One of my favorite meta pop-culture arguments to ponder is the idea that the horror genre is actually “innately conservative, even reactionary” in ideology. The essence of fear as a tool to elicit an emotional response is to “re-establish our feelings of essential normality” in relation to the threat of change, whether that change be a fear of death or even radical social change. That’s why even though scary movies have more than enough violence and bare breasts to make most moral guardians clutch their pearls, most have a fundamental morality which allows the audience to accept the enjoyment of watching horrible things happen to people who break certain rules, with many of those rules aligning with the aims of Focus on the Family and other conservative assholes.
In fact, the Trump administration has been likened to Pennywise the Dancing Clown, an entity which feeds on human fears while making targets of the vulnerable and exacerbating the overall negative emotions of everyone in the community.
But the truth is Trump, the alt-right fascists, and the conservative movement in general are not the only monsters who “salt the meat” to exploit and consume societal fears. For the last half-century, the news media has done the exact same thing to varying degrees. Any criticism of this dynamic invariably engenders a response wherein pundits wrap themselves in the flag, use the First Amendment as a shield, and argue the nobility of purpose in screaming “but her emails!” while giving free airtime to a megalomaniacal fool. But if we’re being honest, it’s an industry which exploits tragedy, death, and scandal like a pack of vultures picking at a carcass, and invariably, just like a horror story, reinforces certain norms and etiquette as being essential.
Think this is an exaggeration? Just look at the way the media covers Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, where the substance of what she says is ignored or exaggerated to scare, in order to serve criticism of how she says it. Arguably, it’s not only fear mongering, but also a way to box in the conversation where there is no right way to say anything.
So this got me to thinking about what defines media bias as it truly exists.
An industry dominated by old white men
Demographics are not always destiny, but it’s interesting in all of the commentary about the fairness of media coverage no one really acknowledges a very large elephant in the room. Most of the cable pundits and columnists who drive political commentary tend to be middle-age to older white men. While, in-and-of itself, it shouldn’t mean anything, older white guys tend to be more conservative in view point on average. Add into this journalism has a long and sordid history of sexism which they’ve only recently started to come to terms with, and then wonder how it affects coverage of a political party which has women and people of color saying things old media “fuddy-duddys” think is not “appropriate” or “respectful” according to Washington press corps etiquette standards?
There are a lot of aspects of the 2016 presidential election, and the state of politics and media coverage over the past two years, which should give people pause and be areas of self-reflection for journalists. The media will have none of it, since like everyone else they never want to admit they’re wrong about a goddamn thing, including their part in obsessing over emails and always giving Trump free air time. But one of the more serious places of concern, especially since a lot of female Democrats are part of the field for 2020, is how the media’s own culture of sexual harassment affected coverage of Hillary Clinton. Stories about the abuse perpetrated by Mark Halperin, Matt Lauer, Glenn Thrush, Charlie Rose and others became symbols of how #MeToo is part of the news media. But one thing almost none of the pundits or columnists really want to consider is how the commentary of those men, as well as the abusive men who are still there unnamed, slanted the way they reported on 2016 and treated a female candidate.
From Jill Filipovic in The New York Times:
Many of the male journalists who stand accused of sexual harassment were on the forefront of covering the presidential race between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Matt Lauer interviewed Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Trump in an official “commander-in-chief forum” for NBC. He notoriously peppered and interrupted Mrs. Clinton with cold, aggressive, condescending questions hyper-focused on her emails, only to pitch softballs at Mr. Trump and treat him with gentle collegiality a half-hour later. Mark Halperin and Charlie Rose set much of the televised political discourse on the race, interviewing other pundits, opining themselves and obsessing over the electoral play-by-play. Mr. Rose, after the election, took a tone similar to Mr. Lauer’s with Mrs. Clinton — talking down to her, interrupting her, portraying her as untrustworthy. Mr. Halperin was a harsh critic of Mrs. Clinton, painting her as ruthless and corrupt, while going surprisingly easy on Mr. Trump. The reporter Glenn Thrush, currently on leave from The New York Times because of sexual harassment allegations, covered Mrs. Clinton’s 2008 campaign when he was at Newsday and continued to write about her over the next eight years for Politico.
A pervasive theme of all of these men’s coverage of Mrs. Clinton was that she was dishonest and unlikable. These recent harassment allegations suggest that perhaps the problem wasn’t that Mrs. Clinton was untruthful or inherently hard to connect with, but that these particular men hold deep biases against women who seek power instead of sticking to acquiescent sex-object status.
Rebecca Traister wrote in New York magazine that with the flood of sexual harassment charges, “we see that the men who have had the power to abuse women’s bodies and psyches throughout their careers are in many cases also the ones in charge of our political and cultural stories.” With the Lauer accusations, this observation has come into sharper focus on one particular picture: the media sexism that contributed to Hillary Clinton’s loss.
Being “the adult in the room” to the Media = Compromising
What is the virtue of a “bipartisan” compromise? I ask this in all sincerity, since to listen to the media talk about Washington is to hear a constant lament that people have differences of opinions. And part of the media’s “both sides” bullshit and being “fair and balanced” is trying to seem above it all by triangulating between the positions. So in a fight between someone correctly saying “2 + 2 = 4” and crazy people offering a load of bullshit about how “2 + 2 = 5,” the usual media response is to cover the various points of how maybe both sides have a point, and then offer an array of pundits wondering “why can’t both sides come together?” to agree “2 + 2 = 4.5” and call it a day.
One thing to note is the news media ONLY pushes for these insane compromises in one direction, and will never seriously entertain that maybe a Republican could find it in themselves to possibly vote for Medicare for All or higher taxes. This is why every so often the Washington Post editorial board offers up complete and total stupidity, and will criticize Democrats for not eating the plate of shit they’re served and liking it.
Reporters and media pundits believe they’re smarter than everyone else
Matt Taibi had a recent article in Rolling Stone, which while arguing a fair observation of Washington’s treatment of “AOC,” also drips with condescension about the “average American politician.” Expand this out to how some in the press corps feel out about political blogs and “regular” people’s opinions, and there might be just a whiff of elitism.
One of the first things you learn covering American politicians is that they’re not terribly bright.
The notion that Hill denizens are brilliant 4-D chess players is pure myth, the product of too many press hagiographies of the Game Change variety and too many Hollywood fantasies like House of Cards and West Wing.
The average American politician would lose at checkers to a zoo gorilla. They’re usually in office for one reason: someone with money sent them there, often to vote yes on a key appropriation bill or two. On the other 364 days of the year, their job is to shut their yaps and approximate gravitas anytime they’re in range of C-SPAN cameras … We’ve seen this a lot in recent weeks with the ongoing freakout over newcomer Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Lest anyone think any of the above applies to ‘AOC,’ who’s also had a lot to say since arriving in Washington, remember: she won in spite of the party and big donors, not because of them.
Racists are “conservative firebrands” instead of racists
Some months back, Meghan McCain defended Trump voters’ strained grasp of reality on The View by saying Republican voters are people who “didn’t have any other choice.” The great truth about white privilege is this: White people who act like horrible assholes get a certain benefit of a doubt and an active defense of rationalizations that people of color and other minority groups never do
From Yashar Ali at the Huffington Post:
“Be careful to avoid characterizing [King’s] remarks as racist,” reads the email, which two NBC News staffers shared with HuffPost. “It is ok to attribute to others as in ‘what many are calling racist’ or something like that.”
The email was sent to staffers by Susan Sullivan, a senior employee in the standards division at NBC News. In a news organization, the standards department offers guidance and issues rules about what is legally and ethically appropriate to report, and about how certain topics should be covered … Shortly after this story was initially published ... NBC News advised its staffers it was, in fact, fair to describe Rep. Steve King’s remarks on white supremacy as “racist.”
“We revised our guidance on Rep. Steve King’s comments,” reads an email from NBC News’ standards department that was shared with HuffPost. “It is fair to characterize King’s comments as ‘racist,’ and point out that he has a history of racist comments, and the context can be shared that others hold that view as well.”
They have problems calling a lie a lie … Because Republicans buy toothpaste and shitTY life insurance, too
A famous quote attributed to, but disputed by, Michael Jordan goes: “Republicans buy shoes, too.” It allegedly was Jordan’s response to questions about his refusal to inject his star power into the Senate race between Democrat Harvey Gantt and Republican Sen. Jesse Helms in his home state of North Carolina. The campaign was noteworthy for being ugly and very racist on Helms’ part.
The same dynamic is present in the news media, who because they’re owned by large, risk averse, corporate entities will jump through semantic hoops in order to not offend anyone in the audience—even the racist, lying assholes.
Even raping assholes get cut a break. This became an issue for the news media in the aftermath of the Brock Turner case, when certain organizations refused to call him a rapist in their reports. The argument put forward by TIME and others was a semantic one which relied on a strict reading of statute, in which because Turner had not used his penis to penetrate his victim, they couldn’t technically call him a “rapist.”
It’s in this same sort of vein that news organizations have been arguing and struggling among themselves over the words “lie” and “liar,” given Donald Trump’s difficulty with the truth. Especially now, after journalists decided ratings were more important than issues, and given the criticism the media has become stenographers who trumpet everything Trump says in a headline or on-screen chyron, even when they know it’s not true or there’s no evidence to support it. As in the above instances of debates about “rapist,” some news organs claim the word “lie” is too judgmental and goes beyond objectivity. NPR has refused to use the term “lie,” arguing if they use the term people will stop listening to them.
Corrected version: NPR has refused to use the term “lie,” arguing if they use the term people will stop listening to them they lose ad revenue.
“gravitas” means shutting up and knowing your place
Republicans can be liars. Republicans can be racist. Republicans can be entirely divorced from saying anything supported by empirical reality. But if Democrats don’t say the TRUTH in the right way or have the ever-loving gall to say awful people saying awful shit are ... awful, the media will promote a message about how “both sides” aren’t being respectful for their position, which tends to entail respecting disgusting people as they say truly repugnant, fucked up shit.
The Vultures are Dying
The same economic forces which leads to media organizations rationalizing not calling a lie a lie or a racist a racist is also devouring their industry out from under them.
From Paul Blest at Splinter:
The media industry is in the middle of one of its patented bloodlettings, with a wave of layoffs hitting HuffPost, BuzzFeed, and Gannett. Multiple Pulitzerfinalists have lost their jobs. BuzzFeed was hit especially hard. CNN estimated that around 1,000 jobs between the three companies will be lost.
The old excuses for why this keeps happening just won’t do anymore. People are still consuming news in large numbers. The right, which is reveling in the layoffs, has always hated journalism that doesn’t contort to its worldview, so the “people distrust the media” reason is bunk, too. We know what the real problem is: The unholy trinity of corporate greed and mismanagement, private equity bloodsuckers, and tech behemoths leeching ad money from news companies.
Verizon owns HuffPost and Yahoo News. Layoffs there haven’t just hit the media division of the company; in December, the company announced that it would lay off around 7 percent of its workforce, or over 10,000 employees. This is the kind of thing you would expect in a recession, or if the company was flat broke. Neither of those things are true. Verizon netted $30 billion dollars in profit in 2017, and due to the scam Republican tax cuts passed in 2017, the company got $4 billion in tax breaks—nearly enough to cover what it paid for Yahoo. BuzzFeed, admittedly a much smaller company than Verizon, made over $300 million in revenue last year, according to the New York Times, but still loses money. It’s never been profitable. And as a result of that, a whole slew of its news division got the axe in the absolute shittiest way possible.