On Stenography And The Fourth Estate

By Cernig

It's an article of faith among rightwing pundits that the mainstream media are irrevocably biased in favor of the Left, while leftwing pundits are just as certain that the mainstream willingly shill for the Right. Both are correct. But the notion that the establishment media comprises - on its own - a Fourth Estate, still able to impartially produce news which informs voters of the bare facts so that those voters can make decisions thereby, is as dead as the Dodo.

The mainstream media's willing stenography for the Powers That Be is bipartisan and far more dependent upon their own fear of losing precious access than on laziness or a willingness to shill for a particular administration, party or ideology. From administration to administration, the players change slightly but the pattern doesn't.

Glenn Greenwald points up some of the reasons behind media complicity in catapulting the propaganda today in his Salon column - journalists get close to their sources and a kind of Stockhom Syndrome is probably inevitable.

they see the government officials whom they cover as their friends, colleagues, the people on whom they depend for their access, whose company they cherish and whose character they admire. Is it really any surprise that journalists who -- as Abramowitz puts it -- "tend to hang out" with their friends in the White House press office uncritically pass on what they're told as though it's Truth?

Recall the drippy, sycophantic paean which Politico's Mike Allen wrote to Bush Communications Director Dan Bartlett's Greatness once Bartlett announced he was leaving the White House (headline: "Bush's 'truth-teller' leaving president's side"). Bush's truth-teller recently parlayed his friendships with the press into a position as "political analyst" with CBS News. The wall between the Government and the establishment media barely even exists in theory any longer. Bartlett's move from Communications Director in Bush's White House to "political analyst" for CBS News is more of a lateral, in-house transfer than it is anything else.

It's actually difficult to find a news story of any significance that isn't shaped at its core by the incestuous, deeply affectionate relationship between the Government and the establishment media.

While Gareth Porter illustrates the attendant fear for every journalist, that of losing access to those sources by writing reports that will upset them enough, when he quotes an interview with Pamela Hess, the AP's Pentagon reporter.

"And every once in a while a government official will call you and say, 'We'd like you not to be working on that story and here's why.' And sometimes you agree with it – you agree to their demands, because sometimes they offer you a better deal, 'Well, when we're ready for this to come out, I'll give you the exclusive on it' or 'Here's why we don't want this.' I remember one, there was one story many years ago that I worked on that I had had – I got from three different sources that were in a closed-door meeting in the tank in the Pentagon, and one general in there had said – I think this was almost a direct quote, but something along the lines of 'America's going to have to get over its fear of casualties.' … So this is, of course, a very important story. A general that outranked that general, who I actually had a very good relationship with, who I could talk to off-the-record or on background frequently, called me and asked me not to report that story, and I didn't. And the reason that I didn't was twofold. Number one, I needed this second general more than I needed that story. And number two, I thought he made a great point, which is, 'If they can't speak their minds in these closed-door meetings, then we're really robbing the Pentagon of its ability to do its job.'" [Emphasis Mine - C]

"We're really robbing the Pentagon of its ability to do its job". And what about the job of the Fourth Estate, which according to Thomas Carlyle is a far more important one? That's already been robbed and no regrets. But asking a wire service reporter to not consider their precious access - which entirely comprises their ability to make a living - is probably too big a demand.

Indeed, if there's a journalist or pundit out there, whether mainstream or not, who isn't affected by these pressures to massage the message in the PTB's favor in return for continued access - pressures eased and lubricated by the natural tendency to like people who are trying to be likeable because they know that that eases their job of getting a reporter to tell it their way - then I've yet to have contact with them. One prominent investigative reporter told me:

Explicit or implicit bargains between sources and journalists is an important dynamic at work in the pattern of uncritical reporting of the official line. Of course the belief of some journalists that they must somehow earn the trust of official sources by showing that they can be cooperative reflects the assumption that they are both, in some sense, on the same team. That assumption is surely the ideological basis for the phenomenon.

That reporter was specifically addressing reporting on Iraq, and left open the question of whether the notion that reporters and officials are part of the same team is held more widely today than it was in America's previous war of occupation in Vietnam. But it certainly seems to me as if it is - after all, the Bush administration have heavily pushed the notion that bashing their policies or the Pentagon's plans are effectively "aiding the enemy" and we hardly have journalistic elder statesmen of the stature of Cronkite around to tell them that's not how the game should be played.

More, that "either for us or against us" message has been prevalent throughout the current administration's dealing with the media - meaning that only those willing or happy to stay on their good side still have meaningful access at any level on an ongoing basis. It's a creeping tendency towards stenography that has been with us for years - but veteran reporter Helen Thomas provided compelling evidence in her book "Watchdogs of Democracy" that it has reached its zenith in the last two administrations, those of Clinton and Bush Junior.

So what's to be done? Well, the establishment media may well be irrecoverably compromised. It would take a massive collective effort of will for mainstream journalists to change the game again by demanding access in return for providing any message catapulting at all, as in days of yore - although it would be nice if they did. But thankfully we also have the Information Age. The tendency towards stenography is precisely why there has been a meteoric rise in New media successes, from Josh Marshall and his TPM on the Left to Pajamas Media on the Right. On any issue, there are those willing to take the contra position and to dig deep into public sources or do their own investigative reporting to support that position - and few of them care about "access". There are now so many writers, diggers, pundits and "citizen journalists" out there that the Fourth Estate has outpaced and outgrown the Powers that Be's (whichever PTB's are in office) ability to hold the threat of access over the estabishment's collective heads.

Which is, of course, why the establishment and the PTB's are so distrustful and frightened by the New Media. The Fourth Estate has become a many-headed and uncontrollable hydra which more and more people are turning to as a greater percentage of the populace become internet-savvy. Long may that continue.

Carlyle must have had a vision back in 1841.

Whoever can speak, speaking now to the whole nation, becomes a power, a branch of government, with inalienable weight in law-making, in all acts of authority. It matters not what rank he has, what revenues or garnitures. The requisite thing is, that he have a tongue which others will listen to; this and nothing more is requisite. The nation is governed by all that has tongue in the nation: Democracy is virtually there.  (On Heroes and Hero Worship)