17-The Media is the Massage

Where do you get your news? TV? Radio, web, what channel? What website? Does it matter? I think it does, and so did a Canadian philosopher whose theories in the nineteen sixties about the media were ahead of their time. I'm Jim Pulling, and this is my view from the middle. In the introduction to this podcast series, I promised no politics, and I'm going to keep to that promise here, even though I'll probably tread on some thin ice. When I was in school for journalism, we studied the works of philosopher and author Marshall mccluan, who coined the phrase the medium is the Message in the first chapter of his book called Understanding Media the Extensions of Man. His work is among the cornerstones of media theory and was a fixture in media discourse in the nineteen sixties. He predicted the use of the World Wide Web, almost thirty years before it was invented, but his theories are probably more pertinent today than at any other time. In nineteen sixty seven, he wrote the book The Medium is the Massage, An Inventory of Effects. The title was a typo. It was supposed to read the medium is the Message, but the mistake was made of the typesetter and message turned into massage, but mccluan saw it and loved it, so he left it alone. Basically, McLuhan says that technologies from clothing to the wheel, to the book, and extending beyond that to the electronic media, are the messages rather than the content of the communication. I was a guest lecturer at Rollins College in winter Park for an adult media class. Once I asked the class at the outset, if you're a conservative Republican, what twenty four hour TV news channel do you watch? Unanimously, they all said Fox News. Next, I asked, if you're a liberal Democrat, what TV news channel do you watch? Most said CNN, others MSNBC. The main reason is not so much blatant media bias as it is skewed writing, delivery, loaded interview questions, selection of guests, placement of stories, and frequency of story repeats that all make a conservative audience feel comfortable watching Fox or a liberal audience feel comfortable watching CNN or MSNBC. All this is hiding behind slogans like fair and balanced and the most trusted name in news. Now, I'm not talking about commentaries or editorials labeled as such. Sean Hannity on Fox or Rachel Maddow on MSNBC are biased politically, but are paid to do that. To all of a sudden expect them to become unbiased is not only unreasonable, but against what they were hired to do. Sean Hannity and Rachel Mattow are not newscasters, they are commentators. What I'm talking about are the newscasters themselves purportedly disseminating information without editorializing. The problem is, in most cases they are editorializing, or their producers and editors are simply by the way the stories are written, placed within a newscast, given breaking news status, or the number of times the stories are given airtime. Why do you suppose that is? Why should the media the TV news channel be the massage that coddles our minds. Why can't the news channel simply present the news the way it is and let us decide on its merits. There are a few internet news outlets that are boasting they now do this, but they don't seem to be getting much traction publicity wise. Well, I can tell you, in my opinion that these channels skew the news because that's what the viewing public wants. In these days of instant news on our phones and on the internet, viewers don't necessarily need these channels to just provide news and information. The need channels that make them feel good about their beliefs. If all of a sudden, Fox and CNN stopped polarizing their news, their ratings would probably tank. I'm reminded of a news director I had at WKIS. He used to open news staff meetings by grabbing a handful of news copy. Is before we use computers, and news stories were typed up on eight by five sheets of paper, and he'd say, listen, this stuff isn't important. Plumbing is important. All that was to say, get over yourselves, let the news be the news, and stop making an agenda out of it. But he also said privately that he felt that it was physically impossible for someone to write a news story without showing some sort of bias watching these news channels these days, I have to agree. During and shortly after the Trump administration, CNN employees were videoed admitting that the network's agenda was anti Trump. But that's not surprising or hard to see, especially if you looked at how CNN handled the Russia collusion investigations day in and day out. The way they presented the story, Trump was absolutely guilty of collusion with Russia on the election, and it was pounded into every story, every interview, in every news promo run on the network. Fox News was nailed for high they handled the voter fraud allegations during the twenty twenty election. As a matter of fact, Fox was sued by Dominion voter machines for defamation for their handling of the story, even though their newscasters admitted privately that they never believed there was a voter fraud or that Dominion did anything wrong. But again, Fox had Dominion guilty from the get go. As for me, I don't trust any of them. I remember the days of Walter Cronkite on CBS. You had no idea where he stood personally on the issues of the day, politically or otherwise. He just delivered the news. Same thing went for Huntley Brinkley on NBC and John Cameron Swaysee on ABC. I'm talking from the perspective of a guy who's been writing, supervising, and teaching broadcast news for forty years. It sorely disappoints me that this stuff happens no matter how well I understand the reasoning behind it. So what's happened in the media? Why, all of a sudden, is the media now the massage? Why is it I have to fact check every story I read or with two or three different sources. And that goes for stories on commercial TV, radio, newspapers like The New York Times and The Washington Post, as well as the twenty four hour news channels. I cringe watching CNN, Fox, MSNBC or Newsmax. Why is snopes dot com bookmarked on my computer? These days? It's just too much work to try to sift out all the skewed writing that sets foregone conclusions about the outcome before the meat of the story is ever delivered. And I'm not talking about one side of the isle or the other. Both sides are guilty of these practices. I seriously hate it when I'm in a room with someone and a news story comes on the TV about something outrageous that a politician did, thinking I'm a supporter of this particular politician, all of a sudden, I'm put in the position of trying to defend this particular action, even though it's the first time I'm hearing about it. On the surface, the news story as written makes a politician look ridiculous and his action is totally indefensible. So the person says something like, well, that's absurd that so and so did that. How could you possibly defend him for that? The story was read by a news outlet that is notorious for having an agenda against this politician, So how can I even believe that the story is true or isn't skewed? I have to go checking other sources, and many times find that the story was subjected to selective editing, skewed writing, and even complete inaccuracies about what had happened. But by the time all that fact checking is done, it's way too late to go back to my friend who posed the initial questions and try to convince them that the story was biased. When you try to do that sort of thing, you get the sarcastic oh so it was fake news, huh, mainly because my friend has been totally taken in by the version of the story they saw, and nothing is going to change that. That's what the news channels are counting on people buying into their skewed version of things and rejecting the real facts. First impressions are difficult, if not impossible, to reverse, So once my friend has devour or the initial story, any attempt to explain that just maybe the story wasn't complete or entirely accurate is met with harsh resistance. That's why, even though no voter fraud was proven on the part of dominion voter machines, there are still watchers of Fox News who will never be convinced of that. That's why, even after all the investigations showed that Trump never colluded with the Russians to win the election, watchers of CNN will never stop saying that he did. The news channels are fully aware of this and use it to advance their agendas. Now, I'm not saying that everything the news channels report is inaccurate or even skewed, but so much of it is. It just makes it too difficult to try and sift out what's real and what's smoking mirrors. That's by design as well, so it all becomes a no win situation. Since I retired from the media at the end of twenty twenty one, I hardly ever watch any of those news channels, and the only time I watch any TV news at all is when my wife wants to it's just too much work. There's a line in the old movie War Games you might remember at the end when the computer that was trying to start a nuclear war comes to the realization that quote the only winning move is not to play. Well, that's the way I feel about watching news channels these days. The only winning move is not to turn them on to begin with. Entertainment sitcoms get into the act as well. Roseanne Barr's show, before she was kicked off for making politically disparaging remarks, was obviously pro Trump, while the show Blackish spent an entire episode treating Hillary Clinton's presidential loss like it was the death knill for society as we know it. The entire episode made you feel as if you're watching a funeral and that it was a commonly accepted fact that all of America felt that Clinton losing the election was a horrible, horrible thing. If that were actually the case, then she would have won the election. Quite frankly, I don't care what Roseanne Barr's political views are, and I don't care what the cast and writers of Blackish think about clinton election loss. The producers obviously think that because they have a high rated show that can use that bully pulpit to try and influence the electorate. I don't watch these shows for that, and I don't like being artificially influenced. As a matter of fact, after seeing those episodes, I don't watch them at all. So quite often I find myself in the middle again, with friends on one side who want to believe a certain thing, so they watch the TV news channel that aligns with their beliefs, whether the information is accurate or not, and on the other side, the true facts of the story, if you can even find them. Seems like the only winning move is not to play when the media is the massage. I'm Jim pulling and that's my view from the middle. In the next episode, so it's nineteen sixty three, you're a second grader kneeling on the hard tile floor of your Catholic school with the mother superior on the PA system saying the rosary, what do you think is happening? The president is sick? Next, on my view from the middle,