Why Do Americans Hate the Media? Just Watch the Conventions
With one political convention down and another to go, now is as good a time as any to make brief mention of the fact that these garish displays help explain why so many millions of Americans despise politicians and the political media. I do so cautiously and without pointing a finger at any specific organization or individual; indeed, I don’t have to. We live in a world today where virtually every major media organization unabashedly markets itself by cavorting with the subjects of its political coverage. Who knew that the model of the Vanity Fair “After Party” would win out in the end?
On Thursday, Ben Smith at Buzzfeed posted a piece titled “Why News Organizations Spent Millions at the RNC.” First, Smith offered details about the money some news organizations poured into the Republican National Convention. Next, he noted that “the major reason for the expense isn’t newsgathering, it’s marketing.” Then he added, as a way of assurance I suppose, that these organizations (including his own, of course) “are among the ones finding ways to make money while doing serious journalism.” And then Smith ended with this:
What those eye-popping numbers really show is something about the conventions’ identity: They’s (sic) a strange and at times uncomfortable collaboration between a political party and the media, with news organizations investing heavily in shaping their own identities, just as the political parties are. They are, perhaps, best seen as media conventions; and modern political campaigns are, after all, first and foremost media organizations themselves.
What Smith tepidly calls a “strange and at times uncomfortable collaboration between the political party and the media” tens of millions of people outside of journalism and politics consider a dangerous abdication of the media’s traditional role as a watchdog over political functions. This is not a partisan complaint. Just you watch, the same thing is going to happen again this week, in Charlotte, where many of the same journalists who hobnobbed with the Republicans will hobnob with the Democrats. Meanwhile, if this practice is so “strange and uncomfortable” why do so many media organizations do it?