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One thing about elections, they’re good for newspapers. They’re good for
all media, I know, but I’ll be sticking to papers as a subject here. It’s all
psychological. I like to get my news nice and fast, without stops for
commercials, but I can put up with them when I’m looking for entertainment. The main
reason for that is that I don’t have any choice.
I’ve said a few times that I don’t write about politics here because I have
no special knowledge of them and don’t even know any politicians any more. I’
ve always been into newspapers, however, beginning in 1937 when the big story
in New York was the prosecution of Jimmy Hines, the Tammany boss and
protector of Dutch Schultz, by Tom Dewey. That was my first exposure, and although I
was too young to know what the excitement was all about, I can still remember
the courtroom sketch of the trial. The habit got a hold of me then and
quickly developed into an addiction, which has continued evermore.
The point I’m making here is that an election intensifies concentration on
newspapers, even for people like me who can’t get along without them when
nothing at all is happening. And what we notice most about them are their faults,
which stand out more conspicuously at election time than at any other. Since
most newspapers are kinder to left-wingers than right-wingers in their
reporting, this is the side they err on, as follows:
Exaggerated reactions. Somehow or other people the newspapers dislike have
trouble with their fiery tempers. At least that is what one would be led to
believe when he sees a report that “Mr. Kerry’s remarks at the convention were
said to have infuriated Mr. Bush”. Not irritated, not annoyed, not bothered,
but “infuriated” him into a white hot rage in which he would be capable of
any outrage. Would we really want a fellow like that, with no control of his
emotions, to be President? With his finger on the nuclear trigger? Need one
ask?
The full faith and credit clause. Some people’s statements are accepted at
face value, others not. It all depends. If ghetto youths say they “distrust”
the police, that is gospel, not to be questioned. They’re not asked why they
distrust cops, leaving the implication that they have learned from sad
experience that the fuzz will trick you and trap you and frame you whenever they
choose, depriving you and other innocent citizens of your civil rights. They’re
not even asked if they are able to overcome their distrust in cases where
they themselves are the victims and the police are looking for their assailants.
They are, but bringing in this fact would undermine the original thesis about
the universal distrust of the police.
The belief system of reporters extends to other sympathetic characters as
well. For instance in the coverage of the recent Ashcroft v. Raich case in the
Supreme Court, where the issue was legalizing the medical use of marijuana,
nobody questioned the petitioners’ claims that they got great pain relief from
using grass. The words “claim” and “alleged” were never used, in fact. If
Jerry Falwell were to be caught indulging and claimed that it was all for pain
relief, I fear that there would be a certain amount of skepticism expressed,
just in the use of these little words.
Skepticism instead of trust also comes in when an unfavorable story about a
media pariah breaks and an interview with the culprit is called for. He has
been accused, let’s say, of awarding government contracts to his brother-in-law.
With no bidding, besides. He denies it, of course. He doesn’t just deny
it, he “insists” he did nothing wrong. That’s the kiss of death. Anyone who “
insists” can’t possibly be telling the truth.
Paper trails aren’t happy trails. People on the spot with the newspapers
need to be very careful in the way they use any documents in their possession.
In making a speech they must never hold up their evidence documents for the
admiration of their audience. It will be written that they “waved” them,
obviously in a distracted manner reflecting the disordered condition of their
minds. If you have any papers to use in making your case, make it without them.
Leave them home.
Quotations can also be used creatively to skewer a story’s target. Not
quotations in a box or set aside from the rest of the story. They have clearly
been selected to drive home a point the reporter wants to stress and the public
is thereby warned that this is what he’s doing and they should use good
judgment in accepting or rejecting the message. Fair enough. The quotations I find
suspicious are the ones that pop up in the middle of the story, just at the
point where even the reader who’s only skimming is likely to have his eye caught
and his receptors alerted. Oddly enough, these random-looking quotes always
seem to reinforce the message the writer is sending, which with a liberal
press, is in most cases a liberal message. Someone has proposed cutting welfare
appropriations? Both sides are presented, to an extent anyway. The quotation
however will be “Why must they always balance the budget on the backs of the
poor?” At the very end there will be another quote, a (lame) denial that anyone
will suffer from the cuts.
No interview with a target figure is complete unless it includes a passage
where the victim’s defenses break down and he lowers his voice and speaks to the
reporter “in a confidential manner”. Another kiss of death. The poor boob
is obviously trying to ingratiate himself. When the story is written he is
treated with the contempt he deserves. When he reads it he realizes what a
mistake it can be to concede anything to a guy who just doesn’t want to be your
friend and isn’t interested in any attempt you make to be his friend. Reporters
follow this precept themselves. One of them once said, “Never be kind to an
actor. It will bite you”. Oddly enough, the actor said the same thing about
him. They were both right.
All these thoughts came to me from reading the newspaper coverage of the
presidential campaign just completed. A lot of it was pretty even-handed, even
in my local paper, Newsday, which is rabidly left-wing and Bush-averse. They
rely more on their columnists than their news columns to spread their gospel.
The columnists, as I’ve said before, represent diversity squared. Some of
them hate Bush, others only dislike him, or abominate him, or reprehend him.
They run the gamut from A to B, as someone once said. They play a one-note
serenade.
In the news columns the most partisan action was the attempted dismissal of
the Swift Boat veterans charges against Kerry’s war record. The paper was slow
to pick up the story when it broke but double-quick in calling the charges “
discredited” as soon as some of them had been denied. Since this was the case,
there was no need to carry them any more, and they disappeared from the news
budget. When the Dan Rather forgeries surfaced however, it seemed as if
Newsday had no heart left to deny them and they were covered fully.
My political opinion is that Bush did well in the face of much hate, with a
bad war going on.
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