For many years, I have been concerned that America's democratic system is dying, due to the nature of the news the vast majority of citizens base their voting on. Television news is selected, above all, for its entertainment value, which usually boils down to the availablity of compelling footage. This certainly limits the topics of discussion, as well as being ripe for exploitation by those in a position to offer/withhold the pictures.
In fact, whenever I hear about campaign finance reform, I feel a sense of gloom because, as I see it, the money is more a symptom than the disease. Voters respond to ad campaigns so overwhelmingly because they have so little else to go on. Neil Postman once wrote that the first fifteen presidents could have walked down the streets with a good chance of not being recognized, yet their printed words would have been recognizable to large portions of the American voters. Today, obviously, the situation is reversed. Truly, there are few ideas associated with George Bush or John Kerry or Bill Clinton.
The result is profound. Not only do voters cast ballots without any real sense of the issues, but after an election there is little sense that an elected leader does or does not have a mandate. Many Americans feel that George Bush responded to his victory in 2000 inappropriately, in that his actions vastly exceeded both the size of his victory and the statements he made to get elected -- but in the current state of American politics, that notion seems quaint. You win or you lose, and then you do as you wish, concerned only agout the next election. Since the previous election was not truly decided on the basis of issues, no legitimate direction has been established.
The more I watch, the more I think that one of the strongest forces in this direction is the evolution of political coverage into sports-style coverage. Who is leading, and by how far? What is the inside scoop on who is likely to gain ground? Who has a clever strategy for gaining votes? None of this is bad in and of itself, but such discussions have just about wiped broader issues off the television news and to obscure corners of the print media.
All of this has nagged at me for many years. It is not a matter of Democrats or Republicans -- it is more a plaque buildup in the arteries of a working democracy. However, this past year has troubled me further. To what extent is the American press even trying to present the news?
The international version of CNN carried entirely different war stories during the Iraqi war than we got at home. Most Americans were never made aware that there was any discrepancy in the facts.
Apparently, the newscasters in many parts of the world reported that Saddam Hussein was captured by the Kurds and held by them for a short period of time before being turned over to American marines. Why does the American press not report on the controversy?
Within the last week, viewers of Indian television saw stories and pictures of Bin Laden captured. Nothing has been reported in this country, and the story apparently disappeared quickly in India. Maybe the reports were false -- but one would think that even a false alarm would be international news.
My point is that I am nervous about the quality of the news reaching the American people, and that we have definitely fallen to the point where we vote based mostly on news chosen for its entertainment value, and that we may now be voting on news even less dependable than that.
