Every four years, when summer begins, the national media curtain rises on
an overheated stage of presidential politics. Like drama critics clutching
their programs, thousands of journalists are keenly alert to the feverish
orchestration for the Republican and Democratic conventions later in the
season. The political show must go on -- no matter how phony it may be.
This time around, reporters and commentators seem to be straining extra
hard to fan the flames of interest in the race for the White House. After
all, George W. Bush and Al Gore are among the most boring political leaders
in the country. And that's saying something.
George Orwell seems to have anticipated the genre of politics that
prevails in the United States today, a half-century after his death: "When
one watches some tired hack on the platform, mechanically repeating the
familiar phrases...one often has a curious feeling that one is not watching
a live human being but some kind of dummy."
Nearly halfway into 2000, few Americans are excited about Bush or Gore --
and not coincidentally, most understand that both major parties are
beholden to economic elites. "Voters know instinctively now that presidents
and politicians may come and go, but the men who collect the checks and
rack up the favors amass the real power," Time magazine reports in its June
5 issue. "And so far, none of the proposed reforms from either party would
change that."
Yet the vast bulk of day-to-day campaign reportage takes for granted, and
leaves unexplored, the mega-dollar context of 21st century politics. Mixed
messages abound in print and on the air: It's a shame that certain
candidates rely on millions from wealthy donors. But according to the
sheep-like news judgment of media professionals, those are the only
candidates who merit extensive coverage. Of course, such assessments are
self-fulfilling.
The Center for Public Integrity observes that "the American people have
come to expect and accept the worst from their politicians." The center
adds: "Public interest and news media interest in politics generally have
declined; so has the inclination of citizens to get involved in political
causes. Increasingly, the disengagement is making government the exclusive
province of vested economic interests and the politicians they support.
Politicians do not take responsibility for this reality, nor are they asked
to."
News outlets should be in the forefront of asking -- demanding -- that
politicians "take responsibility for this reality." But the platitudes and
hand-wringing in corporate media rarely get very far. Even the occasional
fine piece of journalism, detailing exactly who gives large checks to
presidential hopefuls and what the signers get in return, scarcely makes a
dent in the moolah-fueled engines of political commerce and media discourse.
The vague ritual of decrying big money in politics has become fashionable.
In its book "The Buying of the President 2000," the Center for Public
Integrity goes farther by documenting key sources of funds that have flowed
into the coffers of presidential aspirants anointed by mainstream media as
serious contenders. Aptly describing the "mock sincerity and epidemic
equivocation by our elected officials," the nonpartisan group notes that
huge amounts of money are "sloshing through the system, sometimes secretly,
sometimes illegally, sometimes directly influencing life-and-death public
policy decisions."
At times, pundits scold the public for being too cynical or apathetic
about the campaigns underway. Editorial writers and columnists encourage us
to pay closer attention, engage in the political process and -- by all
means -- vote. But well before Election Day, the finely meshed screens of
big money and media coverage have eliminated almost all the candidates as
realistic possibilities to win the White House. Financial power dominates.
"History shows that a nation interested primarily in material things
invariably is on a downward path," Eleanor Roosevelt said in 1927. Forty
years later, as the war on poverty gave way to the war on Vietnam, Martin
Luther King Jr. pointed out: "A nation that continues year after year to
spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is
approaching spiritual death."
These days, journalists routinely evaluate presidential campaigns as grand
performances that must meet high aesthetic standards. The mass-media
calculus gives great weight to the production values of the partisan road
shows. But in the real world, other values are the ones that count.
Norman Solomon is a syndicated columnist. His latest book is The Habits of
Highly Deceptive Media.
