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defrogIt’s not often you’ll see Keith Olbermann and Bill O’Reilly agree on anything. But they finally have some common ground: they both think Ted Koppel worships the False God of Objectivity, and that cable TV news is the future of journalism.
For those of you just tuning in, Koppel wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post about how cable TV news is promoting partisan commentary to generate ratings and passing it off as journalism at the expense of more balanced journalism, and how this is creating partisan echo chambers that tell people what they want to hear at the expense of The Other Side.
Basically, O’Reilly didn’t like being called a liar, and Olbermann didn’t like being compared to O’Reilly. So they’ve both turned on Koppel.
We’ve covered this before, so you know how I feel about both KO and Bill-O and cable news in general. In other words, I basically agree with Koppel.
But I do have a problem with KO’s straw-man argument about objectivity being the “false god” that helped the Bush Posse do what it did.
Not that he’s wrong about objective journalism being useless in the age of spin doctors and media training (at least as far as political journalism goes). We’ve known that for a few decades now.
But objectivity was NOT the central problem – or at least the central motivation – with how the broadcast media (and much of the print media) covered the Bush Posse, Iraq and 9/11. The post-9/11 broadcast media didn’t leave Bush’s policies unquestioned out of a sense of objectivity. They did it because they (or their employers) were either too patriotic or too afraid of appearing unpatriotic to question Bush’s policies. They were noticeably deferential to him for much of his first term, and even cheered on the war either out of some sense of civic duty or just because they knew Good Television when they saw it.
Here’s the other thing.
If subjective journalism is the best path to the Truth, cable TV opinion shows hardly qualify. Subjective journalism doesn’t mean shouting at the camera and at guests you disagree with, or employing sarcasm, or calling people names, or being selective with facts that back up yr position, or generally portraying the Other Side as demonic thugs with an agenda to destroy the country.
Cable news shows are to journalism what pro wrestling is to sports. It’s news entertainment, filled with cartoon characters selling you the idea that they’re broadcast journalists – only the game is rigged. In that context, KO and Bill-O’s response to Koppel is so much kayfabe.
Okay. Maybe that’s unfair. For a start, I like pro wrestling. Also, pro wrestlers know it’s kayfabe, whereas cable news personalities actually believe what they’re doing is the real thing.
Maybe it is, in a weird post-modern sense. I have no doubt that the talking heads at Fox and MSNBC genuinely believe they’re the antidote to the other’s bias (and, in Fox’s case, to all mainstream media in general, which as we all know is run by Socialists). And of course, both KO and Bill-O and the rest genuinely believe that their narrow one-sided interpretation of the news is The Truth.
So maybe cable TV news is more like bad science – making yr conclusions first and looking for evidence to support it whilst downplaying/ignoring the evidence that doesn’t.
Either way, if that’s the future of journalism ... well, we’re already seeing glimpses of the results on the Interwub via the Batshit Reality Schism currently in progress.
Beware.
DISCLAIMER: The whole topic of objective vs subjective journalism is way more complex and nuanced than I’m making it sound here. I could probably do a separate post of how cable TV news shows compare to advocacy journalism and investigative journalism. But this has already gone on too long.
FULL DISCLOSURE: I have been employed as a journalist for the past decade and a half. So my take on this may differ from the average person.
Just the facts,
This is dF
For those of you just tuning in, Koppel wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post about how cable TV news is promoting partisan commentary to generate ratings and passing it off as journalism at the expense of more balanced journalism, and how this is creating partisan echo chambers that tell people what they want to hear at the expense of The Other Side.
Basically, O’Reilly didn’t like being called a liar, and Olbermann didn’t like being compared to O’Reilly. So they’ve both turned on Koppel.
We’ve covered this before, so you know how I feel about both KO and Bill-O and cable news in general. In other words, I basically agree with Koppel.
But I do have a problem with KO’s straw-man argument about objectivity being the “false god” that helped the Bush Posse do what it did.
Not that he’s wrong about objective journalism being useless in the age of spin doctors and media training (at least as far as political journalism goes). We’ve known that for a few decades now.
But objectivity was NOT the central problem – or at least the central motivation – with how the broadcast media (and much of the print media) covered the Bush Posse, Iraq and 9/11. The post-9/11 broadcast media didn’t leave Bush’s policies unquestioned out of a sense of objectivity. They did it because they (or their employers) were either too patriotic or too afraid of appearing unpatriotic to question Bush’s policies. They were noticeably deferential to him for much of his first term, and even cheered on the war either out of some sense of civic duty or just because they knew Good Television when they saw it.
Here’s the other thing.
If subjective journalism is the best path to the Truth, cable TV opinion shows hardly qualify. Subjective journalism doesn’t mean shouting at the camera and at guests you disagree with, or employing sarcasm, or calling people names, or being selective with facts that back up yr position, or generally portraying the Other Side as demonic thugs with an agenda to destroy the country.
Cable news shows are to journalism what pro wrestling is to sports. It’s news entertainment, filled with cartoon characters selling you the idea that they’re broadcast journalists – only the game is rigged. In that context, KO and Bill-O’s response to Koppel is so much kayfabe.
Okay. Maybe that’s unfair. For a start, I like pro wrestling. Also, pro wrestlers know it’s kayfabe, whereas cable news personalities actually believe what they’re doing is the real thing.
Maybe it is, in a weird post-modern sense. I have no doubt that the talking heads at Fox and MSNBC genuinely believe they’re the antidote to the other’s bias (and, in Fox’s case, to all mainstream media in general, which as we all know is run by Socialists). And of course, both KO and Bill-O and the rest genuinely believe that their narrow one-sided interpretation of the news is The Truth.
So maybe cable TV news is more like bad science – making yr conclusions first and looking for evidence to support it whilst downplaying/ignoring the evidence that doesn’t.
Either way, if that’s the future of journalism ... well, we’re already seeing glimpses of the results on the Interwub via the Batshit Reality Schism currently in progress.
Beware.
DISCLAIMER: The whole topic of objective vs subjective journalism is way more complex and nuanced than I’m making it sound here. I could probably do a separate post of how cable TV news shows compare to advocacy journalism and investigative journalism. But this has already gone on too long.
FULL DISCLOSURE: I have been employed as a journalist for the past decade and a half. So my take on this may differ from the average person.
Just the facts,
This is dF
