Ten Things to Remember About the Mainstream News Media's Politics

I have been writing about the media's failings for some time now--not least its political biases. On the basis of that, here's a list of "ten things to remember about the mainstream media's politics," in the broad as well as narrow sense of the term.

1. Contrary to the orthodoxy the consumer is not king and the media does not simply "give the people what they want." It gives people what its owners and advertisers want, and what those who supply them with their information want, and what its carefully selected elite, careerist, group-thinking and upward-identifying managers and staff (courtiers to kings rather than tribunes of the people) want, especially insofar as those capable of punishing them with lawsuits and in other ways do not object. That is to say that the media is fundamentally oriented to the interests of the powerful, with this orientation reinforced by the fact that to the extent that it caters to the public it does not cater to all of the public equally, its more affluent elements more valued because of their purchasing power (it is they who buy subscriptions, and whom advertisers desire to reach), and therefore better served--and these tend to be privileged, upward-identifying and status quo-supporting. The result can be--and indeed, is--a very different thing from what the public at large wants to know, or needs to know.

2. The "objective" news reporting the mainstream media prides itself on has its roots in a centrist view of the world. Purporting to be "above ideology" and "neutrally" dealing with "just the facts" with the help of equally neutral "technocratic" expertise it amounts in practice to deluging the public with disconnected and uncontextualized bits of information, and then bringing on "experts" to tell the public "what it all means" rather than explain the events of the day to them so that they can really understand the matter and make sense of things for themselves.

3. Even in doing the above ideology comes into the matter. The "centrist" persuaded they are above ideology is in fact obedient to an ideology they simply do not recognize or acknowledge. Indeed, the centrist is actually deeply, and classically conservative in their politics--with this conservatism determining which bits of information they report, which experts they consult, which views they platform, as well as what they do not report or platform, as they go about their "objective" reporting.

4. Centrist conservatism has in recent decades been identifiable with a significant embrace of economic neoliberalism, and social and foreign policy neoconservatism. Centrists do accommodate "identity politics" in a way the avowed conservative tends to deeply dislike, but it should be remembered that identity politics is not a left idea, but, however much it annoys cultural traditionalists, in its postmodernist philosophy and nationalist tendency very much of the right, even before one considers how identity politics is constantly used to change the subject from and even attack those who would raise matters like class. Identity politics has thus been a prop to conservatism, rather than a compromise of it, and readable as consistent with conservative philosophy broadly in premises and usage.

5. If centrism dominates the mainstream one should acknowledge that the mainstream media does not simply limit itself to presenting the views of the center to the public. However, that media does not deal with other views equally, treating the left as anathema, keeping even the safely center-left on rather a short leash (consider what MSNBC required of Phil Donahue during his time on that channel, and especially its executives' notions of a "fair and balanced" discussion of the Iraq war), and affording the avowed right considerably more indulgence--with their indulgence carrying over to what may be recognized broadly as the far right. Taken altogether this makes the media a platform for neoliberalism, neoconservatism and (stoked by its identity politics) culture war, with the media's platforming of often far right views making much of it a "pink slime" machine helping "mainstream" its views (with the result that the far right has been increasingly mainstream).

6. In presenting different understandings of the world the media is often accused of "both sidesism." In practice both sidesism is a rarity. Most of the time the media gives us "one sidesism," especially on the larger questions--because there is essentially elite, Establishment consensus on the matter. (Where in the media did we find serious challenge to the "There Is No Alternative"-type promotion of neoliberal economic policies?) The rare turn to both sidesism indicates argument among those the media treats as counting for something in the world--disagreement within the Establishment--as other opinions are rarely of any account in its eyes. Moreover, some of these cases of both sidesism are cases which should be treated in a "one side" way. As the case of climate change demonstrates, both sidesism is frequently a matter of powerful interests finding it convenient to deny scientific facts being respectfully platformed by a deferential media.

7. Where the respect for Establishment expertise is concerned the center's respect for the Establishment comes in far ahead of its respect for expertise. Consider, for example, the argument that "no one could have seen the crisis in subprime mortgages" coming. This was not just a lie but a stupid one. Many did see it coming. Consider, for example, former Wall Street analyst, Hudson Institute member, United Nations adviser and University of Missouri Professor economist Michael Hudson, who published an article anticipating the crash in the May 2006 issue of Harper's. Right he may have been about what was happening and what it was leading toward, but his politics are such that he is "no one" from the standpoint of the mainstream, and so only rarely noticed and easily ignored--Hudson getting a mention for his prediction in the Financial Times, but the pushing of the "no one saw this coming" narrative continuing as if it never happened. By contrast, another public intellectual's denial that anyone could have seen it coming, and insisting the financial community was responsible for nothing, it's all black swans, see, in line with his political prejudices that, as David Cameron admitted, align with his own, made him a "rock star" not just with said community but with the press generally. Because that's what matters within the media world.

8. In line with their courtier-like elitism the mainstream media pays a great deal of attention to politics relative to policy. In doing so they lionize political figures as the drivers of current events, promulgating a "Great Man Theory of Current Events" at the expense of more nuanced, systemic understandings of the play of political forces (and certainly any consideration of the matters of societal structure, class, power so anathema to the centrist), and divert attention from policy--for as the journalist recounting some development demonstrates again and again, in taking the reader or listener through the speechifying and haggling they so much bury them in the details of "how" a thing happened that "what" actually happened (i.e. What sort of a bill or a budget did we actually get in the end?) falls by the wayside. The outcome is by no means uncongenial to those who see the world the media's way.

9. Befitting the mainstream media's aforementioned commitment to the status quo, and deference to wealth, power and position, and extreme opposition to and contempt for the opposite, the media is prone to "suck up" and "punch down." Thus it virtually never holds the elite to account, no matter what their crimes--such that after dishonestly and cynically wrecking an economy, or starting a catastrophic war, the press will sing of the goodness, wisdom, even "genius" and greatness of the actor in question, while when it cannot eschew reference to the badness of the outcome obscuring their responsibility by presenting the relevant figures as "tragic" terms--all as it subjects the powerless to the harshest moralizing (those who have all of the power having none of the responsibility while those who none of the power have all the responsibility, for everything, somehow). Indeed, the media's very vocabulary shows as much, with the ordinary man or woman "lying," the CEO or president "telling a falsehood."

10. If the media is absolutely guilty of the charge of sensationalism and playing to the lowest common denominator it does so within distinct limits--choosing what it sensationalizes according to its ideology, and its dictation that the media punch down rather than up. Thus does the media rile the public up against imaginary welfare queens as the supposed cause of the country's economic and fiscal distress--while saying little or nothing of trillions given out to the very real "welfare queens" of Wall Street and Big Oil, and the way in which working people for that "welfare" with raises in their taxes, and cuts to their services.