Glenn Greenwald takes note of the Politico’s list of the "Top Ten Political Scoops of 2008," and correctly points out just how trivial almost every item on the list actually is – things like Katie Couric’s interview of Sarah Palin, Obama’s ‘bitter’ comment, Jeremiah Wright, and McCain’s inability to say the number of houses he owned (shockingly not on the list were the equally over-hyped Blagojevich tapes).  Notably missing from the list is virtually anything of substance, such as stories related to illegal wiretapping or the recently-released report connecting torture with the highest levels of government.

Greenwald goes on to reiterate his oft-made arguments that this proves the media are failing to live up to their responsibilities, and are instead simply tools of the Washington establishment.  Respected lefty friend of mine Libby argues that it shows the evil inherent in "Corporatocracy."  In many ways, I have a lot of sympathy for both these arguments, particularly in light of my longstanding support of Greenwald’s sadly-quixotic fight against torture and warrantless wiretapping and for basic civil liberty protections.  Unfortunately, I can’t escape the conclusion that both arguments are overly simplistic and, more importantly, wrong. 

Ultimately, the culprit to whom we must look for our media’s superficial behavior is ourselves and specifically the culture we have created.  To be absolutely blunt, if there was a demand for more coverage of stories like torture and wiretapping, then the media would find a way of meeting that demand.  This is, in many ways, a truism of applied business – it is much easier and more prudent for a business to try to meet existing demand than it is to create a supply in the hopes that demand will follow (the latter generally being a recipe for business failure).  And, to be sure, the handful of attempts the media have made in recent years to cover substantive, big picture issues have largely failed to garner much attention outside the most passionate elements of the blogosphere.  ABC News, for instance, did prepare several stories detailing the Administration’s role in the authorization of torture – but those stories were largely met with a collective yawn. 

So, why is there so little demand for substance and so much demand for vapidity?  The troubling answer, I suspect, is that we - as a society, culture, and even as a species – are terribly uncomfortable with accepting responsibility for our own collective and individual judgments.  It is much easier to blame our problems and social or cultural failures on individual "rogue" politicians, businessmen, athletes, or celebrities than it is to question our own role in creating the culture that allows those supposed "rogues" to thrive.  Above all else, we cannot bring ourselves to question the fundamental health of the systems in which we most believe.

And so we as a society were willing to become impassioned about torture – but only insofar as it implicated a handful of "bored soldiers on the night shift" who were abusing more or less ordinary Iraqi citizens that posed no conceivable threat to the United States.  When it began to become clear that torture was something being done in our name, (supposedly) for our protection, and with the authorization of numerous elements (both Democrat and Republican) of our democratically elected government, Americans collectively stopped listening.  And so the media more or less stopped talking and questioning. 

Simply put, we need our scapegoats to tell us that, no, we as a society are not to blame.  The economic crisis is thus not a result of society’s consumerism and ever-increasing desire for easier credit, but is instead to be lain squarely at the feet of ex-politicians like Phil Gramm, con artists like Bernie Madoff, or greedy corporate executives.  So pervasive is this bias of ours that any instance in which someone might be blaming "us" for our problems immediately becomes headline news as a major political gaffe, even one that ‘disqualifies’ the politician for elected office (see, e.g., the brouhaha over Obama’s ‘bitter’ comment, even if, as I do, you disagree with the sentiment therein). 

I rush to add that this conclusion should not be perceived as "anti-American."  It is not.  It is instead a conclusion that finds its support in the darkest recesses of human nature in virtually any culture.  Although our current dilemmas are on a vastly different order of magnitude, this element of human psychology is the same element that permitted so many Germans to ignore – and even support – Nazi atrocities, so many Russians to ignore and/or support Stalin’s atrocities, and so many Rwandans to participate in the Rwandan genocide.  (For more on this element of human psychology, I strongly recommend Phillip Zimbardo’s "Lucifer Effect").   On a far less-consequential note, it is also perhaps why a show such as The Wire, which was so universally acclaimed, had a difficult time generating mainstream popularity. 

At root, we as humans have an exceedingly difficult time questioning the systems under which we choose to live – and have nearly as difficult a time listening to questions about those systems.  It is far easier on our consciences to focus on trivialities that allow us to judge whether, in our eyes, a politician is a "good" or a "bad" person.  Indeed, we often go so far as to demonize those who ask the big questions, calling them some form of an "-ist," or perhaps a "Defeatocrat," to drive home their basic evil while summarily dismissing the substance of their question.  Actually addressing their fundamental, baseline argument is simply not something we humans seem to be particularly skilled at doing.  Thus, what makes the actions of an Oskar Schindler or a Paul Rusesabagina so truly remarkable is not so much that they defied authority, but that they defied the prejudices and conventional wisdom of their own societies and cultures. 

So, ultimately, it is simply not the case that the media is to blame for the lack of concern about weighty issues like torture and civil liberties.  Instead, we must point the finger at our own culture and society and – somehow – try to figure out how we can change the system to minimize as much as possible those situations where we must argue that the "ends justify the means."  We don’t need better people in charge of the systems – we need better systems, period.

UPDATE: In referring to "we" above, I am referring to our society and culture writ large.  There are certainly many individuals who have been passionate enough about these substantive issues to actively get involved with them.  Unfortunately, these individuals are relatively few and far between. 

UPDATE II: Libby notes the absurdity of major media outlets expending resources sending multiple reporters to watch Obama’s every move, all while laying off reporters who would otherwise attempt to cover hard news.  This fact does more than anything else to prove my point, though – the major media are struggling with ever-diminishing audiences nowadays (due largely to the prolifieration of internet media outlets), to the point that they are suffering major losses requiring them to dramatically trim their costs.  Despite this, they choose to expend significant resources chasing after the most trivial of stories ostensibly related to ‘politics.’ The only conclusion to be drawn is that the media have determined that these trivialities are in fact the stories most likely to draw a significant audience. When a company is fighting for its economic life, as many major media outlets now are, the last thing you’re concerned about is protecting political allies, and the first thing you’re concerned about is returning to profitability.  By keeping resources in trivial news and cutting resources in substantive news, the media are signalling that the trivial news is where they are most able to find an audience that will allow them to return to profitability. 

     Filed under: civil liberties, government/law, media/culture, morality, patriotism, politics, torture, war