Hostility for the Media

This morning I spoke to 120 high-school students that are in town as part of Close-Up. I gave a presentation on the media. I based my remarks in part on what I said last week to the diplomats, but gave a broader history of media. I started with the successful but agenda-driven papers associated with Franklin, Hamilton and Jefferson, then touched on the Hearst/Pulitzer newspaper war that cause a real war. Not bright spots for media. But I also said it plays a vital role in providing a check on the government, and that we had the First Amendment to thank for that.

Before my speech a Close-Up organizer asked for a show of hands -- is the media mostly objective and fair, somewhat or not much at all. One hand went up for mostly, the rest of the group split on the other two, seeming to favor the not-much-at-all option. Oh dear. Their questions reflected this attitude; they asked about the Danish cartoons of Mohammed, of Newsweek falsely reporting that the US had flushed the Quran down the toilet, and said reporters are too quick to wrap themselves in the First Amendment. Such cynicism!

One questioner wanted to know my opinion about people getting their news from late-night shows. It's no secret I'm a fan of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. I cited the study that found young people getting their news from those sources, and said if they have a grounding from other news sources, these entertainment shows can be a helpful value-added proposition. Satirists, in their effort for a laugh, are more willing to point out contradictions and hypocrisy in government officials; except for a few folks like Tim Russert, most mainstream media don't call politicians on their contradictions.

Oh, Russert came up in my speech. I mentioned the revolving media-government door -- on the Democratic side, you have Russert (worked for Mario Cuomo and Daniel Patrick Moynihan), Chris Matthews (Tip O'Neill), and George Stephanopolous (Bill Clinton), while with Republicans you have Roger Ailes (Nixon and Bush 41) and Tony Snow (Bush 41 and now Bush 43). I think this also contributes to a mistrust of the media.