Recent Forum Topics › Forums › The Public House › My stunningly brilliant General Theory of the MSM.
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Billy_T.
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October 10, 2019 at 11:10 am #106507Billy_TParticipant
Basic premise: reality is A to Z. The MSM’s political narrative is (all too often) A to B. This is due to a complex combination of top-down design, all-around accident and inertia, innocent ignorance and factional, malign malevolent creation. Yes, strings are pulled. Yes, things are pushed into this or that little pen. Yes, the folks pulling the strings — the owners of our media — want the two political parties to take the heat instead of Corporate America itself.
Surprisingly, ironically, this produces a lot of solid journalism. As in, within the forced, all-too-narrow scope, the MSM, when it deals strictly with bad political actors, gets most things right. The evidence supports that, cuz the bad political actors in question almost always end of copping to what has been reported. Eventually. According to my remarkably insightful and mesmerizing theory, it’s long been a mistake to instantly assume the MSM should be ignored, dismissed, despised — which is a pretty widespread assumption on the left and the right . . . though I think the right has far less “right” to complain, given its commanding control over said media. The left has virtually none, beyond niche publications.
In short, the problem with the American MSM isn’t so much the lack of veracity in what it reports. It’s what it leaves out, omits, fears to cover — the world as it exists outside the A to B range.
To me, serious and effective leftist analyses of the media fail if they start with a premise of total distrust for the reports we get, especially print journalism. In my view, our critique should focus far more on what is left unsaid (including, but not limited to, “context”), suppressed or ignored, and dig into why this happens. Our critique should focus on telling the truth about that silence, raising a thousand and one voices to end that silence instead.
(Your thoughts about the above are more than welcome)
October 10, 2019 at 10:49 pm #106525
znModeratorIn short, the problem with the American MSM isn’t so much the lack of veracity in what it reports. It’s what it leaves out, omits, fears to cover — the world as it exists outside the A to B range.
Well I agree with that. It has a range/depth problem. Their “seeing” fits a narrow range of ideological patterns.
October 11, 2019 at 10:38 am #106532Billy_TParticipantAnother key for me: The MSM actually do a pretty good job of the daily tic tock of political happenings. They report them, in the Trump era especially, as they occur. They use the players’ own words. They give us transcripts and video, etc. They provide background. Not “context.” Background.
Again, what is being reported is (purposely) limited, as mentioned above, but the happenings in question are reported with relatively solid accuracy. When people anywhere along the political spectrum ignore this reporting, but make judgments about controversies in general anyway, they can’t help but err on the side of incomplete information. If they have chosen not to see the day by day events, they’re choosing partial views.
Consumers of Fox News and the Conservative Media sphere, for instance, typically don’t even know “their side” has said and done X, Y or Z when questioned in polls and surveys. If it’s negative, they’re not going to get that info from their sources. In certain corners of the left, with an investment, say, in the narrative that there was no Russian interference, if they refuse to read the NYT, the WaPo and other MSM, they’re not going to see the mountains of evidence, the connections, the admissions by Trump and company, the Republican heads of departments and committees that lend support for counter-narratives. And for all “sides,” the investment in one’s own views is often strong enough to steer them away from accepting anything outside a given view.
To me, the best leftist analyses fill in the gaps. Yes, we should always question whatever is reported, question all “authority,” always, check for correspondence and corroboration, note the discrepancies and errors. Check for critical mass, etc. Obviously, that can’t be done well if the critics don’t bother to read or watch the MSM. It’s like saying you hate a movie you’ve never seen, or a book you’ve never read.
But the gaps are where we do our best work, in my view. And those are legion. What isn’t being reported, which tends to be about corporate malfeasance, weapons proliferation, environmental devastation and capitalism’s massive role in this, in wars, in coups and so on. Capitalism’s control over our government is all but taboo for the media. That’s the biggest gap, from where I sit.
October 11, 2019 at 12:00 pm #106536Billy_TParticipantAlso: Journalists are taught to get the who, where, what, when and why of the story. I think the MSM are generally pretty good with four out of those five. They tend to falter on the why.
That’s where leftists should come in. It’s one of our strengths. But if we don’t bother with the first four, and just assume the grounds for our whys, our case is weakened.
I’m often all too guilty of this, as I see the why of so many things circling back to capitalism. But in my own defense, I do pay attention to the daily who, what, where and when too. Still, I can admit to my prejudices, but I think they’re based on a lot of info and add up.
Dismissing that info out of hand, however, but going for the whys anyway, isn’t the optimum route to the truth. I think it’s doubly important for people with actual audiences to do their due diligence. Their impact is magnified, multiplied. The average Joe or Jane, OTOH, if we fail, aren’t likely to move mountains. We can afford to be . . . well, “rash” from time to time. Others can’t.
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