Andrea Mitchell Has a New Book Coming Out in the Fall. It Should be Called, "I'm What's Wrong with Journalism."
A BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL
Some of the BuzzFlash staff are off to the National Conference on Media Reform in St. Louis from May 13 -15th (We recently interviewed media reform leader, Robert McChesney, co-founder of the conference and one of the leaders in the effort to democratize radio, television and print media -- and to keep the FCC from making the Internet another conduit for corporate Republican propganda.)
We were at the first Media Reform conference in Madison, Wisconsin, 18 months ago, which drew hundreds and was sold out. This year's gathering is expected to be attended by at least 2000 participants. It's an impressive, energized grassroots effort to bring a little bit of Tom Paine back into our news coverage, instead of letting the GOP and its corporate contributors control the spigot that pours out the staged images and calculated misinformation that misleads the American public.
Nowadays, you can't really distinguish the media celebrities who dispense news on television, in particular, from the political celebrities they cover. It's all one cozy crowd. The D.C. big shot press pundits and the politicians that they report on are inseparable: they comprise the same wealthy, elitist, inside-the-beltway regime.
Oddly enough, a recent catalogue that we received -- covering books to be released in the fall -- brought this point home better than we can. You see, in September, Viking Press, a division of Penguin/Putnam, is publishing a "memoir" by none other than NBC "star reporter" Andrea Mitchell. We read with interest the promotional copy that is included in these sort of things to entice booksellers to buy the book. Of Mitchell's book (laughably called "Talking Back -- To Presidents, Dictators and Assorted Scoundrels") we learn:
But what sets this book apart is not only the unique front-row seat Mitchell has in the political world, but also the role she plays in the glamorous social scene in Washington. Her marriage to Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, has created professional challenges, but also given her special entre to the "A" list drawing rooms of Washington and other capitals. Here she gives us glimpses of what it's like to go from a 7 P.M. newscast to an 8 P.M. black-tie party, to go from being the reporter staking out a state dinner to being one of the invited guests.
Smart and candidly written, Mitchell's memoir will be a must read for anyone interested in politics and current affairs and will also fascinate anyone who wonders what it's like to be a powerful woman in a man's world.
Okay, maybe we're naive, but doesn't this expressly state what is wrong with today's media: they are one and the same with the political figures they cover? How can you objectively report on a dinner that you're a guest at, when you're socially spending the evening with the people whom you are covering, including your husband? This may be glamorous, but it's not something that passes the smell test of journalism.
We also learn that Mitchell has "been labeled a 'pushy broad,' yet her intelligence, tenacity, and ability to always be 'where the action is' have catapulted her to the top of her profession." For a moment, we thought that we were reading promo copy for the latest "tell all" by Heidi Fleiss. No, we're not making this up.
What the media reform movement has been grappling with is how do you finally turn the tide against (in this case, the literally) incestuous relationship between the corporate media (particularly television, which has an inordinate influence on working class voters) and the Republican Party? How does the media once again become an active participant in the process of democracy, instead of a roadblock to it flourishing?
Many activists are making important strides. The Internet has been enjoying a golden age of democracy. And Air America and other progressive radio hosts like Thom Hartmann, Ed Schultz and Doug Basham (to name just a few) have been making inroads on radio. But the big nut to crack remains television, which shapes the image of the world we live in for so many Americans. Without the power of television news to be a conduit for government deception and demagoguery, the Republicans would not have achieved one-party rule in America.
Carolyn Kay of MakeThemAccountable.com has repeatedly challenged progressive activists to make it a priority to put in place the funding -- which would be formidable -- to start buying up some of the old media and transforming it. Her point is that it doesn't matter what your message is if you can't get it heard. The Republicans have a media echo chamber. Pro-democracy Americans can only hear their own echo in their living rooms or dens as they curse at the mainstream television news programs.
In an ideal world, the public airwaves used by giant corporations to help entrench the Republican Party would not be owned by private companies. They are a commodity that belongs to the citizens of the United States. But the mistake of privatizing the airwaves is long behind us.
How do we now begin to recapture control of television news so that the information necessary to make decisions in a democracy becomes the norm, not the rare exception?
And, although we can hope to put pressure on the FCC not to further deregulate the media, who is going to buy what exists and return broadcast journalism to the age of Edward R. Murrow -- or a new modern incarnation of the integrity that he symbolized?
That's a question to which no answer is forthcoming. The wealthy Americans on the pro-democracy movement side generally fund movements, activism and politicians, not efforts to democratize the media. (We know personally at BuzzFlash. We survive because of lots of relatively modest premium purchases. No one has sent us a check where we had to count the zeroes.)
As for now, Andrea Mitchell symbolizes how journalistically compromised the modern mainstream media has become. After all, she's in bed with Alan Greenspan, General Electric, and the Republican Party. That's some menage a trois.
It may be a nice glitzy frolic for her, but it's toxic for democracy.
A BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL