Laura Pacifici is a senior at Brown University concentrating in Political Science. A contributor to an international publication, Voices, she is particularly interested in domestic policy issues and has a forthcoming article on the criminal justice system. After graduating in May 2011, Laura plans on a career in law and politics. Jeff
Almost as quickly as the news media insinuated that vitriolic political rhetoric contributed to Jared Loughner’s killing spree in Tucson, these same reporters and commentators were sharply criticized for having pointed to political explanations. While David Brooks and others such as Charles Blow in their most recent columns were disturbed by these developments, I am not surprised that the news media all but ignored –as Brooks pointed out– psychological explanations in its quest to understand Loughner’s act. This, I believe, is a result of the fact that increasingly we are turning to political commentators such as Keith Olbermann and Bill O’Reilly and away from Diane Sawyer and Brian Williams to deliver our news.
In relying more on “news commentators” and less on traditional “news broadcasters”, we have contributed to the merging of “news” and “commentary.” Commentators on the left and the right know what their niche and partisan viewers expect of them; their task is to fulfill these expectations. This leads to a creative, if unfortunate interaction: Major events come with a prepackaged political bent. It is no surprise that, burdened by the demands of the 24-hour news cycle, these commentators would respond to an event like the massacre in Tucson using politically based explanations.
The news media is not immune from our polarized political climate. Nor is it immune from the increasingly inflammatory rhetoric used by today’s partisans to smear their opponents. Jeff Goldfarb in his recent post discussed the nature of this rhetoric. He pointed to the relentless use of the term “Obamacare” as a modern-day example of what Orwell in his canonical 1984 called “newspeak”, which Goldfarb describes as a language that conceals and manipulates rather than reveals.
By tuning in night after night to the Keiths and the Bills, to the MSNBCs and the FOXs, our own demands have forced the news media to utilize such discourse. Viewers and readers are now trained to expect narratives with heroes and villains and causality that have political elements rather than a strict recounting of the facts of the case.
When disaster strikes, especially involving our nation’s politicians, media commentators and journalists are forced to respond to our need to place blame and attribute causality. President Obama in his speech in Tucson touched on this problem, explaining that “it is part of our nature to demand explanations – to try to impose some order on the chaos.” Obama also recognized another tendency that today feels just as natural: “we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who think differently than we do.” The news media and their viewers together succumb to this tendency, which places us in a perpetual Catch-22: we’re increasingly becoming frustrated by accusatory and politicized news reporting, but we are not willing to abandon our political commentators.
Although we will probably never know what motivated Jared Loughner to carry out his killing spree –and whether, for example, Brooks is right that psychological explanations more appropriately account for Loughner’s act– what we can be sure of is that we, along with the commentators we love and love to hate, have helped to ensure that the news media interprets major events through combative partisan lenses. We pay a price for our own reliance on political commentators: our news is politicized, shaped, and framed before it is delivered.
Laura,I couldn’t agree with you more. Our so called news commentators are primarily interested in making a lot of noise,attracting audiences and not analyzing and presenting unbiased news. Your comments are right on the mark
Laura makes a lot of excellent points.
I actually watched the FOX news coverage of the shootings and killings, and the story as it unfolded. I contemplated comparing an hour-by-hour comparison of the coverage on each of the networks; however, I never got around to doing it. It is a much bigger project than I anticipated. It might be a good thesis topic for someone.
It is my impression that the FOX News coverage of the story as it unfolded was factual in a very confused situation. I was surprised. In the first few hours of coverage, they got a few things wrong such as who was killed and who was injured. This was attributed to misinformation provided by its sources within various government agencies. Early on they gravitated towards viewing the violence as the product of an extremely disturbed individual — this was after saying early on that they did not have enough information to explain what happened. It was somewhat later that they criticized other reports that suggested that Loughner may have been influenced by the rhetoric of the right. A number of bloggers savagely attacked Sarah Palin, Conservative Radio talk show hosts, the Tea Party, and FOX News. Looking back, I think that most FOX News coverage was reasonably representative of what actually happened, including that of Bill O’Reilly. Rather than falling back on the usual mantra, it would be more productive for opponents to cite specific things that were said in full context.
Based upon what I have read, it appears to me that many Left leaning observers chose to react through an ideological prism rather than report and analyze. Of course, many of the bloggers were the worst, but this perspective also seemed to influence other accounts. It was only later that those holding this view had to back away.
I appreciate President Obama’s call for civility; however, I am extremely pessimistic about political actors in the broadest sense being able to achieve his vision. I’m not even sure that President Obama will be able to do so.
“Newspeak,” in my opinion is a problem on all sides. “Obamacare” is one example; but we also need to remember the names of the heath care act as it evolved: the House started with “America’s Affordable Health Choice Act of 2009” and the Senate called its initial version the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.” There are real questions as to the long-term impacts of the bill that we now know as the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010. It is possible that the act and the name for it might have been different if a bi-partisan approach had been used.
I’ve learned over the years never to underestimate people on the other side of a negotiation; or an enemy on a battlefield. Both must be respected, and when emotions displace reason, the outcome is frequently bad.
I would agree that the coverage of Loughner’s actions was exploited along partisan lines. But I also think that, whatever his motivation, he must have felt that he had some ideological justification for the shootings, which could only have, in his twisted view, an external source. Not to say a talk radio loudmouth “caused” the outburst.
It would be nice if American politics were swimmingly bi-partisan, but when you have real issues, it’s hard not to take a stand, and do some fact-checking.
Really, the commentary, right and left, is more than he said, she said. Fox still hasn’t let go of the birther pseudo controversy; now they’re claiming the long-form is photo-shopped. You compare O’Reilly and Olbermann. How about, on the same channel, Shep Smith, and Sean Hannity: A reasonable journalist and a self-taught conservative hack?
Or for that matter, is the “objective” news that ABC(Sawyer) chooses to cover more worthy than, say, the issues brought to the forefront by Democracy Now, an explicitly progressive source? Omission is another form of commentary.
We will never see pure news–it’s our obligation to evaluate what we hear and read, and make decisions about what’s credible.