Book recommendation...

Usually we restrict ourselves to St. Louis matters here at the Arch City Chronicle, but occasionally we want to make note of national matters. One such incident was Rev. Pat Robertson's statement on one of the Sunday talk shows. Robertson hosts the 700 Club which airs during the week on KPLR, Channel 11:

Federal judges are a more serious threat to America than Al Qaeda and the Sept. 11 terrorists, the Rev. Pat Robertson claimed yesterday.
"Over 100 years, I think the gradual erosion of the consensus that's held our country together is probably more serious than a few bearded terrorists who fly into buildings," Robertson said on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos."

This incident, as well as recent barrages against the U.S. legal system by cable-news pundits inspired me to review a book I read recently by James Wolcott, Attack Poodles, and Other Media Mutants: The looting of the news in a time of terror. The book was published last summer, but given the continued prominence of the screaming-class punditry, as well as the upcoming National Conference for Media Reform which is being hosted here in St. Louis, I thought it might be something our readers may enjoy.

To read the review, follow the link below.

Pinpricks to Gasbags
By: Matthew J. Murphy

Attack Poodles and Other Media Mutants: The looting of the news in a time of terror.
Wolcott, James.
Miramax Books, New York. 2004.
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The combative and caustic nature of today's media machine has turned the role of news from a daily ritual of informing the public to a high-speed race to the bottom. The new purpose of the media is not to educate the public through the examination of topics that impact our economy, political fortunes, and national and local policies. The new "mode" is to entertain the consumer with a constant stream of invective editorializing book-ended by inane stories about beauty treatments gone-wrong and celebrity relationship woes.
This is perhaps most evident in the ratings success Rupert Murdoch's Fox News network has experienced. It's full-throttle, tough-talking, flag-waving, liberal-bashing, George W. Bush loving, faux-populist script has given the nascent conservative movement a rallying point and, thanks to bottom-line driven network executives, has reduced the level of overall media coverage to its style of bottom-of-the-barrel pandering. While its anchors and hosts may disparage the spoiled Paris Hilton and her equally vacuous sidekick, Nicole Ritchie, for being inappropriate role models, they themselves use the same juvenile techniques and crass sophomoric characterizations to appeal to the basest instincts in viewers. People watch the "No Spin Zone" not for an analysis of major news items, but to see host Bill O'Reilly tell yet another guest to, "shut up!"
James Wolcott, a writer for Vanity Fair covering the news media and popular culture, published a book last summer that attempted to strike at the heart of this modern harpy cult. Titled Attack Poodles and Other Media Mutants: the looting of the news in a time of terror, Wolcott's smoothly written book dissects and categorizes the various media figures who use questionable methods to inflate their own status. These characters not only use their status to sell their books and demonstrate their loyalty, but at the same time reduce public dialogue to a cross between a 1 a.m. bar-room conversation between semi-literate frat boys and a revival meeting.
Wolcott's book focuses primarily on the right-leaning hucksters who are the most egregious offenders, Rush Limbaugh and O'Reilly merely being the progenitors of this new style of "reporting". It is a style that places orthodoxy above enlightenment. The more recent beneficiaries of this new style, luminaries such as Sean Hannity, Dennis Miller, and Ann Coulter (who infamously wished Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh had targeted the New York Times building instead) have disposed of any pretense of searching for truth and have simply hired themselves off as the Defenders of the Faith, Protectors of President Bush and Keepers of the Thumbscrews. Even such calm, institutional characters such as conservative columnist George Will bear some responsibility for not countering the steady decline in quality analysis, preferring instead to wax poetic about baseball rather than lose his seat at the table.
While Wolcott was certainly hoping for a Bush defeat in the November elections, his disgust with the shouting class has less to do with their conservatism (if they actually adhere to any ideology other than self-promotion) than with their scorched-earth style of rhetoric. Wolcott does not mourn the rise of "modern conservatism", but the death of serious public debate. It could be argued that the late 1960's were a more contentious period, but then there was an actual public dialogue. Thoughtful people sat down in public and discussed the merits of their ideas.
An infamous debate between conservative lion William F. Buckley Jr. and liberal intellectual Gore Vidal occurred on ABC News during the 1968 Democratic Convention. Even such seasoned intellectuals are prone to outbursts and the debate nearly ended in a brawl after this exchange:

Vidal: "the only pro or crypto-Nazi here is yourself."
Buckley: "Now listen, you queer, you stop calling me a crypto-Nazi or I'll sock you in the goddamn face and you'll stay plastered."

What was an inflammatory exchange in 1968, however, would be ho-hum fare in this modern talk-radio and cable news era. Until that exchange the two were adeptly debating points of constitutional law. It is questionable whether the modern cable news pundits could so deftly tackle constitutionality issues while decrying the Reagan-appointed Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy as a liberal anti-American for ruling against the legality of sentencing juveniles to death row.
The "liberal" media does not escape Wolcott's pen. He faults the moderate and left-of-center folks in the media of allowing the right-wing megaphones to skew the whole of public debate. Even such venerated programs such as ABC's Nightline (begun as a vigil monitoring the Iran hostage crisis) are being retooled to attract a larger audience. Less of the calm, rational debate that made Ted Koppel and his program an institution, and more of the sensational, emotion-driven material that has bolstered cable news' ratings.
Wolcott scans through the modern media sphere and few sources escape criticism. All of the major cable media outlets, writers for newspapers as diverse as the Washington Times to the New York Times, and the unceasingly strident talk radio circuit. The news media as a whole is responsible for the steady decline into the empty-headed, ideology-driven shouting matches that dominate the public sphere. Their efforts seems to go hand-in-hand with a modern conservative anti-intellectualism that dismisses professional opinion from "egg-headed" professors, and veers into what is nearly a post-modern intellectual relativism. The opinion of "regular Joes" and gut instincts are just as valid evaluations of policy as the analysis of someone who has spent years studying the subject.
In the final chapter of his book Wolcott suggests a few tactics to deter the attack poodles of the modern media establishment. The main thrust of which is to volley their questions right back at them, have a sense of humor and to focus on the facts.
While public debate of important topics may never have had the populist thrall that some of us would like to believe, the frothy and vituperative nature of what passes for public debate today incenses folks like Wolcott and others. Laci Peterson-style news coverage will always exist to bolster ratings but there should always exist a sober and thoughtful analysis of important issues. Until a realignment of the media is enacted, the bottom will continue to fall out from under us and one of the essential ingredients for effective democracy, an informed populace, will continue to whither away.