Let's see now. Big Media creates a debate in Iowa between the Democratic candidates. They (the media) devise the format and set the rules. (Yes, those decisions are often laundered through a third party like the Congressional Black Caucus or the League of Women Voters, but we're all grownups here, right?) They provide the moderator. They produce and present the event. And when the shooting stops, they determine the winners and losers, despite the fact that most of them know about as much about politics as I do about the mating habits of feral goats.
So, with all that in mind, here's media-exec Jeff Jarvis on yesterday's Democratic debate:
Tonight's presidential debate (I saw the last half) just proves Jay Rosen's points. The candidates don't answer a damned question; they stick tape carts in their mouths and hit "play." And afterward, on MSNBC, Chris Matthews goes on about who "won." What he should be doing is saying, "You guys didn't say jack! You wouldn't answer the questions. You didn't advance the debate. You didn't advance the conversation. You wasted our damned time." That's the unspun zone.
No, Jeff, here's the unspun zone: You're a public official, and you've spent your whole life preparing to offer yourself to the people of this republic -- your core beliefs, your deepest hopes for the nation, your fundamental vision of just what this grand old experiment called America is all about -- and what you discover is that "the process" is essentially a dumbed-down game show (more Hollywood Squares than Jeopardy) created and produced by an (often) well-intentioned but (usually) willfully ignorant press corps who've completely bought into the thoroughly corrupt idea that responsible citizenship is, in Mr. Quayle's famous formulation, just another lifestyle choice. (Only a lavishly-paid member of the media overclass could describe a desperately important question like, Who the hell's gonna pay for the treatments if my kid gets cancer? as a typical MEGO issue that only matters to a few wonky types in the Beltway.) And to top it all off, if you play by the rules as they exist -- the rules that the press has imposed on a game that they control -- reporters call you a sell-out, and bask in the warm glow of smug self-satisfaction as they look down their noses at you and the rest of men and women who would be President of the United States.
What a bunch of hooey. And the saddest part is that we voters have only ourselves to blame: As long as we keep eating the dog food, Big Media will keep serving it up by the bowlful.
POSTSCRIPT: If it hadn't been Jeff Jarvis who wrote those words, I probably wouldn't be this irritated. But as a regular reader (and a genuine fan) of his blog, I know that he's way too smart and savvy about the media culture we live in to actually believe the faux-populist crapola he was peddling in that post.
Posted by Jack O'Toole on November 25, 2003 05:26 AM"As long as we keep eating the dog food, Big Media will keep serving it up by the bowlful."
I'm sure this is true, but the implication, that we should not watch, is tough. I want to see the candidates, and if a stage-managed debate is the only forum in which to see them, then I'll watch. And, I'd worry that if more people tune out, the debates will slide even more into infotainment, not back into seriousness. So what's a voter to do?
Posted by: ogged on November 25, 2003 02:53 PMgood question ogged.
That aside, I'd say you're too optimistic about politicians, Jack. I think they're actively cooperating with the media in this. I think this view is supported by having a look at local elections, where the same pattern holds, though there are fewer constraints. A candidate for the presidency might not be able to break the code of conduct without serious harm to his campaign, but in local elections a strategy of real communications might easily work.
Second, I think you're assumptions about character, about what makes someone seek office, is a bit naive. Certainly the people you describe do exist, but there's a whole host of other motives for seeking office (just as there's a whole host of other motives for becoming a journalist than the quest for truth and the desire to let people know about it). In fact, I'd say you're committing Jeff's error in reverse. While he impugns the motives of politicians, you impugn the motives of journalists and IMHO reality is that there's crooks and saints on both sides and the lowest common denominator determines the level of discourse.*
* which, come to think of it, provides an answer to ogged. If the public consistently watched the shows which provide real info, those would over time be produced more frequently. right?
markus --
First, let me apologize in advance for the paragraph I'm about to write because I just can't think of a way to say it without sounding at least a little pompous. More than a little, probably. Nonetheless ...
In my "real" (non-blog) life, I've been involved professionally in campaigns for public office on three continents, with the stakes ranging from local council seats to heads of gov't/heads of state. I may well be biased about the process, but naive I ain't.
My point, and perhaps I made it badly, was not that pols are somehow better than the rest of us, simply that they're no worse. Which means that they, by and large, dislike the process that forces them to become mindless automatons even more than you and I do, if only because it affects them so directly.
And that "process," as I've come to know it, anyway, is largely an outgrowth of the need to communicate in today's media environment. (What you call complicity, I call self-defense; in the nineties, the consulting firm I worked for saw one of its head of gov't clients destroyed in a non-scandal scandal simply because we couldn't convince him/her to play by the new, American-style media rules.)
Anyway, I seem to be going on here, and I didn't mean to, so I'll close with this: Most pols I've met (like most reporters, for that matter) are decent people trapped in a lousy system. And that system has more to do with us than with them. As long as most Americans consider watching a little TV news and showing up to vote once every four years the end, rather than just the beginning, of their civic responsibilities, we'll be trapped in this system that nobody would invent on purpose and that nobody likes in practice.
Posted by: Jack O'Toole on November 26, 2003 10:23 AM"...most of them know about as much about politics as I do about the mating habits of feral goats."
Here you go:
Given good nutrition and living conditions, Petrogale xanthopus breed all year long. In fact, females ovulate, mate, and conceive within a day of giving birth, making it very common for them to be pregnant 365 days a year. Their estrus cycle lasts from 30 to 32 days and they have a gestation period of 30 to 32 days. The embryo will develop and be born after the removal of the previous young. Pouch life then lasts anywhere from 189 to 227 days. Sexual maturity is reached in males at about 590 days and in females at about 540 days after birth. The litter size is typically one, but twins are not unheard of (Walton and Richardson 1989; Nowak 1999; Bates 2000).
source: http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/accounts/petrogale/p._xanthopus$narrative.html
no problem Jack. Though I was roughly aware of your career when I wrote. In fact, that's why I think your realisation, that the fault is inherent in the whole system, and can't be pinned down to one side was obscured by your defence of the pols. You seemed to blame the media, and I meant to point out, that to do so would be just as wrong as blaming the politicians.
Having established accord on the point that the fault is in the system as a whole, allow me disagree with you again on the diagnosis of the source for the system's creep. IMO, it's an iterative prisoner's dilemma, with lots of prisoners. Anyone who breaks ranks (either journo or pol) will loose, because some other journo or pol will take advantage of that. Either the pol will for viciously attacked for honestly saying "I don't know, I'm not sure about X" or the journo will spun like mad by some pol merely feigning to be interested in discussing the real issues. Alternatively, he just won't get published. The solution would be for some players on both sides to go back to real cooperation, which they could accomplish without the public, since the rewards in this game are not only (but also) dealt out by the public. This analysis does not change substantially if you include the public as a third group of players, defining their non-cooperative behaviour as staying at home on election day, developing a cynical attitude towards news and pols, and thereby shielding themselves from being reached by genuine attempts at dialogue. (You can't however place the blame on the public. They're just as good or bad as the pols and journos, "buying" what's offered, and loth to participate because they see the system stinks.)
The solution -in theory- is that all groups must try again and again to break the vicious circle, accepting the price they'll have to pay.
sidenote: to add to Ed's interesting piece of trivia ;), allow me to introduce you to the German word "Politikverdrossenheit", which is applied only to the public and -roughly- translates as "disenchantment with politics". "Verdrossenheit" is hard to capture, it's got elements of being miserable, downcast, sick of something, sullen etc. and a small element of despair.
Posted by: markus on November 26, 2003 08:24 PMI see your point, but disagree. People watch pols completely ignore the actual question while they then speechify about completely different things. Voters then say screw this.
Answer the damn question. You can't hope to get elected by avoiding them, or if you are, can't govern by doing so.
Is the format or process not what you want? Tough. Do the job, or get out.