American stupid by Ghoulman

REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

American stupid

POSTED BY: GHOULMAN
UPDATED: Thursday, September 16, 2004 06:27
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Friday, September 10, 2004 9:51 AM

Object lessons
http://www.eye.net/eye/issue/issue_09.09.04/op/editorial.html

On July 30, the American news program Nightline featured a sort of duelling-anchors segment, in which ABC host Ted Koppel, ranking heavyweight newsman, went head-to-head with Daily Show host Jon Stewart, reigning media satirist.

Koppel expressed displeasure with Stewart's brand of political analysis, saying, "A lot of television viewers -- more, quite frankly, than I am comfortable with -- get their news from ... The Daily Show." He then suggested that Stewart didn't take his role as a reporter seriously enough.

Stewart rightly responded that he is not in the news business, he's a comedian, then amiably skewered Koppel for the failings of so-called objective news reporters: "You can say, 'That's B.S.' You don't need humour, because you have what I wish I had, which is credibility and gravitas." In those two short sentences, Stewart indicated that he does take his job seriously, pointed out the key to his own popularity and deftly showed the serious problem behind Koppel's deep concern.

Koppel has since appeared on The Daily Show to set the record straight (it turns out he's not opposed to Stewart at all, he sees him as analogous to an editorial cartoonist). But the network news and daily newspapers should be watching Stewart closely. Despite its host's protestations of irrelevance, The Daily Show wields influence vastly disproportionate to its mandate: a Newsday poll of journalists in January named Stewart the most influential political analyst in the US and a much-talked about poll from the Pew Research Center showed that 21 per cent of 18-29 year-olds cited comedy shows as a regular source of political news. His guest list from the past month includes Bill Clinton, John McCain and, in his first post-convention appearance, John Kerry.

Koppel was reading the symptoms properly, but his diagnosis was faulty; he had his finger pointed in the wrong direction. A large part of the reason for the waning interest in traditional news is its near-complete incompetence at sorting out fact from fiction -- a problem that Stewart, relying on an archive of news clips and the application of his brain, never seems to suffer from.

This is especially distressing because helping us navigate the avalanches of bullshit rushing forward from competing political camps should be one of the primary jobs of political reporters. Clinging relentlessly to a misguided idea of what constitutes objectivity, political reporters in the mainstream are forever hesitant to point out patent absurdities. Instead, they strive for balance, a he-said/she-said structure that isn't often satisfactory: if a White House press briefing told reporters that the White House was in fact black, the reporters doing stand-ups outside the clearly white building would quote colour experts and lay out the "sharply divided opinion" on the subject.

Recently, the Columbia Journalism Review presented a case study of how the process works (or doesn't), using The New York Times as an example: George Bush has been pushing a claim in his stump speech that John Kerry has "voted 350 times for higher taxes," a gross distortion that rolls together a 20-year voting record and includes "votes against decreasing taxes, votes to trim tax cuts, votes against repealing tax hikes that were already enacted, and votes in favor of tax cuts that were smaller than what Republicans had proposed." According to the CJR, on Mar. 21, the Times "swallowed Bush's bait" and reported that "Kerry had voted 350 times to raise taxes." In a Mar. 30 story, the Times quoted Vice-President Cheney repeating the "350 votes" point, with a denial from Kerry's camp, and an Apr. 2 piece repeated the claim with another he-said/she-said frame. "Not until May 25," the CJR writes, "did the paper explain to its readers on its news pages that the claim was misleading -- a full two months after it had first written the Bush campaign's spin into the record."

This is not objectivity, it's stupidity, warping the entire political debate. It's been standard practice for a long time, but technological advances and increasingly professional campaign teams are learning how to better and better exploit the media's weaknesses in this regard. And it isn't limited to The New York Times -- it's the industry standard across North America.

There's been a lot of complaining that political conventions have become nothing more than advertisements. And in the way we're covering them now, it's true. But if reporters would actually get out and do some research and check the accuracy of what's being said on the convention floor, rather than just broadcasting half-truths and outright lies over the airwaves, they could have value yet.

Leave it to The Daily Show to sum up the problem perfectly, in a bit that aired Aug. 23 between Stewart and fake-correspondent Rob Corddry. Stewart asks if Kerry's military record isn't a matter of established fact:

Corddry: "... that's certainly the spin you'll be hearing coming from the Kerry campaign over the next few days."

Stewart: "That's not spin, that's a fact. That's established."

Corddry: "Exactly Jon, and that established, incontrovertible fact is one side of the story ... I'm a reporter, Jon, my job is to spend half the time repeating what one side says and half the time repeating the other. Little thing called 'objectivity' -- you might wanna look it up some day."

Messrs Koppel, Mansbridge, Newman and Robertson, are you taking notes?

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Friday, September 10, 2004 10:33 AM

EMBERS

that is so true,
in these days of corporate owned and operated news
where everything we see in newspapers and on TV is propaganda
it seems like the only honest reporting comes from the comedians
We are lucky to have some one as intelligent and quick witted at Jon Stewart
IMPO

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Friday, September 10, 2004 10:37 AM

CONNORFLYNN

Quote:
Originally posted by embers:
that is so true,
in these days of corporate owned and operated news
where everything we see in newspapers and on TV is propaganda
it seems like the only honest reporting comes from the comedians
We are lucky to have some one as intelligent and quick witted at Jon Stewart
IMPO

Prepare to get flamed by Ghoulman, Embers. I agree with you totally though, Jon Stewart rocks.

"No beer make Homer sumthing sumthing"

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Friday, September 10, 2004 10:41 AM

GHOULMAN

^^^ Conner is a liar. Again.

Quote:
Originally posted by embers:
that is so true,
in these days of corporate owned and operated news
where everything we see in newspapers and on TV is propaganda
it seems like the only honest reporting comes from the comedians
We are lucky to have some one as intelligent and quick witted at Jon Stewart
IMPO

I love your comment.

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Friday, September 10, 2004 10:44 AM

CONNORFLYNN

Quote:
Originally posted by Ghoulman:
^^^ Conner is a liar. Again.
Quote:
Originally posted by embers:
that is so true,
in these days of corporate owned and operated news
where everything we see in newspapers and on TV is propaganda
it seems like the only honest reporting comes from the comedians
We are lucky to have some one as intelligent and quick witted at Jon Stewart
IMPO

I love your comment.

*Grabs chest, gasps for air!!!

You did that to spite me LOL..good one haha

"I actually voted for John Kerry, before I voted against him"

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Friday, September 10, 2004 10:53 AM

SERGEANTX

Excellent article. Thanks for posting it. Now we need to send a copy of it to every notable journalist in the country.

SergeantX

"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock

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Friday, September 10, 2004 11:13 AM

GHOULMAN

Journalists???... well, you've eliminated FOX News, CNN, MSNBC, the list goes on..

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Friday, September 10, 2004 11:15 AM

NAKEDANDARTICULATE

THE DAILY SHOW IS NOW THE ONLY SHOW I WATCH.

"Hamsters is nice."

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Friday, September 10, 2004 1:47 PM

SOUPCATCHER

I got cable for sports, but the Daily Show has been a nice surprise. Great article. It should be required reading in every college journalism course.

I shaved off my beard for you, devil woman!

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Friday, September 10, 2004 6:23 PM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

Ghoulman,
Thank you for the article.
As a scientist, I stand or fall on facts. I have this strange notion that they are important, meaningful things.
In another life, I'd have a website dedicated to facts, or, in another word, news.

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Friday, September 10, 2004 6:43 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Oh gosh, I hate to tell you this, but to anyone who thinks most Americans respond to facts I have but three words (well, two initials, a name, and a word):

OJ SIMPSON TRIAL

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Friday, September 10, 2004 7:04 PM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

I know. It frustrates the sh*t out of me.
But I just can't get over my lunacy, no matter how hard I try.

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Thursday, September 16, 2004 6:27 AM

ARAWAEN

Quote:
The press is the hired agent of the monied system, and set up for no other purpose than to tell lies where the interests are involved.

-- Henry Adams

I for one am so sick of the political 'news' shows that consist of pundits from opposite sides hurling ideology at one another.

Um, I'm lost. Uh, I'm Angry. And I'm Armed.

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