Stuart Rothenberg is the very model of a modern major political pundit. He has his own newsletter and contributes to Roll Call, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and is a regular commentator on television news programs. He has a reputation as an astute analyst. Which makes me wonder why it took him so long to come to this realization:
“America’s cable ‘news’ networks have concluded – on the basis of considerable research and evidence, I’m sure – that most viewers don’t want straight news and analysis as much as they want to hear what they already think or to watch predictable partisan attacks.
“The three big cable ‘news’ networks don’t exist to provide a public service, after all. They have corporate officers and stockholders to answer to, which means they need more and more eyeballs to generate more advertising dollars.
“Their answer: talk radio on TV. Forget about the serious implications and political fallout that follow an event or policy, and instead attack your opponents repeatedly using half-truths, glittering generalities and inapplicable analogies.”
With that, Rothernberg announced that he will no longer be a guest on MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews. Very little of what Rothenberg says should surprise anyone who has been paying attention. So either he is not as astute as he pretends to be, or he just preferred picking up his paycheck and indulging in denial. Rothenberg complains that Hardball has evolved into “a partisan, heavily ideological sledgehammer” and he is upset that Matthews made reference to some Republicans as crackpots. But that seems like a pretty petty reason to pound on a news culture that has plenty of legitimate flaws.
I’m not sure what his objection is to the crackpot remark. With characters like Michele “Let’s investigate Congress for Socialists” Bachmann, and Michael “It’s a Hip-Hop GOP, Baby” Steele, crackpot seems like a rather reserved assessment. And as for being a partisan sledgehammer, I can’t think of any other program that regularly hosts the disgraced former Republican leader, Tom DeLay, and treats him with such deference and respect.
Rothenberg’s assertion that viewers aren’t interested in straight news is really a form of attacking the victim. There is surely a segment of the market that prefers to only hear those things that validate their preconceptions, but part of the problem is that they haven’t been given a real choice in the first place. If the audience currently has no place to find neutral reporting, how can we conclude that they would not watch it if it were available? The truth is that viewers are drawn to programming that provides either information or drama. Since there is presently no compelling source of informational programming, viewers are stuck with the dramatic variety.
Rothenberg’s observation that the media has abandoned public service in favor of profit is irrefutable, but hardly a revelation. And while he describes the corporate response to conditions in the marketplace (talk radio on TV), he doesn’t bother to offer any suggestions for reversing the trend and restoring a commitment to quality and public service in cable studios and newsrooms. He seems to lack the courage to declare that it is the iron grip of the monolithic media conglomerates that is responsible for the greed-driven state of today’s news providers.
While Rothenberg comes down pretty hard on Hardball, he says that Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, and Ed Schultz, are even worse. To his credit, he attempts to seek some balance by making a couple of obvious, yet still notable (for a mainstream pundit) comments about the Fox News all-stars, including…
“O’Reilly’s obsession with General Electric and that company’s CEO is bizarre, though any program that treats Dick Morris seriously as an independent analyst obviously has major problems.”
So Rothenberg’s epiphany has led him to eschew Hardball for good. He doesn’t say whether he will do likewise for the rest of the cable asylum. That would certainly make a dent in his wallet. However, he does suggest that his fellow pundits reconsider their own fraternization with the compromised world of cable news. He regards it as a matter of integrity in the name of journalistic ethics and says that…
“Trying to be an unbiased reporter or neutral analyst on a heavily biased television program is incredibly awkward and uncomfortable. Either you end up fighting the host’s premises and rephrasing loaded questions, or you are tacitly accepting the way the host defines a situation, making yourself an accomplice to a political mugging.”
That’s about the truest thing I have ever heard a member of the political mugging class admit to. On one hand, I admire Rothenberg’s honest appraisal, though I still can’t imagine what took him so long to arrive at it. On the other hand, he isn’t exactly an innocent bystander. He’s more like the stoolie who’s giving up his pals to save his own skin. Time will tell whether this is a genuine revelation or merely a tantrum for some perceived slight in the Hardball green room – or retaliation for Matthews calling his Republican buddiess crackpots.
Like Stu, I’ve abandoned Hardball, and cut my losses. Only unlike Stu, having never been invited to appear on Hardball, I had to resort to no longer viewing that program, which I did – abruptly, and not for the first time though definitely the last – on Nov. 29, 2005, prompted by Matthews’ infamous remark regarding Bush II and “whackjob” lefties. So welcome – more than a bit belatedly – to the revelation club, Stu. Apparently your litmus test is the reverse of mine. As for Olbermann, Maddow (whom I regularly watch) and Schultz (whom I don’t), ‘ far as I know, they don’t identify themselves as unbiased, objective reporters, or even journalists, as O’Reilly does, while I’m not sure what Matthews thinks he is, a “fair” moderator, I suppose, so Stu would know exactly what he was walking into should he appear on those programs, where I’ve yet to see him. (In fact, Schultz voluntarily labeled himself an unabashed liberal as he introduced himself to the audience when he got the gig.) Which is important, considering that Stu implies that advancing an agenda on an alleged news network should be verbotten despite whether a particular program is hosted by a “reporter” or a “talk show host.” Now, I don’t watch MSNBC until evening, but my understanding is that the earlier formats, while still not qualified as straight information dispensators, are supposed to be balanced debates between all sides (which is why I don’t watch, being one of those liberal-argument-enhancement viewers who has enough stress in, you know, actual life, plus which the other side’s spiel always leaks out anyway). So if these people slant to the left, which they may or may not, their defense is that the network itself is balancing Fox, which was created to balance the liberal media, and the reactionary motivation to even the score only escalates.
Now my questions for Stu (who I’ve seen on CNN back when I bothered with it) is: do you appear on Fox? Fully acquainted with its ground rules and m.o., I assume? Is your criterion an honest representation of the host’s function or must said host be a strictly-down-the-middle sort? If it’s the latter, then your “worse than Hardball” assessment of the liberal 3 on MSNBC is not based on how they act but how you think they should act.
“are.” “questions…are” not is. I changed the singular “question” to “questions” but forgot about the verb.
I want to find good pop music. Help me please.
OK. Look elsewhere – perhaps starting with the Obscure Irrelevancies blog. Sorry, no address for you.