Never, never have I wanted an election to be over and done with as much as now. It is hard to like most of these candidates.
So, I caught up with James Fallows this week. He wrote a book, Breaking the News, back in the last century. You can see an Atlantic cover-story excerpt from 1996 here.
Now he’s read Margaret Sullivan’s new book Newsroom Confidential and recognized trends then-to-now. He writes: Many themes in the book obviously connect the press-criticism of that era with what makes people yell at their TVs or Tweet “cancel my subscription!” these days. Some similarities:
- The mainstream press obsession with politics over anything else. (“Martians land on Earth. Here’s what it means for the midterms.”)
- The parallel obsession with prediction. (“Martian sworn in as President. What does it mean for the midterms?”)
- The belief that “truth” lies midway between two sides — however dissimilar those positions might be. (“Martians dine on human beings. Mars spokesperson says, ‘We invited them for dinner.’“)
- The eye-rolling boredom with anything “positive” or “constructive.” (Today no Martians ate people. Where’s the news in that?) You know all the rest.
Fallows continues: What I realized in reading Newsroom Confidential was another strong premise of my long-ago book: That the press’s framing of reality mattered.
The media’s failures weren’t just a niche issue. They affected every other part of society. The subtitle of the book was “How the Media Undermine American Democracy.” The argument was that if people ended up viewing public life as merely one more reality-TV show, but with less photogenic stars, they’d be less engaged and even more despairing than actual reality called for.
Speaking of despairing
The Boston Globe has a director of new product who just launched an online, uh, new product called The B-Side. Check it out. I doubt this one will make it.
Sandra Clark is editor/CEO of Knox TN Today Inc.