This week, President Obama made news when he called on Sam Stein of the Huffington Post at his first press conference. It was, indeed, a significant occasion, a milestone in loosening the death grip that old media has had on our nation.
Examples of this death grip are legion. A few of the biggies include Whitewater, the multi-million dollar manufactured media scandal over a decade-old failed land deal. The media-assisted suppression of scientific evidence that global warming is a real and serious threat to human civilization as we know it. The media-assisted theft of the 2000 election. The media-assisted lie-based invasion of Iraq and overthrow of Saddam Hussein, the arch-enemy of bin Laden. These are not minor failures. Indeed, they're not failures at all: they are evidence of old media's true function, which is not to inform, but to deceive, and to do so in the interests of powerful reactionary elite interests.
I'm planning on writing about several major examples this weekend, but I thought I'd start off with something seemingly minor, a single story highlighted by Media Matters for America (MMFA) earlier this month. Because sometimes it's easier to grasp a problem by seeing it in minuature. And because one sees such seemingly minor examples virtually all the time.
Hey folks, I wanted to share my latest column with everyone here at OpenLeft -- a review of Bernard Goldberg's latest book, "A Slobbering Love Affair: The True (And Pathetic) Story of the Torrid Romance Between Barack Obama and the Mainstream Media".
-K
That certainly didn't take long. Just shy of a week after Barack Obama took the oath of office, becoming America's 44th president, the nation's foremost right-wing publishing house has released a new tome by Bernard Goldberg that seeks to trash the supposedly liberal "mainstream media" for being in the tank for Obama.
The three-ringed circus of liberal media bias cryptozoology is nothing new for Goldberg. He's been part of this factually challenged freak show for years. This isn't even his first book on the subject -- he wrote 2001's creatively titled, Bias.
Welcome one and all to this timely salon about a very timely book:
Free Ride: John McCain and the Media
by David Brock and Paul Waldman / Media Matters Action Network
Anchor Books
218 poages; $13.95
With co-author Paul Waldman. Welcome Paul, it's a pleasure to have you here with us.
This book was not written quickly in response to McCain's emegence as the GOP nominee, nor were any paranormal powers of prediction involved. Rather, co-authors David Brock and Paul Waldman were tackling a very problematic high-profile phenomena--the symbiotic relationships of John McCain and the elite political media--which just happened to get a lot more hot as a topic between the time they wrote their postscript and the time the book was published.
The result, to my mind, is the best possible examination of the subject, since it's not refocused in any way to fit the current situation, but instead represents a broad-focused perspective on the subject. I have my own questions in mind, but I want to encourage others to step forward with theirs as much as possible. If you haven't already, you can read through my review of the book here, to spur you on. Or you can simply ask about significant examples, current, recent, whatever, that you'd like some deeper insight into.
Free Ride: John McCain and the Media
by David Brock and Paul Waldman / Media Matters Action Network
Anchor Books
218 poages; $13.95
The Press Is His Base, He Shall Not Want
"The press loves McCain. We're his base." Thus speaketh Chris Matthews in a rare moment of truth-telling. The quote occupies a lofty perch in a banner atop the cover of Free Ride: John McCain and the Media, a new book by David Brock and Paul Waldman from Media Matters Action Network.
Of course, this is hardly news to readers at OpenLeft and throughout the blogosphere. But the prominent placement of the quote signals the no-nonsense nature of what lies within-not simply a deconstruction of McCain's mythic status as presented by the press, but an analysis of how and why the press has so enthusiastically collaborated with him in his myth-making.
To be sure, the primary emphasis lies on the reality of McCain's political actions, and their systematically favorable misrepresentations in the media. But the authors are careful to provide ample context to render this spectacle comprehensible, and provide a foundation for strategizing effective responses.
As a first step, the authors draw our attention to two things-first, that McCain is nowhere more popular than among the Beltway media establishment, and second that this popularity is something he achieved.
How did he do it? How did John McCain manage to turn a pack of snarling beasts into obedient service animals, ready to do his bidding at every trun? As a starting point, it is important to keep in mind that it is, in fact, something McCain did, not something that happened by accident. While every politician seeks the best news coverage he or she can get, McCain employed a strategy that has been uniquely effective. And it is a strategy.
It's this focus-on understanding McCain's strategy and its success-that is the distinctive contribution of this book, and reason enough for everyone to read it, regardless of how familiar they may be with all the endless press drooling over McCain. This is particularly true for those interested in working to effectively undermine, or at least blunt the political impact of this unholy alliance, lest it deliver us yet another four years of Republican misrule come November.
