"The Liars Win" when Propaganda is Conflated with News

E. J. Dionne's editorial in The Washington Post today accurately describes what is happening in the media today as propaganda and outright lies are being treated as "news." (hat tip to Steven Bennen for the link) There has long been a tradition in the media (if imperfectly executed) to provide "both sides" to the story. This approach works if both sides act, at least relatively, in good faith. But people with an agenda can take advantage of this approach by promoting lies and propaganda as news. As long as citizens can recognize the difference, the republic stands. However, in recent years, the liars seem to be winning.

The first step, it seems to me, was to fuel people's fears that journalists could not be fair if their personal views leaned in one political direction. This, of course, meant completely denying the professionalism of journalism. So the meme has become "the liberal media"--and in spite of all evidence, the public at large believes that this "liberal" media is bent on promoting only its "side." Yet as many analysts have pointed out, the talk shows on radio, the guests invited to speak on those Sunday shows, the folks interviewed on the major networks are most often conservatives. Just look at how often John McCain, a twice-failed candidate for president, gets a slot on those shows. Mike Huckabee gets his own talk show. Did John Kerry get his own talk show? Or Howard Dean? But if you can convince the public that "the media" is "liberal," then you have convinced the public not to trust journalists' pursuit of truth--and then you can take advantage of that mistrust by promoting your own "truth."

The firestorm over the Journolist (a listserv for journalists) is the latest attempt at totally annihilating trust in journalists. "Journolist scandal proves media bias" screams a headline--and people fall for it without reading any more of the details. Tucker Carlson, a conservative pundit, has been milking this "scandal" for all its worth--but he refuses to release the full e-mails on which he is basing his claims of a liberal conspiracy among the members of that listserv, a listserv that included one of his own conservative reporters (so how conspiratorial could the listserv be?!). Ezra Klein, the creator of Journolist, explains why he created the listserv here: on his blog for The American Prospect. Most of the members on that list lean center-left, but their participation was not conspiratorial but empirical: they needed a place to discuss their ideas and to access experts who might be less willing to answer questions elsewhere. (The thing is, most of the public probably doesn't even know what a listserv is--and how many there are for every subject and interest.) Sure, ideas were raised that others in the listserv shot down--but Tucker Carlson and his ilk don't reveal the shooting down, the consequences of debate. Of course, right-wingers love conspiracy theories (uh huh, and left-wingers do, too, but for some reason, the left-wing doesn't carry the day, does it? Does anyone with any sense REALLY believe the Bush administration orchestrated 9/11? Oh, but how many on the right believe that Barack Obama wasn't born in the United States--and that he's a commie pinko?) To further support their view of the leftist conspiracy of Journolist, radicals claim that liberal pundits such as Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann were on the list. Not so, says Klein. But who's listening?

And that's the point, isn't it: to get people to stop listening, to stop thinking. When the majority of the public believes that journalists cannot be trusted, then the power-hungry win. The liars win.

This trend to conflate propaganda with news is evident in the recent Andrew Breitbart/ Shirley Sherrod episode. And here, the purpose was not only to conflate propaganda and legitimate news but to push the idea of the equivalency of white racism and black racism in this country. The NAACP had called on the Tea Party to repudiate racist elements in its ranks. Now, anyone who has listened to Tea Party participants in interviews and who have watched videos know that there are racists in the party. That's not to say that every person involved in the Tea Party is a racist. A radical group is going to attract un-desirable elements. But wouldn't it be best for the country if a group such as this said, "We're in opposition to the government led by a black man, but we're not against a black man being president. Racist literature, signs, and statements are totally out of character in our movement." But instead of doing that, radicals such as Andrew Breitbart go about trying to prove that white racism can't be so bad because there are black racists, too: the stupid (yes! stupid!) argument of equivalency. It's the childish argument that what I'm doing isn't so bad because others--especially those who claim some kind of moral superiority--are doing it, too. Only in this case, Breitbart chose a woman who was communicating exactly the opposite of what he purported that she was communicating. Here was a woman who had experienced racism of the worst sort--the kind that led to a miscarriage of justice. Yet here she was, telling her audience of how she rose above hate and how she believed that they should all work together to create a society where people of all ethnicities could live in better communities. And her audience demonstrated their understanding of her message with "uh huhs" and "alrights" and "amens" and their sympathy with her feelings and experience, likewise.

Here, again, the purpose is to call into question any sense of fairness and justice on "the other side"--and to use race to do that. The far-right has the media and the government so scared of being accused of unfairness, that they bend over backwards to avoid the appearance of unfairness and thus give credence to lies. Breitbart got what he wanted: a larger audience, a national presence in the media, and more white followers who believe that they are just as discriminated against as blacks in this country--contrary to evidence. Because, guess what, they've been gradually led not to believe in evidence, to conflate propaganda with news.

Without journalists being able to ask hard questions, without people having some trust in the professionalism of journalism, a country's citizens are at the mercy of the powerful. Just look at dictatorships such as Burma, which routinely arrests journalists and passes jail sentences of twenty years on those who speak truth to power. The rodeo clowns win; the man (or woman) in the saddle loses.

More Conflation, Propaganda vs. News, black racism vs. white racism

• "Fox News, the DOJ Pseudo-Scandal, and White Racial Hysteria," Jonathan Chait, at The New Republic
  
  
• And now the back-tracking to find SOMETHING to hang around Shirley Sherrod's neck: "Defining Lynching Down," Adam Serwer, on Jeffrey Lord's claiming that Shirley Sherrod lied when she described Bobby Hall's being beaten to death by Sheriff Screws and his colleagues as a "lynching." Disgusting. Having been called out for lying about Sherrod's hopeful message, the right now is looking for any mud to sling on the woman.