Laughing Liberally To Keep From Crying
by Katie Halper
Last week, because the batteries in my remote were dead and I was too tired to get up, I was treated to an hour of Anderson Cooper, replayed 12 times. This meant that I had the pleasure of watching the special feature on Cooper. Technically, it was more like 7 minutes of Obama's pastor, Jeremiah Wright, over and over and over, learning something new each time. The first thing that struck me was Anderson Cooper's introduction to the feature:
We begin with a new controversy on the campaign trail. That's right, a new one. At issue, Barack Obama's pastor -- this man -- and the fiery remarks he has made. A tape of one of his sermons -- you see it there -- on Hillary Clinton is all over the Web, and tonight you will hear it for yourself. Is what he says over the top? Should it even matter in this presidential race? What you're about to hear is inflammatory to some. To others, harsh as it sounds, it's the truth. That's for you to decide, along with whether you think it has any place at all in this campaign for either candidate.
Now, I like Anderson Cooper more than most media stars, not just because he went to my school (which explains why we both "go forth unafraid/strong with love and strong with learning.") The first time I heard his introduction, I was appreciative of his nuanced and brave questions -- is there any story here, does it even matter? The second or third time, I heard it, I started to methink he doth protest too much perhaps -- about the story not mattering. The fifth or sixth time, what came through was the way Cooper explained why the story does, in fact, matter: "We're running it because, like it or not, legitimate or not, it has become an issue."
The seventh time, I noticed something disturbing on a grammatical and syntactical level. Style and grammar advisers, from Orwell to MLA warn us against the passive voice and other impersonal constructions. And I know that by the seventh grade at the school we had both attended, our teachers had shaken the passive/impersonal construction habit out of us. But it wasn't just the dis to Dalton teachers that got to me, of course. The impersonal construction was misleading; saying something "has become an issue" is a convenient cop-out. There is no agency, no responsibility, no guilt, no intervention. Nobody turns it into an issue; the issue issues itself, in an almost natural and inevitable process. The impersonal construction allows Anderson to side step the very personal and active role of the media in turning Reverend Wright into an issue. Thanks to his hedging device Cooper doesn't have to say, "We're running the feature because, like it or not, legitimate or not, we in the media have made it an issue." So, in a self-fulfilling prophecy, the media determines what becomes an issue by claiming it has become an issue.
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