On Journalists and Techies

Posted on December 14, 2004 in Clueless Oafs Journalists & Pundits

Again, I am behind. The PU-litzer Prizes were announced on 10 December. These are given to the truly mediocre stories and pronouncements made by our American media in the course of the past year. While there are still 17 more days of the year for the pundits to embarass themselves, I feel that Norman Solomon and Jeff Cohen of FAIR have hit on themes I’ve asked all along on this blog: why are we just going along with what we are told and not checking the facts?

The only assumption that the prizes did not challenge was the automatic acceptance of the election as fair and the simultaneous blaming of the discrepancy between exit polls and the so-called “actual count” on bloggers. This remains the single silliest statement made by any news organization. There’s a gigantic Republican political machine at work in this country, far more corrupt and less generous than any Democratic predecessor. It is easy for us to recognize it in the White House and the corporations, but we remain denial about its effects on our daily lives. The Machine has reached into the ballot box, turned it into a black box where it can twist the actual numbers around to suit it. When the same thing happens in the Ukraine, we mop our brows and dread the return of Communism. When it happens here, the American media just goes along.

Still, the awards point to the multitudinous follies of the so-called free press here in the USA. I am glad, for example, that they singled out so-called Middle East Expert Thomas Friedman for scorn:

WINNING HEARTS AND LUNGS AWARD: Thomas Friedman, The New York Times

In a Nov. 18 column datelined “Camp Fallujah, Iraq,” columnist Friedman summed up the situation after the U.S. assault had left much of Fallujah in rubble: “Bottom line? Iraq is a country still on life support, and U.S. troops are the artificial lungs and heart.” Apparently, the U.S. military needed to deprive the country of oxygen and blood in order to save it.

There are no more excuses to be made for the bad performance of the American press. “We can only go along with the president,” “my job is to tell the people what the government says is true,” and “it is a matter of professionalism not to ask the tough questions” have thrown a painted tarp over the field where the public gathers to hear the news. And the public are under the tarp.

The question remains why are Solomon and Cohen accepting the election results? Why haven’t they joined software security experts in demanding that the code for voting calculation be revealed? I believe that they, like the rest of the media have nested themselves in the comfortable belief that elections cannot be fixed anymore. That FAIR has not adopted this as an undercovered story — giving space to the NYT’s killing of the “Bush bulge” story instead — strikes me as mysterious. Setting aside the possibility of dark doings and collusion with the manufacturers of the counting machines, I suspect we’ve grown too comfortable when it comes to elections. Even though Greg Palast has uncovered substantial evidence that enough African American voters were denied their right to vote in Ohio alone (250,000 ballots not counted and on top of that, downright blockage of the vote at inner city polling places), FAIR continues to ignore this story.

The trouble, I think, is that journalists feel too indebted to computers. They rely on them for doing their research, writing their stories, checking their work. They believe that software and hardware can do no wrong. It is simple for them to understand a breakdown, but asking too much, apparently, to demonstrate knowledge of how they work beyond the simple schematics on Microsoft Expedia. While denying the insights of those who do know computers, reporters manage to allow the utterances of other techies about the surety of the system to go uninvestigated, unchallenged.

As a blogger and a writer, I have seen many evidences of the creeping supremacy of the techie, ranging from the authority of spelling and grammar checkers to decide what is the English language to the management of the folk revolution itself. Like all other authorities, they must be questioned. The best insights and uses of the Net will come when all voices have been heard on the directions the web must take. What has happened, however, is that the mechanics have taken over the whole road system, not in the interest of service but with the intention of power. Here is an uncovered story waiting to happen: what will be the nature of the net should these leather jackets gain power? Are they for free speech and diversity or are they masking for the White Boy Confederacy?

Slowly, through the techie buddy system, they are beginning to look, feel, and act more and more like the journalists they intend to replace. To preserve the folk revolution, we must include everyone and avoid the crowning of pundits.