Street roots
9
Sept. 14, 2012
BUBBLE, from page 8
1« 1796, America is embroiled in an "undeclared Naval
W ar w ith France""O ur f i r s t undeclared war!
. . . I f any person shall w rite , print, u tte r, or
publish ... any false, scandalous, and malicious writing o r
writings against the government, the Congress, or
the P resident... w ith intent to defame ... o r to bring
them ... into contempt o r disrepute! o r to excite
against them ... the hatred o f the good
people o f the United S ta te s...
wonderful job within its limitations. It
doesn’t really do a great job in the Persian
Gulf states because its principal sponsor is a
Gulf state. But elsewhere it did a
magnificent job. Wherever A1 Jazeera and
the mainstream Western media were not,
you had individuals with cellphone cameras
and passion bringing those pictures to the
world. It doesn’t mean those pictures are
absolutely reliable or that they ought not be
vetted. But, I mean, even the BBC, a very
respected organization would sometimes
say, ‘This is all we can get from the region.
We cannot vouch for it, but we feel that we
should bring it to you anyway.’ And in large
part that stuff actually was quite reliable.
I’m not saying we should always trust it; we
should question everything. That’s part of
the responsibility of living in this world as it
is, and as it’s developing.
A. B.: That reminds me that you have that
old Spider-Man quote, “With great power
comes great responsibility. ”
The Alien p a rt says he
can deport any foreigner
deemed “dangerous."
B. G.:(Laughs) I’m such a geek, Aaron,
you have no idea.
A.B.: I am too! A n d Spider-Man was
actually my personal favorite. But, it seems
like yo u ’re not necessarily directing that to
members o f the media as much as you are to
the consumers.
Pages from Brooke Gladstone’s new graphic novel about the evolution o f American media.
B.G.: I am chiding the media
expectations do you have o f readers, viewers
continuously in that book. It’s often been
and listeners? What is your vision o f an ideal
presented to me that what I’m offering is
media consumer?
some kind of
apologia, and I feel
B.G.: Well, I hope
maybe that’s a failure
that they’re
in the writing.
Wherever HI la ie e ra and the consuming more than
Because so much of
just what I supply. I
» a la stre a i» Wester» media
the book is
hope that they’re
were not, yew had
constructed to
cognizant that they
explain why the
In divid uals w ith cellphone
should have a rich
messages are
and varied media diet
distorted in the way
and that they
b rin g in g those pictures to
they are — the
shouldn’t hold back
the world« It doesn^t mean
commercial reasons,
from correcting us
the reasons that are
those pictures are absolutely when we are factually
built into the
wrong. I hope that
reliable or that they ought
business and the
they’ll speak back to
reasons that are built not be vetted. But even the
us, but, before they
into our human
BBC w ould sometimes say,
yell at us, I hope they
wiring. I’m not
*This Is a ll we can get irons
really listen to what
letting the media off
we do. I mean there
the hook. The media the region. We cannot vouch
are a number of
lo r It, but we feel that we
that don’t do the
people who will write
trick ought to die.
should b rin g it to you
into the message
But if you look at the anyway." I n i in large part
board not having
polls and if you look
really listened to the
that stuff actually was guile
at the progress of
story, but to what
media, as I have, I’ve reliable.
they expect that the
seen it isn’t
story might have
necessarily the best
been.
media that live the
long and healthiest lives. And there’s a great
A.B.: So I found a reader online who wrote
deal of worthy media that has to struggle for
a review on the Goodreads website. The reader
existence. And if you face that simple fact,
questioned the conclusion that you come to,
you have to understand that this is a mutual
that we get the media we deserve. This person
relationship.
disagreed, saying that the press is controlled by
A.B.: As a creator o f media, what kind o f
the people who own it. A nd to quote the review,
he said, “I ’m not responsible for the greed-
driven politics o f Rupert Murdoch. ”
B.G.: I am talking about our totality. I’m
not speaking about us as individuals with
myriad individual preferences. All I know is
that Rupert Murdoch has been profit driven
far more than politics driven. His news
(corporation) is right wing and — at least
according to studies by the Pew Research
Center and others — tends to be very
inaccurate. His television channel — as
opposed to his cable news channel — has
been often on the cutting edge of pushing
what are American standards in a way that
is anything but conservative. You may not be
old enough to flash back to the beginning of
“The Simpsons,” but it was regarded by
conservative culture critics as an absolute
monstrosity. “Married With Children” was
another. He wasn’t worried about offending
conservative sensibilities when he was
creating a very profitable channel, filling a
need that people had to push the
boundaries. In creating Fox News channel,
he found an audience of angry white men,
the very audience that had been assembled
by Rush Limbaugh when he essentially
revived AM radio all by himself and basically
migrated the tone of AM radio to cable
news.
Now, this individual who wrote this
review is not responsible for that, but that
doesn’t mean that we as a culture aren’t
responsible for it. And so, to put all the
blame on Rupert Murdoch as if he were
acting in some sort of void where his money
is coming from a mysterious place
disconnected from the society and the
culture that he is appealing to, is just not
facing reality squarely in the face. Certainly
Rupert Murdoch is responsible for not
applying the standards that many of us
would prefer to his media properties, but we
as a culture have to take some responsibility
for consuming those properties so avidly.
And if this person who wrote the review
chose to read that last line as applying to
each and every individual with their
individual preferences, I can’t help that. I
was making a statement about the symbiosis
that exists between news-media producers
and media consumers.
A. B.: Now that you’ve done this research
and yo u ’ve p u t together this book, has it
changed how you do your work at WNYC?
B. G.: Actually, it does. I have learned so
much that I apply every day. I learned about
what Adolph Ochs said after the famous
“without fear or favor” phrase when he
wrote the opening editorial after he
purchased The New York Times. I learned
about what the Penny Press really meant
and how our flawed notion that represents
objectivity is rooted in that period. Probably
the main thing that got driven home to me
is that almost everywhere we seem to be
going, we’ve been, in some manner, before.
There is some new stuff, for sure, there
always is. But that ultimately it comes down
to human nature. And every way that we
respond has to do with that, and that if
anything, the Internet is only making us
more of what we already were to begin with.
Reprinted from Real Change, Seattle, Wash.
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