4/19/14, "Living in the New York Times World," American Thinker, by J. Paul Masko
"How could it possibly be true that, as the New York Times goes, so goes the nation? Yet it is
true, and the refusal or inability to understand its influence is
grounded, I believe, in two main areas of misunderstanding or ignorance:
first, people don’t grasp the multitude of stance-shaping options that
are open to the “newspaper of record”; and, perhaps more importantly,
they don’t appreciate the power of reverence and what could be called
the “cascade” of The Times.
Regarding
the first factor, most readers, in my experience, simply don’t think
about the importance of a newspaper’s structure…in ways analogous to
their not marking, for example, the influence of architecture on their
psychic state. But the influence and potential manipulation of a
newspaper’s structure is undeniable.
To illustrate: how could I, as a partisan newspaper editor and staff, guide the opinions and stance of my readers?
--
I could ignore a story, which would convey a lack of relevance to the
issue: if inquiries were made, I’d note that there are many newsworthy
events in our city, nation and world but we have woefully limited space.
-- I could kill a story without explanation: it’s my prerogative.
--
Every story can have an infinite range of headlines and they act as
both “eye-hooks” and summaries for readers. I can lead the same story
with “Democrats find unity at meeting” or “Democrats struggle with
divisive issues”: neither is correct or incorrect but they’ll attract
and affect readers differently, and leave memory traces for later review
at the water cooler. It matters little that I, as editor, write almost
no stories or that those who pen the stories and headlines often have
little contact with each other: essentially all of us, hired by
like-minded superiors and continually nurtured and shaped in our
makeshift groups, tend to have similar ways of looking at the world. Dissenters get a polite smile but don’t last long.
--
I could shift a story’s location. It’s our job to know which page,
what area of a page, what font, what color, etc., attracts a reader’s
attention. I can move a story from the number one attention-getting
spot to a spot in the teens: I have a rough idea about the decrescendo
in the number of readers’ eyes as they move through the front section of
a paper. I know that almost nobody under age 20 will make it to page
12. If I give a cohort of readers 10 minutes to peruse section one, I
can pretty much guarantee, through story placement, headline choice,
leading paragraphs, buried information, etc., that certain stories and
data will be noticed and responded to in particular ways; others will be
overlooked or will simply not exist for huge swaths of the population
who rely on The Times and its cascade for reliable information.
These
factors had a different relevance 40 years ago, before the
near-unconscious melding of news and opinion, and before there was, for a
variety of reasons, a near unanimity of political stance among news
people; when there was at least an attempt by many to report the news in
an unbiased fashion, and before it became acceptable, even fashionable,
to employ a variety of social means to enforce a unified mindset within
a news organization (does anyone recall the high-minded dueling
editorials of the old National Observer newspaper?).
If
I had the time and energy, I could write 50 pages regarding the subtle
choices of each edition of The Times. So trying to do so for decades of
The Times would be a hopeless task: rather like trying to take ten
acres of grass, analyzing and noting the growth and disposition of every
blade, every day for decades.
Nonetheless
those of us watching The Times over the years can recognize patterns
and inclinations that significantly impact our culture, as we could look
over acres of grass and see patterns of growth, areas of vigor,
stagnation, etc.
The
second factor that often eludes people is what could be termed the
power of reverence, intrinsic to what I call the “cascade” of The Times:
the near avalanche-like flow and distribution of information through
electronic and print networks: through like-minded network newscasts,
magazines, local newspaper s, blogs, daytime talk TV, late-night
entertainment, statements at media award ceremonies, the celebrity
Twitterverse, etc. The cascade rolls through Saturday Night Live, Jon
Stewart, The New Yorker, the mouths of third-grade teachers, Elmo,
Madonna and Susan Sarandon …through Salon, The Daily Beast, Vanity Fair,
Days of Our Lives, Diane Rehm, David Letterman and a multifaceted
universe of others….
As
The Times notices, so does the cultural cascade; as The Times inclines,
so does the cascade; and, perhaps most importantly, as The Times
ignores, so the cascade ignores.
Are
these other groups -- The New Republic, the Lettermans, the NPRs
–mindless? Hardly…but they are vulnerable to social forces and, thanks
to our culture and educational system, are like-minded with The Times.
Perhaps
you’ve experienced a seminar with a revered but opinionated professor
at an elite university. Student dissension from the prevailing view,
brilliant though it may be, is usually tolerated initially, but then
quieted and eventually shut-down, often with reinforcing statements and
gestures from other students. A very bright and otherwise thoughtful
and boisterous group begins to sound nearly uniform: topics that violate
the quiet code somehow aren’t raised. Stances advanced by the guru are
woven into the topic of the day and everyone seems satisfied and
unaware of the dynamics.
Or
maybe you’ve seen or heard about situations where the leader of a group
-- for example, a parent in a close-knit family -- modulates and shapes
the direction of that group…although that shaping and modeling may
never be made explicit.
So
it is with The Times, the opinionated media professor, quietly
modulating the flow of information and, like the university professor,
would regard formulations like those noted above as patently absurd.
But
it’s that mostly self-affirming flow of opinion and thought through the
culture -- the echoing from newspapers to mainstream news
organizations, to magazines and journals, daytime and late-night
television talk shows, plots in dramas and cartoons, blogs and the
Twitterverse, statements by politicians and sports commentators, asides
or proclamations by actors on screen or at awards ceremonies, etc. --
that creates the nearly impenetrable “cascade” of data that both blinds
much of the public to alternative perspectives, and makes it almost
impossible for dissenters to succeed. Standing against The Times and
its cascade is like standing in the face of a 20-foot ocean wave: very
few will remain standing and, after a working-over by the cascade, the
remaining few are usually seriously damaged.
Because
massive numbers of people -- perhaps the majority -- derive most or
essentially all of their information from The Times via its cascade, and
because those voters elect lawmakers who affirm their views, it could
truly be said that we live in a world shaped and nurtured by the NY
Times and its cascade.
Perhaps
the most damaging stance of The Times, by the way, is when it stands to
the side, suggesting that news stories, or corrupt, venal behavior are
unworthy of attention. So we have huge swaths of the population for
whom significant stories don’t exist: Fast and Furious, details about
Benghazi, Jonathan Turley in front of the House Judiciary Committee, and
countless others.
But
The Times and its cascade are at their biased worst when they remain
silent in the face of gross misreporting and misrepresentations, or
corrupt and nefarious behavior: Bush or Reagan blaming an unknown video
for a heavy-weapons terror attack would provoke derisive banner
headlines in The Times…but not with Obama; similar mocking banners would
follow an absurd stance by John Boehner that the contents of a massive,
culture-shifting federal bill would remain hidden until after it was
passed…but not with Nancy Pelosi; and as far as we know, none of The
Times’ legal whizzes or bean counters saw fit to dissect the Affordable
Care Act and weigh it against Obama’s claims…for…years.
The
Times would’ve howled at George W. Bush distributing military attire
to an audience at a news conference to feign military support…but
Obama’s manufactured white-coat-brigade in the Rose Garden drew little
more than a chuckle from The Times and its cascade; our “paper of
record” should have been shrieking and bellowing…but…no.
The
Times stood silent when decent, bright, energetic Sarah Palin was
crucified by its cascade: apparently some misogynistic crucifixions are
fine in The Times’ universe. They also stood by as Clarence Thomas
endured widespread vilification and odious attacks.
When
power stands to the side, imperturbable, during a crucifixion, the
message is clear to the perpetrators: crucifixion’s okay…in fact, maybe
we should take this opportunity to discharge our sadistic worst: “Yea,
let’s draw little pointy horns on Sarah Palin’s photos…let’s make her
into a buffoon on Saturday Night Live…let’s rent a house next to her in
Alaska and follow her around for a few months! Let’s really torture
this subhuman idiot! Let’s make her squirm! She deserves it!” The
Times and its cascade, of course, don’t notice the abuse since abuse of a
subhuman idiot is deserved, after all.
I
have met families where the patriarch gives his unspoken blessing to
abuse: an adolescent daughter tries to rouse her dad, noting that her
older brother has been “doing things” to her, “touching” and “forcing”
her into things that she doesn’t want to do. It’s a critical, dismal
and demeaning moment when dad says something like: “Can’t you see that
I’m reading the paper right now, honey?” It’s also empowering for her
brother….
So it is when the “news leader”, the paper-of-record is silent in the face of abuse: the cascade is energized and empowered.
The
Times Sunday Magazine’s hit piece on Ben Carson is probably already
being prepped in case he attempts to run for office: somehow they’ll
find a neurosurgery resident who thought him racist or bullying or
materialistic or, if they hit the jackpot, maybe someone can be found to
say that Carson was suspected of having an affair with a neurosurgical
nurse! And The Times accountants will have gone through every publicly
available financial document: they’ll find a meal at Panera that was
written off as a “meeting with residents and fellows” but, of the four
residents with whom they spoke, none was present at the supposed Panera
meeting! Very curious! And possibly good for a banner headline like:
“Carson Suspected of Corruption at Johns Hopkins; May Have Abused
Physicians’ Account”. Stephen Colbert can quip: “It turns out that Ben
Carson was like a ‘Carson-oid’ on the bank accounts over at Johns
Hopkins…carcin-oid…that’s a type of tumor…on the bank accounts at Johns
Hopkins…”
(rimshot). And Carson will be done in short order. The
details aren’t really important as long as the cascade is at hand…and a
time-tested, oft-quoted totalitarian notion is kept in mind: show me the
man and I’ll show you the crime.
Some sad aspects of The Times cascade include:
-- The fact that the vast majority of those influenced by it have no clue that they’re in the throes of it.
--
Many of those influenced by the cascade consider themselves
well-informed, thoroughly knowledgeable and correct: after all, if it’s
not in The Times, it’s not worth knowing. What can one say? Come out
of your bubble? Come out of the cascade?
--
We are at a huge loss as a culture and nation because the power of the
cascade and its audience is such that most of our political
representatives, some of whom are independent-minded, are deathly afraid
of opposing it, and consequently kowtow to it or silence themselves
rather than be called out by it.
They can’t face the devastating
cultural slap caused by an accusation -- concocted or not -- as it
reverberates up and down the cascade. They shudder to think that the
cascade would vibrate with denunciations of their supposed racist,
misogynistic, homophobic, conscripts-in-the-war-on-women,
trying-to-push-granny-off-the-cliff, hating behavior.
I’m
guessing that many cascade-consistent reactions by our politicians are
subliminal: they have an awareness that something very, very bad could
happen to them if they step away from the cascade. But if they ever
actually process what’s happening, they probably think that their
political lives would get notably more hectic if they oppose it. There
are very few politicians on the right who seem immune to or unbowed by
the cascade -- Ted Cruz, Sarah Palin, Scott Walker, Allen West come to
mind -- but they themselves are powerful life lessons for those
considering violating its tenets: Walker has somehow survived repeated
threats and intimidation, and Cruz hasn’t been effectively dispatched
yet…but he’s new: give it time. And those politicians who toe the
liberal/progressive party line needn't be concerned: they can step away
from the cascade occasionally -- Bill Clinton comes to mind -- without
becoming targets.
--
There’s a psycho-emotional sheering when politicians and policies
appear one way to a reasonable man-on-the-street, but the mainstream
news and cultural media portray them drastically otherwise: people are
left scratching their heads and wondering what they missed. To a
reasonable man-on-the-street, for example, Barack Obama seems like a
charming, bright fellow…but a flim-flam or con man who’s very
comfortable with lying; many of us have seen his like before: the guy
who strolls into a competition and, although he’s done next to no
preparation and is woefully ignorant of the topics at hand, wins with
charm, clever turns of phrase and good looks. Obama is so used to easy
wins that he’s not in the habit of working hard…so when topics and
problems get more complex, when he can’t breeze in and charm his way
through, he fails and blames others. To The Times and its cascade,
apparently, Barack Obama is truly brilliant; to the reasonable
man-on-the-street, he’s a bright, charming, well-spoken flim-flammer who
plays loose with the truth…and plays a lot of golf.
To
a reasonable man-on-the-street, Hillary Clinton seems to have an
average to low-average Ivy League mind and galumphs along,
uninspired…while an adoring media and public gush and overlook missteps
and misrepresentations. Mitt Romney seemed like a stellar fellow:
honest, hard-working, self-effacing. In the cascade, he was an elitist,
money-grabbing misogynist.
But
Americans have faced other formidable forces and seemingly
insurmountable odds before: the preeminent British Colonial army; the
increasingly dominant and resourceful Nazi war machine; the huge and
powerful Soviet Union.
A
notable problem is that we’re not taught to oppose social pressure:
many of us know about fighting off physical attackers, but when the
newspaper that you’ve adored, the comedians and movies that you’ve
enjoyed, the commentators who populate your favorite airwaves, and the
professors from the university that you’ve respected all tell you that
you’re wrong and perhaps even detestable, you feel alone and
nonplussed. You quietly figure that all of those self-assured news
organizations, media and intellectuals probably trump your ideas and
“old school” beliefs, and you begin asking yourself if you’re out of
step or out of touch with the times and the culture.
.
We
need politicians ready to resist the media-government onslaught, people
who will look inside themselves and speak honestly from their
consciences, no matter the recoil and denunciations from the cascade.
Be aware that there is a difference between physical and social courage;
haven’t you met people who dominate their adversaries and seem more
than willing to jump in and pummel others in a fist fight or verbal
altercation, but who are bowed and wither in the face of a stern look
from their mother or wife? If I had to choose an old-man partner for a
tag-team fist fight, I might choose John McCain, but I think of him as
almost incapable of standing up to certain types of press criticism. We
can no longer afford representatives who shrink or collapse in the face
of name-calling and castigation by their political adversaries and the
press. They must expect to be called racist, misogynistic, homophobic,
etc., but look to their consciences, their family, friends, and clergy
-- not their opponents and the press -- to judge themselves.
And
we need government employees with the courage to resist the
media-government onslaught. When a supervisor assigns you to perform a
task that you consider a flagrant violation of the spirit of fairness,
you should both resist the assignment and make your position public…for
the sake of all of us. Reflect on the courage of the operators of the
Underground Railroad and others who’ve sheltered the shunned and
reviled: they resisted malicious legal authority. As a culture we can
no longer survive detached, unprincipled, automaton-like civil servants.
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