April 25, 2007
When Elites Embrace Tabloid Values
David Halberstam, back in 1999, on the sorry state of American journalism:
“… television executive producers have redefined what constitutes news — often going for stories that television likes to cover, stories which are telegenic, because they have action or are sexy or are tabloid- or scandal-driven.
We have morphed in the larger culture from a somewhat Calvinist society to an entertainment society, and that is reflected in the new norms of television journalism — where the greatest sin is not to be wrong but to be boring. Because boring means low ratings.
… gradually, but systematically, there has been an abdication of responsibility within the profession, most particularly in the networks.
Television’s gatekeepers, at a time when a fragmenting audience threatens the singular profits of the past, stopped being gatekeepers and began to look the other way on moral and ethical and journalistic issues. Less and less did they accept the old-fashioned charge for what they owed the country.
The viewpoint seemed to be — from their testing and polling — that the American people did not want to know what was going on, so why bother them with unwanted facts too soon? So, if we look at the media today, we ought to be aware not just of what we are getting, but what we are not getting; the difference between what is authentic and what is inauthentic in contemporary American life and in the world, with a warning that in this celebrity culture, the forces of the inauthentic are becoming more powerful all the time.”
“The forces of the inauthentic….” Well said! I wonder if the execrable Roger Ailes has ever thought about what he owes his country?
April 25th, 2007 at 8:28 pm
I love Roger Ailes. Why is it that those who have the horrors of the left right under their noses are the ones who are blind to the implications. do you think socialism light of the kind you seem to favor never morphs into something more dangerous? Have you ever seen a bureaucracy that willingly pares itself back? Halberstam is just one more member of the press elite yearning for the days when they controlled it all and could be paterenalistic towards the culture. Then, in his view, we were good little children who knew our place. No thanks.
April 25th, 2007 at 8:37 pm
charles: I agree that Halberstam is pining for paternalism, and it’s arguable if that’s more objectionable than the dumbed-down, lowest common denominator trash that Ailes pushes.
I’m not a proponent of “socialism lite” and am in daily contact with the horrors inflicted in the name of socialism and an ancient beauracracy.
April 25th, 2007 at 10:21 pm
Chairman: I find it telling that your focus on the execrable in media lands on Ailes with his puny cable audience that is dwarfed by the rest of the media. Is it really Ailes that is driving the current decrepit state of journalism? That channel often focuses on the sensationalist nonsense along with the herd, but they do seem to be the only one willing to try and break the mold somewhat. “I’m not a proponent of “socialism lite”” but I’m guessing you would vote for the uber socialist light Obama. Any road to socialism is a road to state control of individuals, which ends with a smiling Chairman Mao happy to take over.
April 25th, 2007 at 10:30 pm
James: It’s true that Ailes alone isn’t what ails us; all of the for-profit media is corrupt. I’ve got to remember not to post any political stuff because there’s no point to it — either people agree or disagree; no one ever changes his mind.
April 26th, 2007 at 12:11 am
CM — you’re fuggin’ kidding me w/ that crack about FOX News, right? Or, is it that you have a liberal bias to viewing habits? If so, what poor unfortunate subset of victims are you a part of if you’re a believer in the leftist liberal propaganda machine?
What Halberstam is getting at is the old: Bad News Sell Papers…
But, we don’t buy papers anymore, do we? & judging by the dropping circulation of the lefist rags like the LA Times & The NY Times, countered by the increased subs at the NY Post, readers are not wasting their money reading about the same stupid shit the Katie Couric, Chris Matthews, or Wolf Blitzer tried to scare them about the previous night.
After a while the American viewer/reader gets fed up with hearing complaints about what they’re doing wrong. We know the truth.
We ain’t part of the fuggin’ problem.
April 26th, 2007 at 12:30 am
Eason Jordan anyone? Calling Dan Rather!………….I think this is the way newspapers have been since printing press was invented for the most part. I dont care that CNN is liberal of fox tilts to the right. I like it, it lets me know how each side is spinning whatever it is today.
April 26th, 2007 at 1:21 am
Chairman,
Please keep posting whatever you wish. After all, it is YOUR blog! Plus, I, for one, find hearing about new and possibly divergent viewpoints rather refreshing.
April 26th, 2007 at 5:06 am
By God, CM I agree with you and turbowagon. I get so tired of that “rightest” BS you prevalent in the investing world.
April 26th, 2007 at 5:46 am
Why not read Halberstams great “powers that be” if you really want to know what he thought about US media and their politics. It is his best book. If you have any interest in newsprint,tv,or radio, you must read it.
Roger Ailes? What did he do? Oh yeah, he runs a tv station that actually shows boths sides of every issue,as opposed to the others that are so onesided they are on the verge of extinction.
His next best book was “the best and the brightest” and I sure wish W and Cheney had read it.
Halberstam will go down as one the greatest American reporters and storytellers ever. Even though a Liberal,you would never know it from his work. He tells you the facts and the story with little political bias,something no other reporter or author does today.
April 26th, 2007 at 6:16 am
don’t worry folks, Halberstam was just a reporter like many others and he made mistakes like many others, some of them costly. The following is a quote from a book about Vietnam which focuses on some of those mistakes: “Some of the most interesting parts of Mr. Moyar’s book describe how Mr. Halberstam and Mr. Sheehan presented Lodge and their readers in the United States with grossly inaccurate information on the Buddhist protest movement and on South Vietnamese politics, much of it unwittingly received from two secret Communist agents.” Halberstam pushed for Diem’s demise, which, had it not eventually taken place, might have changed history. Halberstam did not acknowledge his errors in his subsequent book…even though by then they were public knowledge.
April 26th, 2007 at 6:43 am
Chairman: the politics is just fine, just don’t stop posting the chicks
April 26th, 2007 at 7:46 am
I agree w/ James
April 26th, 2007 at 7:52 am
I’ll keep posting the boobs for you Boobs. ;-)