Justus For All

The Boston Globe

The conversations held in Roosevelt’s White House are clearly relevant to today’s climate of press-government tension. Just as Roosevelt, in a 1942 fireside chat, inveighed against ”the typewriter strategists who expound their views in the press or on the radio,” the Bush administration fumes over reporting it considers inaccurate, unrepresentative of reality, and antagonistic. The current administration continues to develop multiple strategies to connect directly with people — whether in the United States, Iraq, or elsewhere. The recent furor over payments to Iraqi journalists in exchange for publication of US government-authorized news accounts attests to a level of desperation. This administration’s recurrent attempts at direct communication demonstrate an intention to subvert the purpose of the First Amendment.But the government is not acting in a vacuum. It is reacting to a media environment marked by enormous hostility. Skepticism is healthy, but too many journalists practice reporting informed by a pessimistic cynicism. This corrosive attitude is damaging the news industry; newspaper circulation and TV news viewership continue to decline.

I take minor exception to the phrase ‘subvert the purpose of the First Amendment’ above.  I hold the First Amendment to be an end in and of itself, and although it certainly produced some beneficial side effects, it is far more important that those by products.  I also don’t agree that direct communication in any way subverts the First Amendment or any purpose that it may have.

However, the larger point that media and government communications are often in conflict, and often skewed in perspective, to the detriment of both is well taken.  I certainly like the description of the media as being motivated by ‘pessimistic cynicism’, which I think is more accurate and informative than calling them ‘liberal’ (or conservative as some liberals think.)  Orson Scott Card, in an article on media bias made this observation, which stuck with me:

When a nation is at war–which on 9/11 we finally realized that we are–we don’t want to hear the news from neutral parties. We want the news to be accurate, yes–and Fox has had its share of painfully accurate scoops that nobody wanted to hear, but which we needed to know. But when a negative story comes out, we want the people telling us the news to say it with regret. And when America wins, we want our news media to tell us with excitement and happiness.

In other words, we want to hear the truth from a friend. From someone who is one of us. And if it took an Australian-born mogul, Rupert Murdoch, to give us an American national news source, so be it.

It is clear to me, probably as a result of the media’s pessimistic cynicism, and probably also a desire to be objective that most of the American media is not on America’s ‘side.’  This doesn’t mean that they are traitors or anything like that, but it does mean that they probably overcompensate toward a negative view of America, American policies, and American politicians.

A more difficult question is what can be done about it.  The Boston Globe article advocates a discussion between media and government where both sides air their grievances and walk away with a different perspective.  Perhaps I am motivated by pessimistic cynicism myself, but I find that such an outcome being extremely unlikely.

We certainly will never return to the jingoistic media of WWII, and I don’t know that we should.  Certainly the entire issue of the Iraq war is more complex with the American people being divided not only on the best methods to take, but also on the worthiness of the entire endeavor.