A Question of Priorities

I mostly agreed with this piece by FAIR's Janine Jackson up until the last couple of sentences.

... And that’s the thing to remember: Every person you see on air is there because someone chose to put them there, and is taking the place of someone else who might be there.  So when they, say, trot out the “n-word” and say it’s less “a race thing than a comedian thing”; when they ask an Indian-American spelling contest winner if she’s “used to” writing “in Sanskrit” because they’re “joking”; when they lament a commemoration of the now, they care about pop music and going to the beach”—the thing to keep in mind is that Orlando Pulse shooting being used to agitate for gun control because “most gay people aren’t political. Most gay people, you know, they care about pop music and going to the  beach" -- the thing to keep in mind is that freedom of speech is not the same thing as a guaranteed right to a megaphone. It is always appropriate to ask media outlets why they have chosen these people over others to fulfill their obligation to serve the public interest.

I think it's at least arguable that freedom of speech is the same thing as a guaranteed right to a megaphone.  Having the "freedom" to say whatever you like while you're alone in a soundproof room, or to write whatever you like as long as no one but you ever sees it, is not what I'd call freedom of speech or the press.  This has always been a problem with the implementation of freedom of speech, and the proprietors of today's commercial media would, I think, basically agree with Jackson here: Sure, you have the right to say whatever you like, but we're not obligated to give every tinfoil-hat wacko a soapbox and a megaphone for his crazy ideas.  So buy your own megaphone!

It was the part about the media's "obligation to serve the public interest" that bothered me first, though.  I agree that it's appropriate to challenge the media over the criteria by which they choose the people they provide with a megaphone, not because they aren't entitled to put anyone they like in front of the microphones and cameras, but because the corporate media posture as much about their responsibility to the public as Jackson could wish.  Even the most degraded and reactionary of our media claim to be telling the public what it wants and needs to know.  They wave the flag and prattle about their sense of duty to Truth, and their eternal quest for Objectivity.  It would be better to acknowledge that all media are partisan, that the corporate media report the news "through the eyes of the investor class" as another writer at FAIR put it very aptly a few years ago.  Non-commercial media are often no better: I happened to hear BBC commentary the morning after the recent UK election, and it was pretty appallingly partisan: even the pundit from a nominally Labour paper was upset by Labour's victory, saying younger voters voted for Labour because Corbyn had simply promised to give them money, and the woman from a Conservative women's website kept giggling about how Corbyn was like ninety years old, even after she was corrected.

The question is, what is the public interest?  Who knows it, and how do they know it?  Again, the corporate media would protest that they do so serve the public interest to the best of their  ability.  The principle underlying liberal, Enlightenment mandates like freedom of the press is that no one does know where the true public interest lies, so it is important that as many viewpoints as possible be available.  This may be invalid -- a surprising number of liberals and progressives jeer at it -- but if so, we should just repeal the First Amendment.

I think that consumers / users of media also need to take responsibility for their choices.  Everything you see on media is something you've chosen to watch or listen to, and it means that you're not listening to or watching something else.  There are many options available, probably more than ever before.  Even better, there are media criticism resources like FAIR, and unlike the media generally, they show their work: why is this statement dubious, what could this story contain that it doesn't, and so on?  No one can really do your thinking for you, so you have to evaluate the information you take in.  No media source is infallible, and every media source must be used critically.  If you prefer not to do that, it isn't the fault of the media (as a whole) if you end up misinformed.

What If They Gave a Press Conference and Nobody Came?

John Caruso at The Distant Ocean noticed something I didn't, or wouldn't have, in the coverage of President Obama's signing of the Daniel Pearl Freedom of the Press Act. "Speaking of press freedoms," one of the journalists present asked if he could ask a question about the BP oil spill, and The Only President We've Got replied testily, "You are free to ask them ... I'm not doing a press conference today." Obama hasn't given "a prime-time White House news conference in many months, despite much pleading from pundits and members of the media", which I found interesting because I thought avoiding press questions was one of George W. Bush's notable characteristics. Nor should you lobby him here... or here ... or over there, at least unless you have some big bucks for his 2012 campaign. But Obama is Not Bush, which is all that matters. Just look at his birth certificate, it says so right there, he's not Bush.

Several media outlets eked a story out of this, which John pointed out because they'd neglected to notice, or at least to mention, a more serious discrepancy between Obama's posturing about freedom of the press and the US' history of murderous violence against journalists. This only goes to show why either John Caruso nor I will ever find a job in the exciting field of White House journalism.

But I can't get very worked up about it either way. It's not necessary to ask the President about actual US practice, though of course it would be fun. He's shown before that he can't deal with inconvenient questions, though of course the corporate media aren't interested in asking them. (Did I mention that Obama is Not Bush?) You don't send a corporate lackey to do a journalist's job, and if the President won't answer questions the only alternative is to hit the pavement, read the documents, follow the money. After that you can offer the White House the opportunity to bloviate, obfuscate, and generally sling the bullshit, but it is not a good journalist's job to act as a stenographer to the President.

Not being allowed to ask questions at the President's pleasure is not a violation of press freedom as as I can see. The government in general is, I believe, required to report its doings to the citizens, and as citizens, journalists can read those reports and require the government to explain them. If the government refuses to answer, that is news too. But I can't help wondering what kind of questions about BP's oil spill that reporter had in mind. What does Obama have to say about it at this point that he hasn't said before?

There are journalists who'll react to this suggestion by screaming that if they did that, they'd never get access to the President or any politician again! Like that's a bad thing. But politicians and the government in general need journalists as much as journalists need the government, and maybe more. What if the White House gave a press conference and nobody came? What if, when staff called the press to ask where they were, they were told that press conferences -- especially Presidential press conferences -- were a waste of journalists', and the nation's time? It'd never happen, but that's just the problem. In general the corporate media, with a few honorable exceptions who manage to sneak in from time to time, are no more interested in changing the routine than the presidents are.