Primary season seems like a good enough reason to ponder media coverage–as in saturation and show-biz optics–and the evolution of the political media industrial complex. Spoiler alert: This won’t make you feel better about America as a paragon for informed, participatory democracy.
The media is everywhere, and it’s seemingly everybody who wants to play. Wonder if any First Amendment-enshrining Founding Father saw this one coming: A society so egalitarian that impactful bloggers can be their own editor, fact-checker, publisher and libel attorney.
We’ve obviously witnessed a sea change in technology with 24/7 internet news. And it’s accompanied by a change in culture. Reading, per se, can be so, you know, passé. Watch the network news? Why wade through current events on your parents’ medium when you can cut to the ideological chase. Why bother when you can cherry pick the news sources–online, talk radio, cable TV–that will validate you. From Breitbart to Rush Limbaugh to Rachel Maddow.
Politization of the news: We both like it and loathe it. Ours and theirs. How did we get here again? In short, there was a market for it. For something other than the status quo. There always is. And market, to be sure, is part of American exceptionalism.
There have always been newspapers with different editorial takes–from the New York Times to the Washington Times. But the rest of it was pretty mainstream. Tabloids of the left and right satisfied appetites for sensationalism and smart-ass headlines.
TV’s role was to provide images. It was a headline service with immediacy. As to meaning, that was the purview of newspapers with op-ed pages for pondering readers.
It used to be that network news was a loss leader. It was 15 minutes and a John Cameron Swayze talking head. More public service than profit center. Comedian Ernie Kovacs once defined TV as “a medium: neither rare nor well done.”
But as TV gradually took hold on the culture–especially after the Kennedy assassination and Vietnam–it became indispensible. Its assent helped define the “Mad Men” era.
It would develop serious marketing, savvy sponsors and brand-name anchors. Howard K. Smith, David Brinkley, Walter Cronkite, Dan Rather, Peter Jennings, Tom Brokaw. There was also an early incarnation of Barbara Walters, much to Harry Reasoner’s displeasure. But she represented “demographics”–not just viewers. Change was imminent.
Then came Ted Turner and CNN. News coverage seemed as ubiquitous as the news itself. What a concept. Everybody had to up their game.
And then came Fox. There was a right-of-center market.