminal activities of this nation’s financial system.  As Cramer employs the standard PR strategy of “mea culpa,” Stewart employs videotape replaying Cramer’s crimes.

CNBC’s experience on the Daily Show is just reward for performance.  But it is a stand in for all of American media.  As it trumpets its own brilliance and courage in standing for us all the media enlarges the question of where were they as this crisis festered.

Watching Stewart dissect his guest is uncomfortable.  He is merciless.  Watching Cramer’s leaves you wondering why he would agree to participate.

The answer is found in the New York Times.  This confrontation on The Daily Show so significant it is covered in a front-page story on the electronic version of the New York Times.  The reason for Cramer’s appearance calls us to a deeper reality:

“…while Mr. Stewart clearly won the debate, Mr. Cramer and CNBC stood to profit from the encounter. In today’s television news market, the cable network and its stars are like the financiers they cover - media short-sellers trading shamelessly on publicity, good or bad, so long as it drives up ratings. There isn’t enough regulation on Wall Street, and there’s hardly any accountability on cable news: it’s a 24-hour star system where opinions - and showmanship - matter more than facts.”

This is the epitaph of “broadcast journalism.”  If we seek a re-write there is one source capable of moving pen on paper:  the audience.  Us.

In the mid 1990s, Peter Senge, the genius architect of learning organizations, gave us a clear truth.  Working with complexity is the defining reality of our era.  Crisis after crisis since has proven Senge prescient.  Our abilities are not tested by challenges rising in tones of black and white.  They are dressed in vibrant, multi-colors.  We’re holding a collection of Rubik’s Cubes.

Watching the Sunday news shows the mouth puckers with stale dissatisfaction.  Lips smack to the familiar aftertaste of the antiquated frame these shows use to consider issues that define us.  One or two Democrats sit across from one or two Republicans.  All complexity cloaked in the garb of party talking points and “philosophy.”  Another cage fight framed by the imperatives of a struggle for political power.  The serious work needed to find answers hides in the fog.

By the way, why do Republicans get so much airtime?  Why do they get to lie?  U.S. Representative Eric Cantor (R-VA) says on This Week, “No Republican wants the Administration to fail.”  His point caught in the echo of de-facto Republican Party leader Rush Limbaugh again preying for the failure of President Obama.  The Sunday shows seem hell bent to rescue the GOP from two defining words:  region, minor.

The acid eating the Sunday shows is manufactured in their conceptual frame.  The collapsing economy, a radical new national budget, ending a nightmare war are not proper topics for bumper sticker debate.  Raze and rebuild the frame.  Bill Moyers Journal proves an alternative each Friday night on PBS.  Discovering group wisdom within complex challenges offers an escape from history’s very bad verdict.

We watch it crumble before our eyes.  The once proud Meet the Press races the economy for the bottom.  Not with a bang does this occur but with a whimper-from the lips of David Gregory.

The idea for February 22, 2009, must have been for the two Republican governors to explain their conflicting positions on the Stimulus Plan.  Enter Governor Jindal of Louisiana.  Using all his time attacking President Obama he ignores the program design.  Jindal’s complaint:  Louisiana businesses would have to pay higher taxes to fund required payments to the unemployed.  Gregory sputters, clarifying his knowledge of this aspect of the stimulus plan.

The New York Times lead editorial February 24, 2009, explains, finally:  “States that accept the stimulus money aimed at the unemployed are required to abide by new federal rules that extend unemployment protections to low-income workers and others who were often shorted or shut out of compensation.  …positive changes that have already taken place in at least half the states.  …The governors are blowing smoke when they suggest that the federal unemployment aid would lead directly to new state taxes.”

That Gregory did not know is all the more critical given Meet the Press chose to invite only Republicans to speak on Sunday.  Nor did the pundit panel share information critical in considering Jindal’s argument.  Further into the discussion, Gregory asserts many are unhappy with the President’s housing plan.  He keys off a diatribe by a CNBC anchor earlier in the week-similar points from those sharing similar knowledge.

Gregory always tenses when the media is criticized for what it allowed in the Bush years.  As contrary evidence he sites his occasional argument with the Press Secretary.  Unmentioned is his occasional singing and dancing with Karl Rove at the Gridiron banquet.

A friend who follows media explains NBC’s choice of Gregory for Meet the Press:  Gregory is back-up male anchor to Matt Lauer of the Today Show.  The network wants someone to stand and wait.  Threatening to leave NBC if he wasn’t selected for Meet the Press Gregory triggered the Peter Principle.

The death of Tim Russert touched so many hearts.  His knowledge, his joy in his work, lit Meet the Press.  The wound remains raw each passing Sunday.

Partisan hatred sewn and reaped in the Bush years augmented broadcast media moguls favorite activity:  cost cutting.  Invite one hater to sit across the table from another and let them scream.  Coffee and donuts in the green room are cheap.

In years past reporters filled the time covering specific topical areas.  The daily work enlightened us and deepened their learning.  The process grew a more neutral expertise in reporter and audience.  When someone got out of line seeking partisan advantage, reporters could call bullshit.  This model costs more than coffee and donuts.

Historically, broadcast media owners demand a high rate of return for money invested.  In an era of limited media outlets it was easy.  Selling time required someone to answer the phone when sponsors called.  Technology caused change as it grew the number of media outlets.  The demand for high return on investment remained static.

Sunday’s Frank Rich column in the New York Times chronicles once again how the pundits got it all wrong.  Listening to them you’d think President Obama’s administration had collapsed in its first month.  The stimulus vote and opinion polls easily dispel the narrative.  Broadcast media stands in the wreckage of its culture shock.

The elections of 06 and 08 did more than bring more Democrats to office.  The jury returned.  American voters ended an era.  They concluded the time when effective talking points could mask the lack of effective action.  Media is mired in the trap of the old model.  Building reality with false talking points isolates participants inside false conclusions.

We await change born from confronting the culture shock.  A new dawn lights America.  Broadcast media continues to labor in the darkness of the long night.

Before the commentaries on specific reporting by the media comes some foundational work.  Like most I have drawn conclusions from experience.  The most basic is that the best journalism creates a shared context for community.

Broadcast journalism occupied more of my adult years than any other work.  It holds a special place in my heart-usually the sad part.  A fierce advocate for my vision of this important electronic calling, I have rarely seen it.  There is Bill Moyers.  There is Jon Stewart.  There is NPR.  So perhaps I can reflect inside something other than a scream.

Many years ago my mother toured an Albuquerque TV station where I anchored the local news.  As she passed through the hallway with all the media awards she turned to me, “I hope I can meet this Media (Ma-dee’-ah) person-he’s certainly won a lot of awards.”  Laughter does ease the pain.

America’s version of broadcast journalism is one more example of our inability to harness capitalism.  It has devoured most real examples of the form.  In its wake we get a Lawrence Welk experience.  When I started my career, you could hear Aaron Copeland-literally.  It was the theme music for CBS Reports.

Television has always determined its ad rates by the size of its total audience.  Newscasts don’t seek to create niche markets with thoughtful coverage.

The Golden Era of television news was buried in the early 70s.  The part of funeral director played by the News Consultant promising station owners more ad revenue from ever bigger audiences.  They surveyed the masses in each community.  Built, or so they said, a newscast tailored to “what the audience wants.”  Inane chatter among on-air folks, and a selection of news stories based on the philosophy “if it bleeds it leads” were the major ingredients.  The format swept local television stations.  A long, slow death rattle was heard in the land.

A friend of mine once shared a theory explaining the spiraling down that has continued.  Each year the audience is surveyed and the news is programmed to the common denominator.  As the product is dumbed down, the outer edge of intelligent viewers leaves.  The common denominator diminishes each year.

This is a sad story.  But in the abundance of the new American hope, we may yet find a happy ending.  The Internet offers alternatives to the deadly local newscast.  Technology gives access to the tools to broadcast pictures and sound.  As they are used in increasing numbers, we listen for the new music.