Does the candidate who generates the most clicks win?
The media treat politics as show business because they’re selling the tickets
What’s the most telling quote of the last decade?
Was it when Kellyanne Conway said in 2017, “Sean Spicer, our press secretary, gave alternative facts …”?
Was it when Rudy Giuliani declared in 2018, “Truth isn’t truth”?
Was it when Donald Trump said in 2021, “I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have”?
Those are all good ones, but I think the most telling quote was when Les Moonves, CEO of CBS, said in early 2016 about Trump’s candidacy: "It may not be good for America, but it's damn good for CBS."
That was an important reminder that people in every profession, including the news media, are governed by motives other than the noble ones they claim. Journalism is a business that needs to make money to survive. It requires traffic, attention, ratings, clicks.
From a short-sighted financial perspective, Trump has been good for the news business. He’s done bizarre and frightening things that have inspired headlines and attracted public attention. He’s made the news more “interesting.” But the media must look past website metrics and TV ratings and realize that disaster lies ahead, for both the free press and the country.
Most Americans are not taking our political crisis seriously enough – because our media aren’t. Too many journalists cover the rise of Republican fascism like it’s a streaming series on Hulu when they should cover it like it’s a Cat 5 hurricane or an epidemic.
Three of the four quotes I cited above were by MAGA liars. Without a doubt, Republicans have dominated the narrative. They’ve been more freewheeling and unpredictable than Democrats. They’ve created spectacles such as Jan. 6, an epic production of the Republican Party.
The media must realize that the Republicans are threatening to entertain us to death. When news outlets depict real-life villains as colorful scamps, they turn the political process into a cartoon series. The wrongdoers become comfortable characters, just part of the show, and therefore not as frightening as they deserve to be.
News outlets seem so easily distracted these days. Trump unveils a $399 pair of golden sneakers – something visual and surprising, a new twist in the story. And the media is all over it.
Joe Biden, meanwhile, is working on complicated, behind-the-scenes stuff like resupplying Ukrainian troops, reducing student debt, and capping the cost of insulin for seniors. Bo-ring.
While many of us wish we’d never hear Trump’s name again for the rest of our lives, millions have loved him ever since “The Apprentice.” To them, the presidency is just a sequel. Fox host Laura Ingraham says Trump is “extremely funny,” which I don’t get. I’ve never seen the guy laugh. He’s sarcastic, which is different from funny. He reminds me of the bully in the middle school cafeteria who picks on the shy, small kids. The other kids laugh nervously, grateful that they’re not the victim this time.
Trump brings dramatic tension, which makes him valuable to the media’s obsession with “storytelling” – with finding amusing angles instead of being clear, factual, and explanatory. This is why the New York Times wrote a headline like this last November, generating a false sense of irony over the fact that Democrats wanted Trump’s insane rhetoric exposed:
That article referred to the “Democrats’ years-long dependence on the Trump outrage machine,” as if the mainstream media doesn’t have the same dependence. And as if outrage over Trump is somehow manufactured instead of the natural reaction that any decent American would have.
For the article, the Times found some guy in Arizona who claimed he voted for Biden in 2020 but will vote for Trump this time. The guy said:
“There’s so many things that President Trump does that’s just not ethical. … [But] there’s a level of honesty and almost transparency, even in a way that we might cringe at it.”
In other words, Trump puts on a show. And millions are watching.
And the news industry is selling the tickets.
I spent almost half my life as a proud journalist, who believed I was in a noble profession and had a responsibility to get people the information they needed to be good citizens. Most of that time was with The Associated Press, which counts among its historical achievements the idea of objectivity in reporting, tracing all they way back to the mid-19th Century. Although, as a journalism professor I once knew and respected said it wasn't really "objectivity" that was needed, but "neutrality."
Unfortunately, today I cringe at much of the news. Here's an example that I just can't get over: In an interview prior to the South Carolina primary, Nikki Haley said, "America has never been racist." No followup question to explain her position came. She's from a state which had one of the largest slave markets in the South in Charleston (as am I), she went to Clemson University (as did I) which has on its grounds the homestead of John C. Calhoun (one of the strongest defenders of slavery). And yet she says that! (Thomas Greene Clemson was Calhoun's son-in-law). Clemson's signature building is Tillman Hall, named after "Pitchfork" Ben Tillman, a notorious racist. And NO push back to justify her statement.
Journalists are not supposed to be merely transcribers, regurgitating what is given them. There was a time no so long ago when at the AP we were strongly encouraged to provide context and background. We said that was part of accurate and being fair.
It too many places now, that idea has become lost. I knew we were in trouble when -- as far back as the early 2000s -- we were often judged on how many "clicks" our stories generated. If a story generated a ton of clicks, it didn't matter if was about Britney Spears or about the Middle East.
I used to believe, along Thomas Jefferson, that the "people" would eventually get it right. I'm not sure that's true anymore as the "people" don't get the information they need.
thanks for this, Mark.
when the internet and social media appeared and scrambled the media landscape, news was affected most, and political reporting the most. news divisions at the tv networks hadn't been expected to turn a profit; they were prestige, the place that wasn't about entertainment, that took itself and us and their mission to inform us dead seriously. but when the newspapers lost their business model (classified ads, thanks to Craig's List), and tv started hemorrhaging viewers as young people didn't tune in bc getting news and entertainment via streaming, the dominant media model of the previous half a century got blowed up real good.
so everything was up for grabs, and the goal was now simply survival. so no departments/divisions would be spared, everything had to contribute to the bottom line. and so news became entertainment.
I know a lot of things have led us to this place, but this one is important and doesn't seem to get discussed: when news suddenly had to become a profit center, get clicks and views, subs, etc., this is where we ended up. and it is literally threatening the future of the republic.