The Dumb Beast
My mentor Howard Bloom teaches that there is a uniform pattern
to behaviors, and they extend from the lowest to the highest level of species
and that they really aren't conscious, even though they seem like it.
That's why I agree with the direction of Chris
Lydon's latest
post, but I'm unwilling to impute consciousness to the lurching media beast
as he does:
Big Media came out of its cave to beat Dean over the
head with Kerry, and that that this is a Problem. This was not
critical journalism at work, this was an industrial offensive from a
declining sector of the information and intelligence business, a corporatized,
overconcentrated, underventilated giant that feels itself threatened. The
newsmag headlines, the network cliches about "anger," the emptiness
of the "electability" standard (which newsmags giveth and taketh
away, without ever having to show evidence) and that completely mindless,
truly Goebbels-esque repetition of the scream tape--all the manipulated
frenzy of the last three weeks smacked of a fiercely anti-democratic
bullying that I find personally, professionally and publicly offensive. I
confess some naivete here.
I am surprised the old devils tried
it; I am surprised that they got away with it.
I'm making a fine distinction here, and don't want to harp
on it, but it may be useful to see the difference between purpose and outcome.
I don't perceive any conspiracy or even intention by the media to "get" my
man Howard Dean or to suppress the Internet's grand promise.
Just as we don't need to believe in a watchmaker
designing life forms to appreciate how
biology
has evolved unconsciously (well, some of us), neither do we need to impute
purpose to the outcomes which the media produces. Understanding the biological
basis
of memes is useful, especially when you remember that the man who coined
the term, Richard Dawkins, is a geneticist. So I don't detect a grand conspiracy
behind most actions of the Meme Machine.
Jay Rosen seems to say to me that the individuals in
the press are like any knowledge worker, generating words and insinuations
mostly to serve their career needs and ambitions. Writers and talking heads
and
editors
and
publishers are playing to their individual boss first and to their audience
second. That's just survival of the fittest, in a culture where attention
is the gold standard of power and possibility.
In the universal battle for attention,
- The catchiest memes win
- The most prolific producers of catchy memes
win
- Outlets employing the most prolific producers
of catchy memes win
I'm no Jay Rosen, but I'm confident in that universality of
behavior in all fields, including the press.
But something must happen when you get tenure. Otherwise how
can we explain Wolf Blitzer and Tim Russert? Might a cynical agenda be
on the mind of the real king-makers?
The Tim Russert Problem
My inclination to avoid labeling the press as malevolent
is harder to justify in the case of Tim Russert. This morning on Meet the
Press, he challenged Howard Dean:
When I was in Iowa, I read a letter to the editor in
the Des Moines Register, which caught my attention. And this is what
it says: "Now I know how Howard Dean gets his exercise while he's
on the campaign trail. He drops to his knees to beg Washington insiders
to endorse him, and then he jumps up to insult them. I'm guessing he
does about 20 repetitions of that a day.".
Russert
was reading from one
of 53
letters the Register published on Jan. 18 - presumably
of 2,000 or so letters over the six weeks prior to the caucus. By what archery
is Russert able to retrieve that writer's cynicism out of so many?
But it gets better. If you Google the letter writer's name,
Jim Bootz, the 3rd item returned
reveals Bootz' day job: Minnesota State Director of . . . wait for it! .
. . the John
Kerry campaign!
You wouldn't make this stuff up.
FWIW, Bootz' planted letter immediately followed this one:
It's time for a Vermonter in the White House. Someone
who will return America to the values that our forebears institutionalized
as they created
one country united by common interests and beliefs. As a Vermont resident
of 35 years, married to a fifth-generation Vermonter whose family was
cared for by Dr. Howard Dean, I've been thinking about what those core
values are and how I have seen Dean live them out as governor. The
most important value we New Englanders hold dear is integrity. When
I was head of a small Vermont school, my 7th-grade students asked Governor
Dean questions like, "Have you ever told a lie?" He answered
honestly and thoughtfully (yes, he has told lies). Over the years I
have come to trust Dean's word and his judgment. If he is elected president,
he will bring the values of rural Vermont - and of the heartland of
America - to the most important elected office in these United States.
Harry Chaucer
Castleton, Vt.
But perhaps Mr. Chaucer's a plant also. Google says he's the
chair of the Education Department at Castleton State College. Maybe he's
as biased as Kerry's patsy, you never know. Surely Russert is doing his best
to separate the wheat from the chaff for those of us who depend on his objectivity.
Or maybe Howard Dean never should have said that he wanted
to break up the media.
2:13:14 AM 
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