It's been a week since your rally and a few days since the election. I keep trying to understand what you were saying and what the election is saying, but I keep coming up empty. Your rally attacked the news media and entertained folks and was a small feel good moment of a picnic on the mall, but that's about all. I found your false equivalency between Fox and the rest of the media, especially MSNBC disheartening and demoralizing. I've tried to analyze why I see this mess differently since I've always appreciated your show for its political satire and calling out the emperor.
We have three types of [electronic] media reporting in the country. One is opinion media, one is straight news and the other is infotainment. In the opinion media, we have FOX and right wing radio, MSNBC and everyone else. The major difference between FOX and MSNBC in my mind, besides size, is that FOX's right wing opinions are generally not based in fact, or if facts are involved and don't support their position, they just make something up. MSNBC generally has a liberal point of view, but most of their opinions seem grounded in facts. When they make a factual error, they usually correct it on the air. Yes, they get carried away and rant and rave now and again, but most of their shows are a dissection of opinion and fact. Now of course there are lies, damned lies and statistics so there will be disagreements about some of those facts, but in general they can be validated, even when you disagree with the conclusions the hosts have made based on those facts.
With CNN primetime you also is opinion media, its just that it's everyones' opinions sprinkled with some facts. You rightly pointed out the dozens of analysts on election night. What does that sort of political journalism do for anyone? It's chaos. All these folks talking over each other, and no one mediating the truth or the facts. You then have PBS, our high brow news, which when it comes to political journalism or more fightening almost any controversial issue, does basically what CNN does, except with a little more decorum. On one show, they might have Dick Armey or Tom DeLay, David Brooks or David Gerson, and some "lefty" analyst. Each says what they think from their point of view and you the viewer can decide which one was more persuasive or likeable. Occasionally you have dueling experts - a climate change advocate and a climate change denier - full equivalency no matter the subject. No one vets these folks or challenges their facts for the most part - they are just allowed or encourage to have their say. No analysis of the facts are provided in any straightforward way, just you decide who you like better. PBS actually doesn't do this when it comes to health issues, or education issues, or even some financial issues, they actually try to educate the viewer to the issue and present different solutions for their consideration, but only the low passion stuff gets this treatment. These they treat as issues which can be explained, facts which can be presented and sometimes even cause and effect and alternative solutions.
Can't quit without discussing the network media. They provide 17 minutes of news every night. Most of its is presented in 1-2 minute segments in a fairly straighforward journalistic manner. For the last several years, they have reserved at least 1-3 minutes of this airtime for the positive story - something uplifting, heartwarming, optimistic or the like, basically leaving less than 15 minutes a day to cover real news like war in Afghanistan, terror attacks in Europe, the stock market, political shenanigans in Congress or the administration, and crime and corruption in America and elsewhere. The local news picks up a little of the slack, especially on the crime and corruption, but most local news outside the really big cities is really bad and uninformative.
Finally, you have the infotainment news which covers Hollywood, dead celebrities, reality tv stars, criminals, Chilean miners, natural and man-made disasters, and missing teenagers in Aruba or Utah. This is, of course, the highest rated news on TV.
The interesting thing is that most people in America for the most part don't listen to any of this news. They prefer sports, reality tv, dramadey and other mindless crap exposes. We are generally a nation of morons who get to vote periodically and make those decisions based on negative tv ads and as Stephen Colbert would say their gut! The gut knows. Jay Leno used to demonstrate this regularly on the Jay Walk Allstars. I always thought this segment must have taken hours of video to put together since I was sure they had to look for these idiots who were so proud of their no-nothing knowledge of news. However, I saw an interview with Jay, where he indicated he became demoralized about the segment because it was so easy. It seldom took more than 15 minutes or so to find the people who were showcased. How sad is that.
All this to say, what do you want? What solutions do you have? Do you really think that there should be no counterpoint to FOX's distortions and lies? Maybe having a counterpoint is counterproductive, but it really feels better that someone describes what is going on there, that someone says what is going on there. To stop is just unilateral disarmament. Only FOX and Rush and Glenn and Michael Savage, and all the rest of the hate mongers. Do you really feel that Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann or Lawrence O'Donnell belong in this same category just because they present a point of view? No politician is bragging about having them in their pocket, or how they can use them to get their message out. Further, the main reason that their programs are so one-sided is because most of the conservative politicians and the spokespeople won't even go on the shows because they know, that unlike FOX they might actually have to explain their positions or answer some of those pesky questions Sharron Angle promised to answer WHEN she was Senator. Guess we'll never know now.
So please, tell us what you think will fix the news because I don't see any answers on the horizon but I do see MSNBC as a little counterweight to the overwhelming force of FOX and friends in the political morass we are in.
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