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The View From the Ground
2/11/99
Timing is Everything
I have never had a whole lot of respect for the "media", which, incidentally is one of the most awful words in the Enlish language. I simply cannot tolerate television news beyond suffering through the morning happy faces long enought to get the weather and traffic. Major newspapers have become organs of propaganda, indoctrinating not so much through outright distortion (although that does happen) as through clever inclusion, omission, placement and, most recently on display, timing. Two recent examples help to illustrate the impact that timing can have in advancing an agenda.
The first is the breathless report, I believe broached by the NY Times, that Ken Starr was considering indicting President Clinton while in office. This was an interesting report, because I cannot understand what it is about it that makes it "news". It has been common knowledge for six months, at least for anyone willling to listen, that indictment of the President while in office has been one of the options Starr was looking at. I have heard this discussion on talk radio, on the talking heads cable news shows, and have seen it on the 'net and in print magazines. It simply is not news. And yet it set off the very predictable firestorm in Washington and the establishment media. It created a stage upon which the Clinonistas could climb to hurl invective upon Darth Starr. I absolutely, 100% guaranteed, know that this was in fact the opening spin salvo in the White House effort to bring down Ken Starr. How can I know this? Timing is everything. "Leak" the "story" to the Times at the very end of the impeachment proceedings. This helps push a couple of moderate republicans over the edge (not that they need much shoving), and at the same time set Reno loose to investigate Starr. The Times sets him up, and Reno cuts him off at the knees. It's all pretty clever if you admire the politics of personal destruction.
The thing that most infuriates one is that the beltway media KNOW they are being spun. They KNOW that this was a nonstory. And they respond with nothing more than a wink and a nod. I even saw Chris Matthews, one of the least timid of media Clinton critics, pretty much blow off any concern about this being a White House leak. It simply didn't matter. Once the story entered the media stream, it didn't matter how it got there. The media at best have become sportscasters, more comfortable reporting the game and tracking the score than bothering to understand the facts.
The second example of timing at work is the Jerry Falwell Teletubby affair. Once again a major news outlet breathlessly gives us a major story, that Jerry Falwell sees a Gay role model in one of the 'tubbies. This sets up an absolute orgy of Falwell-bashing, possibly the media's favorite pastime. I will be the first to admit that Jerry Falwell makes this almost too easy. But this again is not news. I have heard this for at least a year in a variety of forums. What, then, makes it news when Falwell puts it in his newsletter? It cannot be the fact, the substance. It must therefore be that it was said by Falwell. The "news" in this story is not that one of those awful little monsters is gay, it is that Falwell uttered it rather than someone less detested by the Gay lobby. This is very disturbing, albeit not shocking. The major media in this country clearly see it as consistent with their mission to deliberately engage in focused character assassination. They do not wish to report. They wish to mock, at best, or destroy those on the other side of the cutlural iron curtain.
The impact of both of these stories is only in their timing- timing gauged precisely to ensure maximum collateral damage to the intended targets. It makes me ill, which I guess is why I don't pay much attention to the media.