Tag Archives: MSNBC

red and black bar

Plurality, Triangulation and the Truth

Anyone in an open society has the advantage of seeing what Putin and his nation cannot. One of the glories of an open society is that information travels easily and mostly unencumbered.

American intelligence reports note that Vladimir Putin has functionally locked himself and his nation behind a media firewall, afraid to let his citizens hear what the world knows. The Russian dictator is notorious for keeping his own council.  But it seems worse this time, with many of his aides apparently willing to be the bearer of bad news. So even though he has initiated the human catastrophe of the Ukraine war, he and many Russians may still know little of the horrors that have been unleashed. As the New York Times’ Tom Friedman recently noted, “Putin, it turns out, [has] no clue what world he was living in, no clue about the frailties of his own system, no clue how much the whole free, democratic world could and would join the fight against him in Ukraine, and no clue, most of all, about how many people would be watching.” Meanwhile, most of the gains Russia achieved in the last 20 years are being rolled back by sanctions imposed by the world’s democracies.

By contrast, ordinary citizens in most of the rest of the developed world could fill him about the aimless marauding of the Russian Army. Most anyone in an open society has the advantage of seeing what Putin and his nation cannot. One of the glories of free societies is that information travels freely and mostly unencumbered. The democracies of the world take access to a multitude of sources doing credible reporting as their birthright. Individual sources may not always be accurate. But without much effort, citizens can “triangulate” between multiple sources to find truths that seem to be reasonably solid. If a conservative-leaning source confirms the same conclusion as a more liberal outlet, we can judge that the news is probably accurate.  If one outlet plays favorites, a thoughtful reader–and their are too few–will cross check with other sources before reaching a conclusion.

Now, imagine living in a prison where the only loudspeaker ever heard is controlled by the guards. Welcome to North Korea or Russia, trying to impose the medieval values of top-down control on their citizens.

In no particular order, here are some easily accessible news-gathering outlets, available mostly for free to Americans via their ubiquitous computers, and key websites like YouTube. All outlets on this partial list are doing original reporting in English from Ukraine and Eastern Europe:

  France 24

  BBC  (U.K.)

 Agence France-Presse (AFP)

  Associated Press

  MSNBC/NBC

  CNN

  New York Times

  NHK (Japan)

Washington Post

Reuters

The New Yorker

  Deutsche Welle (Germany)

  The Guardian

And there are so many more:  NPR, CBC (Canada), PBS, Fox News, Sky News, ABC, CBS, ABC News (Australia), The Atlantic, Channel 4 News (UK), ITV, and others.

Free access to the press is a good reminder of why we protect our freedoms. The media firewall denying Russian citizens the same kind of access is as good an indicator as any of a failed state.

The Eclipse of Advocacy by Assertion: the Case of Cable News

                                       wikimedia commons

Opinions without amplification: the problem is the equivalent of a trial where a judge only wants to hear opening statements.

We have opinions and we like to express them.  We also have what we like to think of as reasoned positions, and we sometimes like to explain those at well.  But anyone immersed in the stew of cable news these days is likely to see more of the first and less of the second: opinion-giving devoid of  good reasons.  For example, we are knee deep in arguments on health care reform.  If a person expresses faith in a single-payer system built out from the expansion of Medicare–a common proposal–we need to hear their reasons. If given the chance they might add that it would have lower administrative costs, works reasonably well in Canada and elsewhere, and would simplify the administrative mess we now have.  The problem is that our broadcast media give capable experts  too little time to explain how such a system would work.

The topics happen to be political.  But like aging divas in some old Broadway revival,  none of the program hosts will not move from under the key light at the center of the stage.

One of our cable news networks, MSNBC, favors hosts who are almost always reluctant to allow guests even a New York minute to elaborate on a point of view.  Chris Matthews (Hardball) is the worst at sharing time, shutting down sometimes thoughtful guests by asking long questions he then proceeds to answer.  Others on the network are inflicted with the same need to dominate, sometimes even Rachel Maddow.  To be sure, the gifted Maddow is less guest-centric and almost always up to the task of defending her reasons.  But the overall impression is of a network that has turned their evening news lineup into a series of “shows” based on “branded” celebrities.  (For the record, we should have news “programs,” not “shows.”  A “program” suggests at least the possibility of unscripted discussion.)  The topics happen to be political.  But like aging divas in some old Broadway revival,  none of the program hosts will not move from under the key light at the center of the stage.

CNN is slightly less star struck.  Their on-air journalists, including Erin Burnett,  Anderson Cooper and Wolf Blitzer are able listeners and sometimes sharp questioners.  CNN’s problem is that they have decided to add large panels of “experts” to comment on what is always “breaking News.”  The pattern means there are as many as eight observers:  party hacks and surrogates for the President, and sometimes a few people with real insight into governmental affairs (for example, David Gergen and David Axelrod.)  But no guest is given more than a few seconds to make a point. Opinions, but too little amplification: the problem is equivalent to a court trial where a judge only wants to hear opening statements, but not supporting testifiers.

Older research put the average  television news soundbite coming from an expert at about eight seconds, hardly enough time for anyone to clear their throats, let alone explain the intricacies of a policy proposal.  Even in the expanded cable and streaming universe, the number does not seem to have grown.  The guests are often decoration to add legitimacy to the proceedings, or to fill in important but minor holes of infrequent silence.

This matters because a true reasoned argument is a claim (assertion) and it’s good reasons. A claim alone is not enough. It’s intellectually crippling to only state assertions: the equivalent of trying to have a public debate via Twitter.   All of this is made more poignant by the fact that true discursive media–the New York Times and Atlantics of the world–struggle to hold on to their readers.  It seems that many Americans are too busy or distracted to remain engaged long enough to get full explanations.  Instead, they get less about more, creating what political scientist Robert Entman once described as a “democracy without citizens.”