Letter 2 America for May 30, 2014

Dear America,

One of our problems as a nation is the lack of adequate information at our disposal for the purpose of informing our votes.  The problem stems from the fact that our news media are filters for all of the facts that we need to be well informed.  So, for example, when CBS news runs a news feature on the Benghazi raid and relies on a source that is not credible, the result is a swing in public opinion that allows for the persistence of the endless probing in the form of redundant hearings run by Congressman Daryl Issa of the House Oversight Committee.  He was undeterred, as was Speaker John Boehner, by the discrediting of the report in question, and in fact, Boehner has created a new committee to dysinform the public even further toward the end of political gain vis-à-vis the ostensible discrediting of the opposition party.  Over the years, the Republicans have learned that the answer to the question isn't important.  What matters is getting everyone to ask it, and these hearings accomplish that end...at least among the party loyalists.  So, when a reporter who sounds a lot like Lara Logan, the disgraced reporter on the discredited Benghazi story, asks on the evening news about the persistent failure to get relief funds to those whose businesses were damaged on the New Jersey coast by Hurricane Sandy, the purpose served isn't the informing of the American public.

What actually happens is that people begin asking that question along with the reporter instead of asking why, which is the question the reporter really should have been trying to answer.  She interviewed two people whose businesses continue to be in a state of devastation because they can't get the funding they need to restore them, but why can't they get the money?  Are they entitled to the money in the first place?  Have they done all they should have to get it?  What agency is the money supposed to be coming from?  What does that agency have to say about the failure to distribute the subject funds?  Does the agency have the funds in question?  Has congress funded the program through which the funds were to be authorized to the claimants in question?  All of those questions should be the subject of congressional inquiries, but there is no political gain to be had from asking them.  And why?  Because a reporter gave either incomplete or inaccurate information to the public, which resulted in a blind eye being turned toward the misuse of power in Washington, D.C. toward the end of misdirection of the attention of the public.  It couldn't happen without the reporter, which is our problem at its core.  We don't get reliable, complete information from the media, even though we have the freest press in the world.  We know all there is to know about a little boy stricken with cancer who idolizes the local college football team and gets to lead them onto the field, but we have no idea why victims of hurricane Sandy can't rebuild their businesses.  It's all part of a new cultural imperative we subscribe to these days: pandering for popularity.

The decline in the effectiveness of American politics--by that I mean the ability to accomplish great things through legislation and execution of the law--is a function of this obsession with public favor, and pandering to get it.  That's what Daryl Issa is doing, and while John Boehner has to pander not just to the public but to a small, obdurate minority within his party as well, he too is a panderer.  Of course, President Obama sometimes panders too, for example when he gives speeches directed at the inertia afflicting congress, but his pandering isn't as effective as that of the real old political hands in the opposition party.  Mitch McConnell has been pandering for decades, as has Boehner.  Issa is an old hack too, and the chairman of Boehner's new Benghazi committee, Trey Gowdy, is a panderer who is trying to accrue the pandering bona fides he needs to be a career political hack too.  It all works to the advantage of the politicians who pander for personal gain because the press...the media...are pandering too, giving us all we want of "human interest" while ignoring the difficult issues like bureaucratic mismanagement of our governance.  But what can we do about it.

In our house, we used to watch Diane Sawyer every weeknight to get at least a portion of the news.  But gradually...steadily...she undermined the news function of her program and moved toward gimmicks designed to whet the popular appetite for the ABC Evening News.  I mean, really.  What is an "Instant Index" anyway, and how does her knitted brow inform us about the issues that she tells us we should be concerned about by knitting it.  So, we started watching Scott Pelley on CBS, for whom I have a bit more respect than I do for Sawyer and her naked quest for star status.  But now there seem to be more and more stranded whale stories on CBS too, and that is where I saw the reporter interviewing Hurricane Sandy victims without making serious inquiry as to why they were victims.  Frankly, the problem seems to be a product of networks regarding news as a moneymaker rather than a public service.  At one time, news lasted 15 minutes, and it included facts only.  No opinions and no human interest stories meant to be a draw for viewers.  That difference--the desire to make money on the news--is what has led to a change in the meaning of the world "news."  It is no longer just the facts of current events, but rather includes entertainment masquerading as news, which in turn has transmogrified.  Now news is not limited to reports of facts.  Now it has become not public persuasion as well.  A free press is not all we need.  We also need a responsible one.

Your friend,

Mike