Mon, February 10, 2003

Tom Brokaw was on Letterman this past week and while on the subject of Secretary of State Colin Powell's recent presentation to the U.N. Security Council, he mentioned that the speech did a great deal to sway U.S. public opinion toward the impending Iraq war. (I liked Jon Stewart's assessment better: that America proudly and defiantly displayed that its PowerPoint skills are second to none.)

Two things frustrated me, when Brokaw said this. (Three, if you count the fact that Brokaw, a personal hero, said it without mentioning the other two.) (Four, if you count how irritated I am that I'm not as up-to-date as I'd usually be, since I couldn't listen to NPR news all last week due to KCRW's semi-annual membership drive.)

First, it upsets me that public opinion was changed not on the basis of Powell's presentation, but on the coverage in the media. CNN and Fox News said that it was a thorough presentation that made damning statements about Iraq's WMDs and their lack of compliance with U.N. Resolutions, and that was good enough for John Q. Public-Opinion. (He and his wife both took the hyphenated name. Their son, Joe Sixpack, is doing well in school so far this term.) Second, it's disturbing that even if one bases one's opinion on a direct analysis of Powell's speech, the basis is more style than substance. It was a PowerPoint presentation, as Stewart mentioned, and it was more flashy graphics and prop stunts (oo! Anthrax vial!) than fact. Powell himself noted that the satellite photographs he presented were difficult to interpret, then proceeded to interpret them on behalf of the Security Council. It's the first rule of PowerPoint: you show them what you want them to see, and you tell them what you want them to think it says. What's the second rule? Leave out the information that doesn't support your position. If you're saying that blurry grey splotch is a chemical weapons plant disguised as a milk truck, you'd better be damn sure not to mention that it might also be a milk truck.

I guess it gets to me because when I'm told "Make it sexy," and I respond, "Okay, but what do you want it to say?" the reply always comes back "Make it sexy!"

It's not like it hasn't been headed this way for some time (see "Reality Bites"), but right around 9-11-01, the tenuous balance between sensationalism and fact, speculation and truth, in the media finally tipped over. On the bad side. The newsmagazines were pretty much all the way there, but the regular news shows occasionally held onto that modicum of integrity enough to be watchable. Today, I see no difference between "Headline News" and "Entertainment Tonight." The celebrities spotlighted are different, but the ass-kissing and spoon-feeding are the same. (The fear is, if you ask a hard-hitting question, the guest won't want to come back, and what if he's involved in some big scandal before the next election and you need him to grab ratings from the other nine 24-hour-news channels?) Nobody bothers to say "Doesn't it sound like empty, vague posturing and disorganized stalling for our president to say 'America's patience may run out someday soon' at random intervals over a two month period?" Instead the focus is on snazzier graphics of Iraq maps with angry-looking missiles superimposed.

Not convinced that it's all one big ad campaign? Remember when the only times people gave press conferences in front of big banners that repeated their logo again and again (so no matter where the camera's focused, it's always delivering a free plug for the product) were sports playoff games and Hollywood awards shows? Now the president has banners that say "Homeland Security" where they used to say "Gatorade," and "Domestic Economic Stimulus" (ha!) where they used to say "ABC." (I'm convinced it's just a matter of time before they say "Homeland Security" and "Gatorade.") The point is that, as Americans, we've become so well-known for consuming a mass-marketed advertising message that this very trait has been turned against us not by the harmless advertisers but by our supposed "representatives" in government! It used to be that we told them our opinions by voting; now, they tell us our opinions on the evening news.

News anchors (formerly "journalists"), once the source of insightful analysis and in-depth reporting, are now so feverishly engaged in winning the ratings war and delivering an exclusive story that they're entirely complicit. Whereas they could once be counted on to ask "Is this important?", they're now too busy shouting "This is important!" in an effort to keep viewers riveted. Between the sensationalism and the speculation, it's hard to decide which is worse because each is constantly fueling the other.

I'm not saying whether we should invade Iraq or not (although I imagine you can guess what I would say), it simply worries me that if the decision is being made based on marketing hype, it very nearly approaches the scenario of Larry Beinhart's fascinating and chilling novel American Hero, which you're probably more familiar with in the form of it's heavily sugar-coated, dumbed down, and less biting film adaptation, Wag the Dog. Read that book and you'll understand why I'm nervous. Campaign finance reform is well and good, but I'm more frightened by the government controlling our media than by the corporations controlling our government.

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