An irreverent, inclusive, alternative parenting community

Mmmm.....donuts....

...or, The Intersection of Media and Politics, and How The Internet Is Changing Both. (see, I told you "Mmmm....donuts...." was a catchier title).

Anyhoo. Most of us who are politically literate often find ourselves frustrated with what even Sarah "Not The Sharpest Moose In The Shed" Palin calls the "lamestream media." It's a frustration borne of seemingly a number of different causes, but it's become an astonishingly common phenomenon in recent years to find oneself shouting at the TV news - especially cable news, but also the broadcast channels - due to some glaring oversight in their coverage of an issue or sometimes, even their flat-out refusal to cover the news in a way which seems stone-obvious to the viewer. An example would be the current, partially FOX-inspired mania for "horse-race" journalism, and its corollary, the whole "two sides to every question, so let's give them equal time and equal weight" disease which currently bedevils the media coverage of far too many previously-settled questions. Some yahoo tent-preacher in Bumblefart, FL claims that there are questions about evolution, and it's given the same "weight" as a panel of expert (but publicly unknown) biologists who've spent their entire careers studying the subject diligently. You get the picture - heck, you already know it.

But today, I ran across an article which was genuinely useful in shedding some light on it and fleshing out some of the reasons for why this exists. Also, fortunately, it explains why there is a giant chocolate-glazed, sprinkle-covered donut depicted in this post in what otherwise might seem to be an excessively gratuitous fashion.

The article is by NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen, and if you're not already following him in one medium or another, and stuff like the following article interests you at all, I suggest you start. He's at the forefront of the pushback against laziness and ineptitude in our media, especially as it relates to political journalism. He's also one of the best people to turn to for the reasons why and the ways in which our media culture is currently so poor.

The main idea is from a 1986 book by Daniel C. Hallin called The Uncensored War, and it outlines three regions, or "spheres" in which the American press operates, illustrated by the donut, above. Label the donut hole in the middle the "sphere of consensus," the donut itself, the "sphere of legitimate debate," and everything - literally, the entire world - outside the donut, the "sphere of deviance."

The basic notion is that the press believes it operates (though, frequently, it does not) in the "sphere of legitimate debate." This is the arena where the issues of the day are hashed out, battled over, and ultimately decided (sometimes). But, crucially, it's also where those issues are determined. In other words, there are editorial - and sometimes repertorial - decisions made about what issues are legitimate, both to discuss in the media and for the actual powers that be to debate and act upon. It's this last point - that the media themselves (along with input from other sources, sometimes) makes decisions about what it is relevant or even admissible to discuss - that's so startling and helpful about Rosen's post.

The inner sphere, the "sphere of consensus" contains the things about which no legitimate debate is heard because "everyone agrees." Some examples would be: (as Rosen puts it): the constitution's principles, the fact that Abraham Lincoln was a great President, the notion that anyone can succeed in America, etc. Rosen points out that within this sphere, the media actually abandon objectivity entirely in service of reinforcing the notion (should it be necessary) that "everyone agrees that...." And the final "sphere" is everything outside of the donut, the "sphere of deviance," which is the complementary opposite of the sphere of consensus: those ideas and proposals which "sensible people" agree are either insane, impossibly unworkable or just plain not to be discussed for a variety of reasons - which are almost always undisclosed.

Read Rosen's article, it goes into more detail regarding both how these spheres operate (or, more particularly, have operated in the past) and how they are beginning to change in the internet age. Then, keeping the ideas in mind, go watch Chris Matthews' interview with Alan Grayson on the reconciliation process during the health care debate if you need an example of this stuff in action. This was almost five months ago on Hardball, before the Senate leadership began to publicly push the reconciliation option for health care reform. Prior to that, everyone from Harry Reid to Rahm Emanuel to every political pundit agreed that the senate had to have 60 votes to accomplish anything. But a curious thing happened on the way to health care's defeat: Democrats in both the senate and the White House realized that they'd spent so much time highlighting the health care issue that it would now cost the Democrats much, MUCH more to come this far and be seen as having failed than it would to engage in previously "untouchable" practices like reconciliation. This Matthews/Grayson interview is lodged delightfully right in the sweet spot between the time that Democratic leadership had come to the realization that they were going to have to throw the usual rules out the window (a rare event), and the time they were pushing that fact actively on national TV. Grayson, having sat in the meetings, knows pretty well what's coming. But Matthews, ever the smug insider who (as he mentions several times in an obnoxious, bald attempt to bully Grayson or punish him for straying from the "agreed-upon reality") used to work in the Senate, hasn't yet gotten the memo that the rules have changed. So he dutifully does the bidding of the conventional wisdom and tries to marginalize, ridicule and shut up (or shut down) Grayson, who turned out to be exactly right. Watch Matthews work the donut (and keep in mind, as you do, that this is a guy whom not only his colleagues in the press, but pretty much everyone else, has mentally labeled a "liberal"):

Tags: journamalism, media, politics

0 members like this

Comment by BarcaBabyDaddy on May 30, 2010 at 8:33pm: Thanks for the read. Very enjoyable topic. I was just talking to a coworker who said Fox news maybe a tad bit opinionated, but when they present the news on the actual news programming shows, those are spot on. I said CNN is a wee bit more sensible, but obviously biased as well. I told him maybe BBC World News presents more neutral news. I guess I wouldn't know where to get my news from if I had to choose one source. I read a variety of sources online, and use discretion, and go with my gut.

Comment by The Diaper Pail on May 31, 2010 at 1:25pm: FOX's news programming is hardly "spot on." The reality of news broadcasting, however, is that it's literally never truly free from subjectivity. Nor, in my opinion, does it really need to be. For example, as I mentioned above, if there was a debate between one nutjob dominionist preacher who said that the earth is flat, and...well...the entire scientific community (to exaggerate a bit -- but not much), would you expect the evening news lede to be "The Earth: Round or Flat? Opinions Differ." And would you expect the ensuing article to give equal time and equal weight to both the nutcake preacher and the consensus of the scientific community, and ultimately refrain from "passing judgment?" Or would you assume that part of the job of journalists in that case would be to actually fact-check their interview subjects and call bullshit as appropriate, when they found the balance of the evidence overwhelmingly on one side of the debate?

Comment by BarcaBabyDaddy on June 1, 2010 at 10:43am: Well, when it comes to something as objective as the Earth being flat, you can fact check, and call appropriate bullshit. But when its whether or not HeathCare for all is a good idea...kinda tough. Either way, a strictly news organization would simply be responsible for showcasing the opinions of people we might deem important on issues that may affect us. Not the facts about the pros and cons about a particular issue, and not their own naturally bias opinions, but to tell us what the major players' bias opinions are. But even then, whoever they deem important, and how they showcase it, would still be slanted. Oh well. I like ESPN anyway.

Comment by The Diaper Pail on June 1, 2010 at 12:30pm: I chose the flat earth example because it's an exaggerated and hyperbolic example of exactly what you mentioned: something which is verifiable. I agree completely that "straight news" programs - to the extent that such things even exist in the wild - should not be in the business of editorializing on issues as complex as health care, unless such an editorial was quite clearly identified as such (as opposed to being sneakily passed off as "objective" news).

Part of my point was that too many times, news organizations (particularly though not exclusively conservative ones) are allowed to pass off assertions which are not only in the realm of objectively knowable fact, but are on the false side of the true/false spectrum of assertions of fact. "Health care for all is good" is clearly an opinion, and not the proper role of journalism. But a better-defined assertion from the realm of health care reform, such as "administrative costs are lower in countries with single-payer systems," or "ObamaCare will create death panels" is much less broad and therefore not in the realm of the debatable but of the knowable. Accurate answers to questions exactly like those are a large part of what news consumers use (or should use, at any rate) to help them determine their own answer to the larger questions like "is health care for all a good or bad thing?" So, while it's not the journalist's role to tell you whether something is good or bad, it most certainly IS their role - in my opinion - to make sure that factual errors like "the earth is flat" or "ObamaCare has death panels" are not allowed to be stated as facts without challenge or refutation from the journalist(s). Put simply, if a "hard news" program's job is to present "just the facts," then it follows that they have a corollary duty to refute or weed out anything NON-factual. Whether something is "good" is a value judgment that people may have wildly different opinions about the same set of facts; whether something is True or FALSE is not a value judgment, but a matter of fact.

Comment by DLBK on June 2, 2010 at 6:49am: The two sides to every story style of journalism often drives me insane. NPR does it, too, without bothering to mention that on one side is a crazy person with no credentials while on the other is someone who, as you've said, has spent a career studying the topic. Ugh.

Comment by kanachick on June 2, 2010 at 11:43am: "Some say..." - that's the one that makes me mental.

Comment by The Diaper Pail on June 3, 2010 at 7:50am: Panel four of this one sums up much of what we're talking about here:

Mmmm.....donuts....

You need to be a member of Offsprung to add comments!