By Janis Siegel, JTNews Correspondent
If you’ve ever wondered why television news seems like a collage of high-speed car chases, blazing infernos, Hollywood divorce settlements, and political innuendo, author and New York Times op-ed columnist Frank Rich has the answer. He laid out his thesis about the state of our mass media and all things newsworthy to an audience of approving fans at Seattle’s Temple De Hirsch Sinai on Nov. 16.
A Jewish son of the ‘50s and ‘60s whose childhood memories include an “apartheid-like” Washington, D.C., Rich merged the political with the theatrical when describing the nation’s capitol: “There were like these stage sets — these alabaster buildings. Meanwhile, there was this incredible poverty.”
Rich was in the Northwest to speak about his latest book The Greatest Story Ever Sold: The Decline and Fall of Truth in Bush’s America (Penguin, 2007). In it, he “reviews the production values” of President Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” speech after the initial invasion and capture of Iraq, and rebukes the administration for having involved the United States in an unnecessary war.
“How did it happen that we, as a country, went to war on completely fictitious grounds?” asked Rich. “There’s something askew about our political culture. We need to distinguish truthiness.”
Truthiness, the term coined by Comedy Central host Stephen Colbert, pretty much sums up Rich’s message about the confluence of mass media, theater and politics.
“We can’t tell where the information ends and the infotainment begins,” he said. “There really has been a new form of politics that has taken over our lives in the last 25 years. We have more sources of news than ever before, but we don’t discriminate. With all of these news outlets, how could we still be sold a war despite having all of the information we ever thought possible?”
Television news took a sinister turn during the CNN coverage of the first Gulf War, according to Rich. The proliferation of cable news outlets, commandeered by the corporations that own them, he said, has left America in the abyss of a mini-series-like, 24-hour news cycle, dominated by CNN, Fox, MSNBC, and CNBC.
“During the first Gulf War, CNN turned itself over to covering the war, complete with theme music, logos, production values, and civilian experts. It’s a kind of journalistic Hamburger Helper.”
It was the miniseries Roots that took a critical piece of American history and turned it into a dramatic evening soap opera, said Rich, merging this central part of American history with fiction. This type of programming has crossed over to news in the last 15 years.
It was risky, he added, but the news departments were emboldened by their success with the Gulf War coverage.
“To their amazement, people loved it,” Rich said.
It was the O.J. Simpson trial, however, that first crossed over from news fiction to news drama.
“That showed executives that you could have a miniseries for days at a time, with nothing going on, and a cast of characters,” Rich said.
Then there was Princess Diana, “who received more coverage than [John F.] Kennedy;” the fatal plane crash of John F. Kennedy Jr., where “actual fiction was injected into it.” Apparently, Rich said, there was no flight instructor in the cockpit with him that day, and he wasn’t planning to run against Hillary Clinton for a New York Senate seat, as was reported in the press, Rich said.
“Of course, there was the Monica Lewinsky scandal, and for the first time in the history of news, White House press briefings were televised daily,” added Rich. “Also, the Web came online as a mass news media, and TV news operations were swallowed up by huge conglomerates.”
The cavalcade of news highlights was dizzying. However, there was breaking election coverage that could not be overlooked, he said. He offered a guarded optimism about our collective political future.
“There is genuine excitement about Barack Obama,” Rich said, “but the election of Barack Obama is not going to end all racism. As we try to avoid some rotten piece of history playing out, we have to hope that it turns out well.”
Rich quickly segued from the politics of the election to critiquing the media-savvy candidates, who he said worked the press with the same skill they worked the crowd.
“Barack Obama is a brilliant showman,” said Rich. “He is brilliant at staging events, whether it’s Berlin or Denver. And who was more important [in this election] — Tina Fey or Sarah Palin? There were so many fictional story lines. Both candidates wanted to match the Bush theatrics.”
Rich cited the questions and doubts initiated by the news media about whether or not the Jews in Florida and whites in rural Pennsylvania would vote for Obama.
Then there was the heightened tension about the “Bradley effect,” he said, a reference to former Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, an African-American candidate who lost his bid for governor of California in 1982, despite poll numbers that showed him to be overwhelmingly ahead of his opponent.
Ultimately, there is fiction on both sides, and Americans, as consumers, must always be vigilant.
“People in power are aware of how to use the media — and they want to,” said Rich. “We hope they will use it for good.”