The Globe and Mail's Margaret Wente joins the criticism of the U.S. mainstream media over coverage of the John Edwards affair -- a truly courageous stance, if you ask me.
Scandal has turned Mr. Edwards into a pathetic has-been. It's had much the same effect on the news bosses at the mainstream media, who used to be the gatekeepers for all things fit to print. When the Enquirer broke the story months ago – while Mr. Edwards was still in the race – they treated it like poison ivy. “Classically not a Times-like story,” sniffed Craig Whitney, the standards editor of The New York Times. This was the same paper, you may recall, that recently ran an innuendo-laden story on John McCain and his friendship with an attractive lobbyist a decade or so ago. No wonder critics accuse the MSM of double standards – one for Democrats, and another for Republicans.
But the problem's worse than that. Now that the barbarians have stormed the gates and sacked the citadel, the MSM have no idea what to do. Sending out their best reporters to match a story broken by the gutter press simply isn't in their DNA. You'd have more success training a Rosedale matron to go dumpster-diving. And that is why anyone who can find the Drudge Report knew for weeks what the mainstream papers were too delicate to report: that Mr. Edwards had been caught skulking around the Beverly Hilton in the middle of the night, where the woman with whom he had publicly denied having an affair happened to be staying. With her baby. Of whom he is absolutely not the father. ...
The jig was up when ABC News finally nailed the story for itself, then invited Mr. Edwards on the air. At that point the MSM cringed and ran it, along with heaps of self-justifying excuses. “Never in recent journalistic history have so many tough reporters so closely resembled sheep,” wrote Los Angeles Times columnist Tim Rutten, whose own paper was a leading offender.
Actually, in many ways, I'm relieved that the New York Times isn't chasing exactly the same type of stories as the National Enquirer.
What was the great relevance of this during the election campaign? One could argue it goes to the character issue, so the public has a right to know. OTOH, is the character issue overblown? No reports of George Bush infidelity has turned up, which we can take to be a sign of good character, but he'll likely go down as one of the worst presidents in history.
Edwards was seeking public office, but he wasn't in public office. The NYT story on McCain and his lady lobbyist friend involved a period when McCain was a sitting U.S. senator. There were allegations that he had done favours for the lobbyist's clients. That affects the public interest.
What tabloidization has done is pressure a switch to focusing on news that interests the public rather than what affects the public -- Britney shearing her hair off, for example.
I wonder if anyone has tried to quantitatively measure whether this has resulted in an ever-more ignorant electorate in the United States. I suspect it has.
At a U of T seminar in early 2005, I asked two ex-U.S. Congressmen: "Why are American voters so appallingly ignorant on foreign affairs, and why do the benefits of that ignorance accrue disproportionately to the Republican Party?"
Interestingly, neither of the ex-politicians disputed the premise of my question. :)
Wente also had this to say about the changing news environment:
In fact, the barbarians have been at the gates ever since the O. J. Simpson trial, which turned out to be a cultural and racial event of immense significance. The MSM couldn't bear to dumpster-dive into the lurid details, even as an insatiable public gobbled them up. That was when they began to lose their grip on deciding what is news. With the explosion of the blogosphere, their power is gone for good.
The main point is that the power lies with the public. If they flock to junkfood news, that's what the for-profit media will serve them. Phil Donahue, whom I respect greatly as a broadcaster, started wearing dresses and wrestling on his talk show in the early 1990s when the tabloid wave was swelling. He was matter-of-fact about why: "I don't want to be a dead hero."
Here are some 2005 thoughts from Brooke Gladstone, managing editor of NPR's On The Media, on the media legacy of the OJ trial:
O.J. left an enormous and rather dark legacy across all news media, and particularly cable news. I think it's fair to say that it's a very short hop from O.J. to the "runaway bride."* If it doesn't really matter how important a story is, only that it has certain elements of human drama and that's enough to keep it dominating the news channels and crowding out legitimate news, then you have a situation that's sad, because it makes the public less informed.
* Can you name her? She was once one of the most newsworthy people in America.
We should all find that to be an object of concern.
Pardon my poor reading comprehension skills, but after reading Wente's column several times, I have no idea whether she thinks MSM "dumpster diving" on these types of stories is a good thing or a bad thing.
Maybe she's not concerned.
Anyways, who cares what she meant? It was an entertaining read, and in these times, that's high praise indeed.
Addendum
You might find some useful stuff in this 2006 post: The Juice is shelved.
Also:
June 12, 2007 - 'Paris has the media burning'
July 7, 2008 - Some Network dialogue, revisited
July 31, 2008 - Boring Britney