By Jim Hoover
The members of our political equation leave a lot to be desired, from Congress to President Obama, on down to the voter. In the end, the people as intelligent and informed voters are a critical link to the preservation of democracy, especially in choosing their representatives in government.
That makes the mutants of the media especially important.
When the media badly mishandles, indeed misrepresents important news, we need to point that out, especially when it reveals a long-existing pattern.
A current case in point that almost sucked me into the mainstream orgy was the beltway media misrepresenting the intent and the context of President Obama’s speech before the Black Caucus.
From the Associated Press (AP) news releases to even those of the Huffington Post, which headlined “Obama Congressional Black Caucus Speech: Stop Complainin’ And Fight,” we saw out-of-context reporting. We expect Fox News to pitch its anti-Obama agenda, but its reporting seemed the same as the mainstream: “Obama Tells Congressional Black Caucus to ‘Stop Complaining’”
If you think that the media painstakingly and conscientiously reports the news, this is a prime example of all media – except Rachel Maddow on MSNBC – misrepresenting, in order to sell what attracts audiences — rancor and discord. Lines of Obama’s speech were stripped out to emphasize the particular media line, even agenda. The full text of several speeches was traced only (that I saw anyway) by Rachel Maddow to show Obama’s intent, which was to mobilize his base, to rouse them to positive action, asking for support to pass his much-touted jobs bill.
However, the “stop whining” soundbite was what made the rounds in a media that only wants to titillate and exacerbate pre-formed demons, by neatly distilling and compressing news into a homogenized form.
The media’s attitude and its pattern had been set for a long time. In essence media believes we have become a culture of glib globules of graffiti-like gabbing, social-network-sized, fit only for a weightless, if not a thoughtless, certainly not analytical, environment.
Reading the mainstream headlines, Rachel Maddow noted, “you might think the President gave a chiding, lecturing, finger-grabbing speech.” Instead, Maddow argued, it was a “Let’s-Get-Up-And-Go’ campaign speech that brought thunderous support from the crowd”– a crowd the media claims was getting scolded.
Now I’m not just touting one journalist’s approach over others.
Just look at where we are as a nation, as a democracy. You must know by now that we are extremely bent into a plutocratic (all-for-the-rich) shape, manipulated like pliable clay. It is done by the rich and powerful. For example, billionaires like the Koch Brothers legally seem to buy elected representatives in Congress or in states like Wisconsin. In our Supreme Court, justices like Clarence Thomas, who get favors from the rich and is ostensibly paid to attend conferences for the rich, rule in their favor. We have been legally ransacked by the greediest and the richest, for Wall Street moguls have plucked us clean like dressed chickens – sweeping away our chips like a crap game where they are the “house.”
My point is that we are engaged in a war for freedom and fairness. It is not being fought on foreign shores. The battle is here and now: education is being watered-down and priced out of reach for the middle class, jobs are going away, the media is plutocratically slanted.
Still free to fight our battles, though that freedom is waning, we must continue to aspire to truth and knowledge to defend our democracy. Increasingly both are being ripped away from us, for as George W. Bush used to say, “They hate us for our freedom.”
Now, I’m not so sure who “They” is.
