Media Mix: Politics and The Press
decreasing power or increasing presidential arrogance?
2007-09-05
By Eric Easter

In a recent Pew study on media favorability, researchers found that a majority of Americans (53%) think mainstream media is too often inaccurate; only 44% thought the press protects democracy, and only 39% think the press often gets the facts straight. Of those who get most of their news from the internet, 68% said news organizations do not care about the people they report on.

That’s interesting timing given the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. That’s because, in all fairness, Katrina is one of the few times in modern history that the media could be said to have done absolutely the right thing.

In my estimation (and it’s only my estimation), American mainstream media - as a broad group - has done the right thing a total of only three times – Vietnam, Watergate and most recently, Katrina.

In the last two years, CNN, most of the other cable news channels, major print public publications and the big networks have kept their promises and more. They stuck with the Katrina story way beyond the call of ratings and circulation figures. They looked at all sides, they focused on the people, they crunched the numbers and somewhere in the dividing line between Fox News on one side and The Nation on the other, audiences have been able to come up with some consistent sense of truth.

One thing is very different, however. Media coverage of Vietnam and Watergate carried with it a sense of public moral outrage and a powerful sense of shame that brought swift action. Enough to compel Presidential administrations to, in the former event, retreat, and in the latter, to remove itself altogether.

There was certainly outrage with Katrina. What was lacking was the shame at the White House level.  Despite the coverage, the footage, the evidence of shady dealings, the public record of incompetence and inaction, the Bush Administration has not felt compelled to act aggressively in a way that the people in need understand and that we as voters have been able to see.

Something dramatic has happened in those thirty years since Watergate. Either the press has gradually lost its power to shape change, or else we are experiencing the most cynical and shameless Administration in recent memory.

Katrina is just icing on the cake. In the last eight years the litany of screw ups has been astounding – Abu Ghraib, No Child Left Behind, Guantanamo, runaway spending, Rummy, Libby, Gonzales. And yet, Bush moves forward with a smile and seeming impunity.

Either one of the scenarios below are to blame. Let’s play multiple choice:

a) We are a distracted nation. We no longer have the mental and emotional bandwidth for the kind of indignation that prompts the kind of action that changes things. We’re just way too busy with various forms of entertainment and personal pursuits that the trying to pencil in social action after soccer and karate is just way too difficult.
b) We’re distracted and the President knows it. He won’t act, and neither will the rest of the government, because they know we’ll never make them.
c) Between the OJ trial circus, Princess Diana, the saga of JonBenet, Geraldo’s vault and the missing white girl of the month, the mainstream press has attempted to manipulate our reactions so much that when they do commit real journalism, we have only enough interest to get excited for a day or two.

If you picked A, B or C you are wrong. The correct answer, unfortunately is D) all of the above.

Clearly, no matter what the press exposes, Bush is likely to stay put until the end of his term. That is of course, unless he propositions an undercover cop in the White House bathroom.

Eric Easter is Chief of Digital Strategy for Johnson Publishing Company. He writes on media, tech and politics for ebonyjet.com. eeaster@ebony.com