New Faces - Same Old Spin: Sensationalism and scandal-mongering have become the bread-and-butter of political journalism. Politics is being reduced to an endless struggle between the good-guys (us) and the bad-guys (them). Complexity and nuance just get in the way of relating this Manichean struggle between darkness and light. All the punters need to remember is that all politicians are driven by the will to power; and all governments are out to get them.
FEW WOULD ARGUE that journalism is not in crisis. Beset by
the manifold challenges of a global on-line culture, journalists struggle to
keep pace with the demands of readers, listeners and viewers whose tastes they
once led but now must follow. The mainstream news media’s dwindling share of
the advertising dollar drives it inexorably towards the sensational,
scandalous, salacious and bizarre: the “clickbait” upon which its profitability
increasingly depends.
For political journalism the consequences of these trends
have been particularly dire.
Prior to the arrival of the Internet, the coverage of
politics by the mainstream media, like its coverage of the arts, was seen as a
necessary and important contribution to the well-being of the community. A
well-informed electorate was widely accepted as an essential prerequisite to
the proper functioning of the democratic process. Covering politics soberly and
comprehensively was just one of the many important services provided by the
mainstream news media in return for the rivers of advertising gold flowing into
its coffers.
As the revenue required for this sort of disinterested
political coverage diminished, the mainstream news media was confronted with a
very different set of imperatives. Political personalities and events, which
had formerly provided the raw material for professional political journalists’
speculation and analysis, underwent a dramatic transformation. From being the
passive subjects of political journalism, politicians and their actions were
fast becoming the active drivers of it.
Readers, listeners and viewers were interested in politics,
but only on their own terms. Political journalists whose copy failed to both
reflect and amplify the prejudices of their mass audiences required the most
steadfast of editors to keep their words in print; their voices and images on
the airwaves.
How did the mainstream media’s consumers perceive politics?
Poorly. As the “more-market” polices of the 1980s and 90s became bedded-in; and
as political practice – regardless of which party was in power – took on a
dismal and dispiriting sameness; the voting public’s respect for politicians
(never all that high) sank even further. Increasingly, politics came to be seen
as something which politicians did to
– rather than for – the people.
Political journalism which did not reflect the public’s
deep-seated cynicism and suspicion of politics and politicians became
increasingly difficult to sustain. By far the best way to keep people reading,
listening and watching political journalism was for journalists to affect the
same cynical and suspicious air towards the entire political process.
Regardless of party, politicians were portrayed as being in
it for what they could get: and what they most wanted was power. Those who
attributed noble motives to politicians were mugs. It was all a game. It was
permissible to admire a politician for how well he or she played the game – but
not for any other reason. And the only acceptable measure of how well they were
playing the game was the opinion poll.
The medieval saying Vox
populi, vox Dei (the voice of the people is the voice of God) was re-worked
by political journalists to read: The
results of the polls represent the opinion of the people, and the opinion of
the people is the only thing that counts.
It was a formulation that removed from political discourse
every other criterion by which the voters could judge the political performance
of their elected representatives. In effect, the political journalism of
cynicism and suspicion had trapped them in an inescapable feedback loop. If a
political party was losing support, then that was only because it was failing
to give the people what they wanted. What did the people want? Whatever the
political party ahead in the polls was offering them.
The other rule-of-thumb by which political journalists were
now encouraged to operate was the rule that told them to regard every person in
a position to wield power over others as automatically suspect. Since most
people are not in a position to tell anyone what to do (quite the reverse!)
this mistrust of authority allowed political journalists to cast themselves as
the ordinary person’s champion; their courageous defender; their righter of
wrongs. Which meant, of course, that they had constantly to be on the lookout
for wrongs to right.
Sensationalism and scandal-mongering became the
bread-and-butter of political journalism. Politics was reduced to an endless
struggle between the good-guys (us) and the bad-guys (them). Complexity and
nuance just got in the way of relating this Manichean struggle between darkness
and light. All the punters were required to remember was that all politicians
are driven by the will to power; and that all governments are out to get them.
Does it help to sell newspapers? Does it boost radio and
television audiences? Of course it does. Human-beings have always been easy
prey for those who insist that individuals and groups who thrust themselves
forward to the front of the crowd are not to be trusted. And, of course,
they’re right to be suspicious: not everyone who claims to have our interests
at heart is telling the truth. And yet, the political journalism of cynicism
and suspicion cannot, in the long-run, be constitutive of a healthy democracy.
Sometimes those in power are genuinely bad, and those
seeking to turn them out of office are motivated by an honest desire to put
things right. But, if political journalists are no longer willing to recognise
any politician and/or political party as a force for good, what then? If their
profession has become nothing more than an endless search for scandal and the
abuse of power; if even the possibility that a politician might be idealistic
and well-intentioned is rejected with a cynical smirk; then the always
difficult process of implementing progressive political change will become
next-to-impossible.
The tragedy of our on-line culture, is that to remain
profitable the mainstream news media has little choice but to alarm, outrage
and inflame its audiences. “If it bleeds it leads” turns tragedy into
journalism’s most negotiable currency. For a news media on life-support, there
is simply not enough clickbait in the stories generated by a properly
functioning democracy. For the foreseeable future, therefore, the only news fit
for political journalists to use – will be bad.
This essay was
originally posted on The Daily Blog
of Thursday, 22 March 2018.
