Diane Sawyer revels in the irony
I have not yet had the pleasure of reading Al Gore’s new book, The Assault on Reason, but given the excerpts I’ve seen, the former Vice President laments the breakdown of public discourse, and holds the traditional national media largely responsible for the problems.
At first I thought the exhaustive, nonstop coverage of the O.J. Simpson trial was just an unfortunate excess — an unwelcome departure from the normal good sense and judgment of our television news media. Now we know that it was merely an early example of a new pattern of serial obsessions that periodically take over the airwaves for weeks at a time: the Michael Jackson trial and the Robert Blake trial, the Laci Peterson tragedy and the Chandra Levy tragedy, Britney and KFed, Lindsay and Paris and Nicole.
These “serial obsessions” extend beyond celebrity mishaps and, of course, shape the way campaigns are covered. Gore wants political coverage to focus on substance, and wouldn’t you know it, media outlets have other ideas. (He notes in his book, “There are countless examples of this, but perhaps understandably, the first one that comes to mind is from the 2000 campaign, long before the Supreme Court decision and the hanging chads, when the controversy over my sighs in the first debate with George W. Bush created an impression on television that for many viewers outweighed whatever positive benefits I might have otherwise gained in the verbal combat of ideas and substance.”)
With this in mind, watching this clip from Good Morning America was like nails on a blackboard.
In her interview with Al Gore this morning, ABC’s Diane Sawyer displayed the media’s propensity to focus on their “serial obsessions” rather than substantive issues that currently affect the country.
Sawyer’s first question to Gore was “You’re not going to tell me again that you have no plans to run, are you?” Gore quickly disposed of the question, saying, “Well, I’m not a candidate and this book is not a political book, it’s not a candidate book at all.” That answer didn’t prevent Sawyer from re-asking the question three more times, consuming airtime that could instead have demonstrated how to raise the level of debate.
Obviously, this is neither new nor unusual, but the interview added a degree of irony that usually isn’t so obvious. Gore said the nation needs to reconsider how we engage in political discourse, and the media needs to stop obsessing over the horserace. Sawyer almost literally said, “Good point. Now let’s talk about the horserace.”
Indeed, Sawyer knew she was practically using the book as a script, but couldn’t help herself. At one point, she asked Gore, “Again, not to come back to this and fall into your thesis that the press only wants the horserace of the political campaign, but one way–” at which point Gore interrupted, “But back to the horserace.”
All the while, whenever the camera turned to Gore, the chyron read, in all caps, “Al Gore on the attack: Will he run for the White House?” Behind Gore and Sawyer, a giant screen showed a graphic: “The Race to ’08.”
It was as if Sawyer and the producers read the book and thought, “How best can we make ourselves look ridiculous, proving Gore right?”
Faiz added:
At the conclusion of the interview, Gore mocked Sawyer’s line of questioning. “Listen to your questions,” he said. “You know, the horserace, the cosmetic parts of this — and, look, that’s all understandable and natural. But while we’re focused on, you know, Britney and K-Fed and Anna Nicole Smith and all this stuff, meanwhile, very quietly, our country has been making some very serious mistakes that could be avoided if we, the people, including the news media, are involved in a full and vigorous discussion of what our choices are.”
Reason #1,684,350 why I do not watch television news
I realized not too long ago that I have been watching the news to see if there is anything they can get right, and trust me when I tell you they aren’t having much success. Sometimes, they get parts of it right, but package it in a way that seems to suit their agenda. Sometimes, the news is instructive for what it does not report – like ABC and NBC still failing to report on Comey’s testimony last week.
The Daily Show does a better job of reporting the news than the so-called “real” news shows.
The media bobbleheads are too stupid to understand the real issues, so yelling about the horserace is about the best they can do.
Good job by Al Gore, and I hope he runs for president. Of course the media bobbleheads will then punish him for “saying he wouldn’t run”, even though he hasn’t said any such thing.
Sigh.
Unfortunately, this interview is proof Al Gore will not run for President – he’s not only unwilling to kiss the ass of the biggest bimbo in TV “news”, but he actually lectured her on her failings and her propensity to be a bimbo. Naughty naughty, Mr. Gore! Morons dislike being proven in public to be morons. Politicians who go around telling the truth are not long for the horserace.
Of course the interview also proves how great it would be if he did run, because I think TV news would discover just how hated they are by the American people, as his poll numbers would climb every time he told one of the morons what a moron they are and proved it.
Does a goldfish know anything about the kool aid it swims in?
***In her interview with Al Gore this morning, ABC’s….***
Once I see those three little letters, I realize the only way to make it worse is to talk about FOX. Anyway, Sawyer is a puppet….
I also find myself watching the network news just to see if they are going to report some fact I read about on-line. Occasionally Kieth Olbermann is honest and I am grateful for that, but there is too much fluff in his show. I’m pretty sure the fluff is not his choice, but he is at least worth watching. I love the Daily Show and the Colbert Report, but watching comedy is more instructive than the networks? What does that tell us about the state of our media?
The movie Broadcast News comes to mind.
Have the networks given up on the 50% of the country that was smart enough to vote for Gore?
The race to the bottom (current champ, Fox, of course) is becoming more and more unwatchable.
The “news” has become the worse joke, because good news speaks truth to power. Right now that power is held by corporations. The networks are owned by the corporations. Ever hear of a traffic cop giving himself a ticket?
So we have a vicious cycle where the network lie to us to protect their parent corporations, we see through the lies & abandon the networks. Their ratings get lower, and they lie even more to appeal to those folks unsophisticated enough to accept the lies.
Do they understand that they are cutting their own throats?
The interview would have been thigh-slapping funny if it weren’t so sad & scary.
Network also does a lovely job of documenting the devolution of network news.
I gotta wonder if Diane Sawyer went to commercial break mentally kicking herself for being such a tool. Or whether she smiles to herself for succeeding in avoiding in discussing in any great depth what the nightly news once was as opposed to what it is now, and how that happened and why.
Gore’s the only national political figure to raise the issues that are the raison d’etre of freepress.net.
I gotta wonder if Diane Sawyer went to commercial break mentally kicking herself for being such a tool.
Or if she went into the break knowing that she just got paid $50,000 for three minutes of “work” (or whatever she gets paid per minute).
The media isn’t there to inform us, it’s there to pursuade us to buy pharmaceuticals. And Diane Sawyer defnitely makes me reach for the antinausea medications.
Maybe Gore should make common cause with Rush Limbaugh — unless Limbaugh’s derision of the “drive-by media” is simply a relabeling of the discredited “biased media” trope.
Americans have always had a propensity for tabloids. Look back at the 40’s and 50’s, the focus on celebrity, etc. In the late 80’s, you started seeing shows like Hard Copy, Inside Edtion, that had formats very similar to that of what used to be news broadcasts. It seemed to me then that the tabloids were beginning to fuse into psuedo newscasts, and before long, it would be hard to distinguish between the two. Lo and behold, that is what happened. Gore has it right, ‘serial obsession’ is a good term, but it started before O.J. Remember the Menendez brothers? Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan? Then O.J.? Then Jon-Benet Ramsey? The list goes on.
I certainly believe that the media conglomerates, deregulated by Reagan in the 80’s, bear some responsibility for the dumbing down of the news, but in the end, it is the consumer, us, that drives their programming. THAT has a lot to do with our predicament now. Millions of people watch American Idol while everyday some poor soul in Iraq is blasted to bits.
How did we get here? Who knows. Is it Americans’ fault for being intellectually lazy? Is it the corporations, with some sinister plan to keep us distracted with fluff while our nation crumbles?
At any rate, I thik Zappa may have said it the best:
I am gross and perverted
I’m obsessed ‘n deranged
I have existed for years
But very little has changed
I’m the tool of the Government
And industry too
For I am destined to rule
And regulate you
I may be vile and pernicious
But you can’t look away
I make you think I’m delicious
With the stuff that I say
I’m the best you can get
Have you guessed me yet?
I’m the slime oozin’ out
From your TV set
You will obey me while I lead you
And eat the garbage that I feed you
Until the day that we don’t need you
Don’t go for help . . . no one will heed you
Your mind is totally controlled
It has been stuffed into my mold
And you will do as you are told
Until the rights to you are sold
That’s right, folks . . .
Don’t touch that dial
Well, I am the slime from your video
Oozin’ along on your livin’ room floor
The Media: Look, we’d LOVE to delve more into improtant issues, but the public just isn’t interested in the issues. They want gossip and fluff and attractive anchorpersons smiling at them and making them feel informed and smart…
The Public: Actually, we’d love to have some more substance in the nightly news. We kinda feel ill-informed, especially when we go online and see how much news you don’t provide us every ni…
The Media: NO!!! (smack!) You Don’t (smack!) want (smack!) in-depth (Smack!) analysis! (SMACK!) You don’t want in-depth anything! (SMACK!)
You want GOSSIP AND FLUFF AND ATTRACTIVE ANCHORPERSONS…
The Public: But we’re kinda sick of gossip…
The Media: DO WE STUTTER (wraps lamp cord around the neck of the public) WHAT DID WE SAY YOU WANT? WHAT DID WE SAY YOU WANT…
The Public: …can’t…breathe…
The Media: SAY IT!!! SAY IT OR I’LL EFFING KILL YOU!!!
The Public: (wheezing, barely perceptible) …fluff…
The Media: (tightening the cord) LOUDER!
The Public: (gasping) FLUFF! We want FLUFF!
The Media: Aaaaaand?
The Public: …GOSSIP!
The Media: Come on, you’re two for three, make it a hat trick, Jackass!
The Public: (about to pass out) …uh…uh…attractive anchorpersons smiling at us……making us… feel informed and…and…(just before becoming dead weight) smart…
The Media: (Lets go of the cord, The Public collapses in an unconscious heap) That’s right! Don’t Effing forget what we tell you you want! (kicks The Public in the ribs, The Public lets out a slight groan) And tell your friends while you’re at it, p***y-boy (one final shot to the ribs) Coming up next, has Jennifer finally forgiven Brangelina? HOW much fuel does the Gore campaign consume? And get ready for sun sun sun this weekend, Hermione Gonzalez-Schwartz with the weather when we return!
Aaaaaaand…SCENE!