Tag Archives: television

Three Reasons Why the Election is Running on Empty

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It’s fitting that a freakish storm (or fears of a freakish storm) should interrupt a presidential campaign that has shied away from discussing climate change. As the New York Times noted after last week’s third and final debate, neither candidate broached the subject in the course of the debates; nor did the vice-presidential candidates or moderators or the model citizens in the made-for-TV town hall.

Those who fear some conspiracy of silence on this issue, or think our candidates are cowards only when it comes to climate change, should be reminded that on nearly every issue before the country, the 2012 campaign has been almost entirely devoid of substance. Both sides have offered nothing more than zingers, soundbyte-sized bromides and unprincipled pandering.

You know things have gotten really bad when the TV pundits – who trade in platitudes and talking points – start complaining about the lack of substance in the campaign. That’s starting to happen, at least in the pseudo-serious world of public television. Last Friday on Newshour, Judy Woodruff asked Mark Shields and David Brooks why they thought the campaigns had been so lacking in real substance and so unwilling to engage on the issues. Neither correspondent gave the most obvious response – which is that this hollowing out is inevitable when you conduct politics on TV.

Instead, David Brooks fixed the blame squarely on the “consultants,” who have “taken over,” he said. This wasn’t much of answer, but – since this was TV – it sufficed; the segment was soon over and the discussion closed. Brooks could have easily implicated people like himself, the press and the punditry. He also could have added that what most of these consultants do, in one way or another, is package the candidates for TV audiences and attention spans.

At the very least, Brooks failed to go far enough. Consultants aren’t the only ones to blame. Off the top of my head I can name at least three other reasons why this election is running on empty.

First and above all, Citizens United: this is the first election held after the Supreme Court ruled, in 2010, that unions and corporations could spend without restriction in political campaigns, because they were entitled to the same free speech considerations as human persons. The consultants are simply following the money. So far, the glut of ads – someone the other day estimated that it would take 80 days to watch all the ads currently airing on TV in Ohio – has made even the candidates wince. The ads are superficial and offensive to anyone with a modicum of intelligence because they are always a ruse: they make up a cover story so that big money can pursue its aims through the electoral process.

Second, we’ve had no meaningful participation by third party candidates in the political process or the presidential debates. The two-party show airs without interruption and without challenge. This partly has to do with the control exercised over the debates by the Presidential Debate Commission, which produces the debates for TV. Run by lobbyists and sponsored by major corporations, the Commission approves questions, debate topics and moderators, and disapproves of outsiders who want something other than Coke or Pepsi, Red or Blue, Obamney or Romama. As Jill Stein (who is suing the Commission for keeping her out in 2012) remarked when she was arrested outside the debates: “It was painful but symbolic to be handcuffed for all those hours, because that’s what the Commission on Presidential Debates has essentially done to American democracy.”

Third and finally I would point to the deliberate, regular and daily conflation of the election with the popular vote. This helps perpetuate the illusion of a tight race and distorts people’s choices. It also makes the election a choice between candidates rather than an opportunity to talk about issues on a local, state and national level. The emphasis ought to be on the issues people bring to the election – which is where democratic elections begin – and not exclusively on the candidates or even their platforms. Polling focuses on how people feel about the candidates from one day to the next instead of providing data and insight about changing attitudes toward the enduring and emerging questions we, as a people, face. Who’s going to win? is the last question we should be asking ourselves in an election year. Or in any year. And it only gets worse the closer we get to election day.

The list could go on. But when all is said and done, the consultants and the pundits and the pollsters aren’t really to blame: we are. That may not be something you can say on TV, but if there’s a real battleground this election year, or in any year, it’s American democracy itself. It’s something we have to fight for and claim for ourselves and for every citizen, against politicians, powerful forces and against all odds. That’s not just highfalutin talk. Ben Franklin was right: we will have a republic, if we can keep it. I wonder if we can. I know the consultants have taken over only to the extent that we have surrendered.

The Tinderbox Theory of the Republic

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Glenn Beck favored radio listeners today with excerpts from his email correspondence with Sarah Palin over the shootings in Tucson.

Both correspondents were naturally eager to distance themselves from Jared Loughner’s murderous rampage at the Safeway on Saturday, and say that they abhor violence. They come in peace. “Sarah, as you know, peace is always the answer,” Beck writes:

I know you are feeling the same heat, if not much more on this. I want you to know you have my support. But please look into protection for your family. An attempt on you could bring the republic down.[emphasis mine]

What’s most striking here is not the patently absurd notion that “an attempt” on Sarah Palin’s life would or “could bring the republic down”; it’s the very idea of the republic underlying it.

That is the idea of the republic as a tinderbox. Apparently the place is ready to explode at the slightest provocation. In Beck’s view, or self-serving conceit, most Americans are locked and loaded, ready for civil war. We are teetering on the brink of revolution. Don’t tread on us. In our distressed republic, good people have been pushed to the limit. We are ready to resist tyranny at every turn, or at least before every commercial break, and with every self-aggrandizing tweet.

And all it would take to ignite the tinderbox would be the assassination of… Sarah Palin?

Is this our Helen?

It’s unclear whether Palin thinks her face or her Facebook page could launch a thousand ships, but she shares with Beck the view that her obnoxious behavior and his are of historic importance: “Thanks to all you do,” she replies, sounding vaguely apostolic, “to send the message of truth and love and God as the answer.”

And yet even with good men like Beck out there our future is not secure: “our children will not have peace if politicos just capitalize on this to succeed in portraying anyone as inciting terror and violence”. So peace is always the answer, or at least truth and love and God are the answer, unless, of course, the “politicos” keep picking on Sarah Palin.

And if they don’t stop? Then all bets are off, I suppose; and all patriots should fear for the republic.

Frost/Assange: An Exchange on Anarchy

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Most Americans are probably tired by now of hearing about Julian Assange, but those still paying attention to his story could do worse than his interview with David Frost on Al Jazeera.

Now in his early 70s, Frost is one of the most capable interviewers on television today.

Frost gives Assange ample opportunity to answer his thoughtful questions (without badgering or interruption); he makes no effort to moralize or demand apologies; and he is certainly no tabloid schmuck. Instead of prurience, he offers intelligence, wit and — this is the thing that strikes the American viewer most — seriousness. For 24 full minutes. An interview of this length, on these subjects, would probably never make its way into American living rooms; and if it did, who would be watching?

The conversation even turns, at one point, to the question whether Assange is an “anarchist,” a question I explored in a previous post. Their exchange, which starts around 11 minutes in, runs as follows:

Frost: Do you think of yourself- when you see references to yourself as anarchic, or an anarchist, is that an accurate description of what you are?
Assange: No, it’s not at all an accurate description.
Frost: Why not?
Assange: That’s not what we do. We’re an organization that goes about and has a long record all over the world of exposing abuses, by exposing concrete documentation, proof of bad behavior. That’s not anarchy. That’s what people do when they’re civil, is that they engage in organized activity that promotes justice.
Frost: So therefore it’s — in that sense you’re not anarchic because you’re actually, you’re in favor of authority if it’s doing the right thing.
Assange: Correct. Correct.
Frost: You’re not automatically opposed to authority.
Assange: You know, having run an organization I understand the difficulties in building institutions, having a good institution. Institutions are very important. I mean anyone who’s worked in Africa, as I have, knows that successful civil institutions don’t just come from nowhere. It’s a — you’ll find a difference going between particular African countries or European and African countries well, clean roads and so on don’t just come from nowhere. There is an institutional infrastructure behind this. But secret institutions start to become corrupted in their purpose. They’re able to engage in secret plans which would be opposed by the population and carry them out for their own internal purposes. So they’re not performing the function that people demand that they perform.

The conversation moves on from there to the question who Assange considers his real enemies, but to my mind this exchange is the heart of the entire interview. It all turns on Assange’s distinction of anarchy from civility — and the positioning of Wikileaks as organized activity that promotes justice. He is eager to put himself and Wikileaks on the side of good government and the “people,” on the side of civil “institutions” and good “clean roads and so on.” He’s even on the side of “authority,” he assures Frost, if it’s “doing the right thing.”

You can easily imagine how this line of argument — which positions Assange as a member of the fourth estate, and Wikileaks as a watchdog — might play into the defense at a trial for espionage or subversion. Whether these arguments will ever be heard over the shouting and fear-mongering of the politicians, pundits and Palins is another question altogether.

What Is An Analyst?

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An analyst is neither a fortune-teller nor a scientist, and the analyst who claims to be either, or to be in the business of prediction at all, is a charlatan. Practical matters — the price of a stock, the outcome of a business venture, a political gambit or campaign, a loan or mortgage, a civil suit, a military battle, a negotiation or even a dinner conversation — are by their very nature unpredictable.

Aristotle, who wrote two books of analytics and had very specific ideas about what constituted analysis, thought these human affairs belonged to a world of “things which admit of being other than they are.” And when we’re talking about how things which already admit of being other than they are will turn out in the future, it gets even fuzzier.

A stock analyst with a good batting average is for that reason all the more impressive. Sure, some are just luckier than others and some are bound to be criminals; but the independent analyst who regularly and conscientiously gives good advice understands something about the way things ordinarily work, or the way they’ll probably work out. And so he’s a character of more than passing interest. He’s engaged in considering not only what has happened, what will happen, or what is happening, but what’s likely to happen. His recommendations are grounded in his understanding of probable outcomes. He helps others take refuge in prudence.

Of course lots of people who call themselves analysts aren’t in the business of making buy or sell recommendations on stocks. There are industry analysts, market analysts, military and intelligence analysts, technology analysts. Some work discretely behind the scenes, advising on what’s likely to happen in this or that sector. But more and more analysts are the scene itself: turn on the television news and you will find an analyst of every stripe, for every occasion; turn on NPR and you get news analyst Daniel Schorr.

For me, this is where the word analyst just starts getting interesting, when it’s being tossed carelessly around, or where it’s being used to lend a serious tone to comments on the news or any other set of remarks. CNN and NPR, television and the media, new and old, do much more than provide the analyst with a place to present what he knows; the media makes him. Today the word analyst is typically applied to a person who is a cross between someone with some special knowledge or command of the facts concerning a particular subject and a talking head. Not just an expert, not merely a pundit. An analyst.

Our analyst is a creature of the infotainment universe. Whether on television or radio talk shows or making a guest appearance at a conference or on a blog, our analysts are performers. (I almost said “merely performers,” but that wouldn’t be quite right.) Our analysts perform to inform. Rarely do their performances rise to the standard of dulce et utile, but it’s play-acting nonetheless, playing at knowing. Don’t expect these types to cut through the hype; they are themselves the hype, however serious or knowing or grave they may appear. More often than not, what passes for analysis is nothing more than a shoddy recap, a few interview questions or bullet points on a slide, or talking points rehashed ad nauseam, the source of which may be the analyst himself, a party committee, an interested group, an editorial board or a public relations firm.

And there’s the rot. Granted, this hybrid of knowledge and make-believe may be all the analysis our wealthy, comfortable technocracy can tolerate. But it’s curious that we don’t regard all these analysts with more suspicion. Quite the opposite: we reward them handsomely, treat them with respect, take their views into consideration when making big decisions about the future of companies or the invasion of countries. We nurture and esteem a vulgar mimicry that past societies found disturbing or heretical or a threat to the polity.

We are untroubled by the question whether pretending and professing knowledge are the same thing; we are happy to let a few facts trotted out from a cheat sheet stand for real understanding. It’s easier on everybody that way.