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TIME - "Not “Both Sides,” Now: Why False Equivalence Matters in the Shutdown Showdown"
We all know that Fox News is going to blatantly push lies, but far more insidious is the corporate media, which gives the GOP valuable cover by continuing to push a false equivalency between Democrats and Republicans. If anyone wants to ask how we got here, then we need look no further than the corruption and failure of the mainstream media.
http://entertainment.time.com/2013/10/07/not-both-sides-now-why-false-equivalence-matters-in-the-shutdown-showdown/
Much of the big-picture news coverage has been clear on this. But as the crisis dragged on, more news stories framed the story as old-fashioned bipartisan gridlock between two equally culpable, stubborn, useless sides. It becomes “Boehner, White House Harden Stances” (Washington Post); “Congress Plays Chicken” (a CNN chyron this morning); “each side trying to blame the other” (Politico).
“Both sides are to blame; the truth is somewhere in between”–that has always been the political media’s happy, safe place. Some of the reasons are noble; journalists genuinely want to give both sides a hard, fair look. (Understandable, given the amount of simple, partisan sloganeering out there, like Fox News spinning the shutdown as a “slimdown” or MSNBC, as I write this, captioning its coverage with a GOP elephant next to the phrase “RANSOM NOTES.”) Some reasons are less proud: wanting to keep access to pols in each party, not wanting to alienate any readers or viewers, because subscription and advertising dollars know no party. Seeming fair becomes more important than being fair.
At worst, a legitimate impulse (“Let’s make sure we’ve checked out the other side”) becomes skewing reality for the sake of appearances (“We have to put in an example of the other side doing this”). It’s a way of ingratiating yourself, having a populist point-of-view divorced from a political one: those bums in Congress won’t do their jobs, but we’re on your side, America! (See Don Lemon on CNN this weekend, haranguing a Democratic and Republican representative, “Why the hell can’t you work it out?”) If all else fails, you can always quote ideologues in each party and make your lead paragraph, “Congress points fingers.”
* * *
But in a case like the fiscal crisis, false equivalence matters. It’s the difference between reporting an extraordinary event and an ordinary one, which in this case is crucial to how the story plays out politically. It’s a matter of whether “not changing current law” becomes redefined as “getting 100% of what you want.” If this is just one more case of those knuckleheads in Washington “digging in their heels,” “playing the blame game,” and so on, it normalizes the situation for the news audience: it sends the tacit message that it is entirely ordinary, every so often, to have a forced debt crisis that reasonable people resolve through “compromise” by renegotiating major pieces of U.S. law.
“Both sides are to blame; the truth is somewhere in between”–that has always been the political media’s happy, safe place. Some of the reasons are noble; journalists genuinely want to give both sides a hard, fair look. (Understandable, given the amount of simple, partisan sloganeering out there, like Fox News spinning the shutdown as a “slimdown” or MSNBC, as I write this, captioning its coverage with a GOP elephant next to the phrase “RANSOM NOTES.”) Some reasons are less proud: wanting to keep access to pols in each party, not wanting to alienate any readers or viewers, because subscription and advertising dollars know no party. Seeming fair becomes more important than being fair.
At worst, a legitimate impulse (“Let’s make sure we’ve checked out the other side”) becomes skewing reality for the sake of appearances (“We have to put in an example of the other side doing this”). It’s a way of ingratiating yourself, having a populist point-of-view divorced from a political one: those bums in Congress won’t do their jobs, but we’re on your side, America! (See Don Lemon on CNN this weekend, haranguing a Democratic and Republican representative, “Why the hell can’t you work it out?”) If all else fails, you can always quote ideologues in each party and make your lead paragraph, “Congress points fingers.”
* * *
But in a case like the fiscal crisis, false equivalence matters. It’s the difference between reporting an extraordinary event and an ordinary one, which in this case is crucial to how the story plays out politically. It’s a matter of whether “not changing current law” becomes redefined as “getting 100% of what you want.” If this is just one more case of those knuckleheads in Washington “digging in their heels,” “playing the blame game,” and so on, it normalizes the situation for the news audience: it sends the tacit message that it is entirely ordinary, every so often, to have a forced debt crisis that reasonable people resolve through “compromise” by renegotiating major pieces of U.S. law.
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