Tony Blair calls mainstream media, "feral beast"
And they know they've been nailed.
By Mark Kilmer Posted in Culture — Comments (3) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Tony Blair critiqued the mainstream media today, and they are on solid defense. They are reacting badly, but they know they've been nailed.
The British Prime Minister was speaking of the Brit media – singling out The Independent -- but he could just have easily been addressing our own mainstream media [transcript]:
The reality is that as a result of the changing context in which 21st Century communications operates, the media are facing a hugely more intense form of competition than anything they have ever experienced before. They are not actually the masters of this change, they're in many ways the victims.
The media, Blair argues, can't help it. "The fault, dear Dan, lies in the stars not in ourselves that we are obnoxious twits." (The meter wasn't hurt too badly in the revision.)
Read On…
Tony continues:
The result, however, is a media that increasingly and to a dangerous degree is driven by "impact". Impact is what matters. It is all that can distinguish, can rise above the clamour, can get noticed. Impact gives competitive edge. Of course the accuracy of a story counts. But it is often secondary to impact.
It is this necessary devotion to impact that is unravelling standards, driving them down, making the diversity of the media not the strength it should be but an impulsion towards sensation above all else.
Why quibble over the cause? The Prime Minister has the symptom of the effect well stated. Because the angry scandal, not matter how contrived, plays well with the advertisers, it's what we get. And the public wants what the public gets.
And they want the tabloids. In Britain, there are broadsheets, newspapers that a printed similarly to the major national papers here in the United States and, indeed, to your local paper. (The Times of London, the Daily Telegraph, and the Guardian Unlimited [to Manchester?] are the largest.) In Britain, there are the glossy tabloids -- The Sun, The Daily Express, and the Daily Mail, etc. – with their celeb scandal what-are-the-royals-up-to-Fergie-Camilla outlook.
Blair seems them all under pressure to compete to produce the nastiest thus tastiest morsels to toss into the public maw to quench the appetites of the people and those who want to sell them stuff.
Broadsheets today face the same pressures as tabloids; broadcasters increasingly the same pressure as broadsheets. The audience needs to be arrested, held and their emotions engaged. Something that is interesting is less powerful than something that makes you angry or shocked.
The consequences of this are acute. First, scandal or controversy beats ordinary reporting hands down. News is rarely news unless it generates heat as much as or more than light.
And journalism becomes a farce. The New York Times has led the charge to victimhood on this one.
Second, attacking motive is far more potent than attacking judgement. It is not enough for someone to make an error. It has to be venal. Conspiratorial. Watergate was a great piece of journalism but there is a PhD thesis all on its own to examine the consequences for journalism of standing one conspiracy up. What creates cynicism is not mistakes; it is allegations of misconduct. But misconduct is what has impact.
Let us consider the War in Iraq. It could have served, perhaps, a wonderful purpose had our mainstream media questioned the President's various judgments regarding Iraq. A healthy national dialogue about what we were doing and how would have been good for the nation, but our mainstream media did not want to allow for one. They attacked the motives of the Administration at every turn, which is something the Democrats had to do by simple fact of being a clueless opposition. The media do not have that excuse, unless they are, too, a clueless opposition.
Tony Blair's list of consequences continues:
Third, the fear of missing out means that today's media, more than ever before, hunts in a pack. In these modes it is like a feral beast, just tearing people and reputations to bits. But no-one dares miss out.
The media is the beast. This is not a case of individual reporters or organizations going on the attack; rather, they all think and act as one. And they hate. And they feed. I'm thinking now of Scooter Libby and Alberto Gonzales as two current wildebeests on this National Geographic Channel episode played out on the DC safari.
It's time for Number Four. Tony…
Fourth, rather than just report news, even if sensational or controversial, the new technique is commentary on the news being as, if not more important than the news itself. So - for example - there will often be as much interpretation of what a politician is saying as there is coverage of them actually saying it. In the interpretation, what matters is not what they mean; but what they could be taken to mean. This leads to the incredibly frustrating pastime of expending a large amount of energy rebutting claims about the significance of things said, that bears little or no relation to what was intended.
This is a large part of why the ratings are dropping for the network newscasts, of why newspaper subscription figures are dwindling. Over at Rathergate.com, we have a solution to the current ills of the mainstream media: Cut out the nonsense and just tell the truth, report the news. Period.
When you read this blog, you know you are getting opinion and analysis, and you know from where we come. You can pick from several scads of blogs to find what you want.
With the major media, we're told we are getting the news – period – but this news is laced with personal and/or organizational opinion, often mindless bilge water leaking from a ship of vacuity, navigating the oceans of banality.
No, there is good journalism and there are valuable journalists, and I am sure the Prime Minister agrees. They are the real pros, the ones who report what they've discovered with context but not with often ill-informed analysis and opinion influenced by mental diseases resembling rabies. (A real professional, in my estimation, is someone like Greg Palkot.)
Blair's speech goes deeper than all this, and I do recommend it [transcript] ( learned of the speech from a post by Curt at Flopping Aces.)
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Tony Blair calls mainstream media, "feral beast" 3 Comments (0 topical, 3 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
... would have a fair share of Brits claiming he is guilty of the same philosophy in much of his domestic policies. Because, it seems, what he is saying is that the press is not, by and large, motivated by reporting the true and full story but in reporting the story that makes the biggest wave in the direction they think is best. They want impact, but impact in a direction consistent with their world view. Truly an "ends justifies the means" philosophy. Blair has done much the same in many areas, from the movement towards the Europeanization of England's economy, selling off most of England's gold reserves under Gordon Brown, to the so-called domestic ethnic-speech-hate crimes. All the while undermining the longterm economic health and sovereignty of England and weakening the protection of individual rights in that country. Why? Because he favors a multicultural, more socialist, and European integrated England.
He's ticked off because they went after him on all kinds of things due to his support of the war against radical Islamists. I don't think he has particularly minded the feckless press when it has benefited his agenda.
He gets it right here concerning the media. Too bad he didn't apply the same "insight" and standards to his own purposes and policies.
Jack
The World's Ruined
A healthy national dialogue about what we were doing and how would have been good for the nation, but our mainstream media did not want to allow for one. They attacked the motives of the Administration at every turn, which is something the Democrats had to do by simple fact of being a clueless opposition. The media do not have that excuse, unless they are, too, a clueless opposition.
I think you have perfectly captured our current situation. If you are a lib, you believe the MSM because they validate your worldview. If you're a conservative, thier lies and propaganda are readily apparent and obviously contrived.
The MSM is creating a world where people not only have thioer own opinons, but can easliy provide thier own 'facts' as well.
That is a recipe for complete disaster because it precludes reasoned dialog.
While I give three cheers to Tony for telling it like it is, I am very concerned with his proposed solution: government regulation of the news. The liberals already control the MSM, the last thing we need is to give them by gov't mandate.
At least we're talking about the nanny state UK here.
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