Barack Obama’s triumph on May 6 was a victory over a wall that pretends to
be a fly on the wall.
For a long time, the nation’s body politic has been shoved up against that
wall -- known as the news media.
Despite all its cracks and gaps, what cements the wall is mostly a series of
repetition compulsion disorders. Whether the media perseveration is on
Pastor Wright, the words "bitter" and "cling," or an absent flag lapel-pin,
the wall’s surfaces are more rigid when they’re less relevant to common
human needs and shared dreams.
"We’ve already seen it," Obama said during his victory speech in North
Carolina, "the same names and labels they always pin on everyone who doesn’t
agree with all their ideas, the same efforts to distract us from the issues
that affect our lives, by pouncing on every gaffe and association and fake
controversy, in the hopes that the media will play along."
And how, they’ve played along. From the front pages of "quality" dailies to
the reportage of NPR’s drive-time news to the blather-driven handicapping on
cable television, the ways that media structures have functioned in recent
weeks tell us -- yet again -- how fleeting any media attention to substance
can be.
News outlets spun out -- "pouncing on every gaffe and association and fake
controversy" -- as media Obama-mania about a longshot candidate morphed into
Obama-phobia toward the candidate most likely to become the Democratic
presidential nominee. The man who could do little wrong became a man who
could do little right. The lines of attack were spurious and protracted
enough to be jaw-dropping.
But how often can we be truly shocked by such media patterns? Perennial
corporate structures are reinforcing the narrow boundaries.
If this sounds like an old complaint, it is. Institutional dynamics --
fueled and steered by ownership, advertising, underwriting and undue
government influence -- repeat themselves with endless permutations.
Dominant media routinely focus on counterfeit issues, often ignoring or
trashing progressive options in the process.
From George McGovern to Gary Hart to Michael Dukakis to Al Gore to Howard
Dean to John Kerry, a long line of Democratic contenders with a chance to
become president have been whipsawed by cartoonish images or bogus "issues,"
incubated by the right wing and fully hatched by the mass media. The
slightest progressive wrinkles of even the starchiest corporate Democrats
have been ironed out by media steamrollers.
In recent months, as Barack Obama went from underdog to frontrunner, the
news media became stainless-steel accessories to the "kitchen sink" politics
of smear and fear.
The media pretense of being a fly on the wall has often been preposterous.
In the real world of politics -- where power brokers and manipulators
proceed with the cynical axiom that perception is reality -- the fly on the
wall is the wall. The political press corps is not observing reality as much
as redefining it while obstructing outlooks and constraining public
perceptions.
Yet, in North Carolina and Indiana, voters had more votes than all the
pundits did. Pundits lost. Voters came out ahead. So did Obama. And so did
the body politic.
We’re still up against the media wall. But when dawn broke on May 7, that
wall wasn’t quite as high or mighty. And the nation might be able to see a
little more clearly beyond it.
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Norman Solomon is an elected Obama delegate to the Democratic National
Convention. His books include "War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits
Keep Spinning Us to Death." A documentary film of the same name, based on
the book, was released this spring via home-video outlets including Netflix.
For further information, go to:
www.normansolomon.com