All Politics Is Now Media Criticism
Here’s why that’s bad for America.
A day doesn’t go by in the dreary 2024 presidential cycle without a flood of partisan emails, cable news segments, blog posts, political statements, and social media screeds complaining about the mainstream media’s handling and framing of any new domestic and international development.
The only thing everyone in American politics seems to agree on is that “the media” is not being fair, balanced, and sufficiently appreciative of their views or preferred candidates.
If the media doesn’t meet the propaganda desires of Democrats, Republicans, or other partisan and ideological apostates, it’s off to the digital ramparts for elites and online warriors decrying “false narratives,” “disinformation,” “fake news,” and “bad vibes” adversely affecting their favored candidate or issue position.
Donald Trump made an entire career out of whining about the mainstream media and still lives on nuggets of outrage dispensed to the faithful about how unfairly the media covered his glorious rule and the election he says was stolen from him. Democrats constantly gripe about the press identifying obvious weaknesses with Joe Biden, such as his age, his abysmal poll numbers, the lackluster support for his economic agenda, and his inability to hold together a basic coalition. Meanwhile, ideological outsiders and self-described “truth-tellers” have turned complaints about the media into a full-time business model of caterwauling about supposed censorship of their out-of-the-mainstream or conspiratorial views.
Politics used to be about “who gets what, when, how” in Harold Lasswell’s famous formulation. But today it’s more about who said what, when, and how—and why everyone is so upset about it.
Before the invasion of digital devices and endless online activity, mass politics boiled down to disciplined party and ideological workers performing the arduous task of organizing and educating small groups of people about how parties, policies, laws, and regulations might affect their personal interests and values. Elites did their part by focusing on the ideas and structures that shape these basic interests and values.
The primary goal of politics was to inform and prepare citizens to take action to achieve specific outcomes.
Private sector unions, single issue groups, neighborhood and trade associations, membership organizations, religious institutions, urban political machines, and small magazines and journals were the masters of this kind of nuts-and-bolts politics and idea generation. They informed people of important developments in government or world affairs, offered easy-to-digest frameworks for interpreting events, gave people tasks to perform, figured out ways to persuade others to support them, and kept their people together through a focus on common goals and beliefs.
These groups still exist today, but their ability to define politics has been greatly diminished by the eternal rush of posting on X, TikTok, and Instagram, commenting online, fighting inconsequential word battles with adversaries or other random people, and searching for constant affirmation of one’s views and rejection of sectarian opponents.
The focus of most online scuttlebutt and activity these days is dissecting how the media covers certain people or issues, rather than educating and organizing citizens to gain political power for concrete objectives. Nothing really happens in online politics other than people preening for others and getting mad about language use and “implicit bias.”
As politics has become more about meta-rhetorical complaints, and less about brass tacks economic and social policy fights, it’s little wonder things rarely pass Congress outside of crisis and emergency moments, or that issues go unaddressed for decades on end. Politics is designed to make people constantly agitated and personally aggrieved about being disrespected rather than achieving incremental gains and changes in line with people’s interests and values (e.g. House Republicans purposefully blocking all action on immigration, Ukraine, Israel, and Asia funding and then crying about the border crisis).
The elites and activists running politics today—and the financial backers supporting them—aren’t really interested in persuading people, educating voters, delivering on promises, or even passing laws. They mainly want to complain to one another about how they are dissed by the media and why people should give them money to stand up to these forces.
The mainstream media obviously makes errors in reporting and with editorial judgments (as do other news and information sources). The press should be scrutinized from the perspective of ensuring that complex public issues are presented in a factually correct manner with balanced analysis.
But mainstream reporters, researchers, editors, commentators, and producers also get a lot of things right in ways that don’t fit party and ideological lines—or make politicians and their supporters comfortable. And they often admit mistakes and correct themselves when they get things wrong, unlike other partisan media outlets that knowingly peddle false information.
Either way, mainstream media missteps and coverage choices don’t warrant constant fulmination by everyone in partisan politics or anyone with a social media account. There’s more to politics than “bad framing” by some national newspaper or television network.
It need not be this way. The media can do its part by continuing to dig deep into real policy and political issues facing the country, and reporting the facts as best it can in a straightforward, neutral manner.
Citizens can also do their part to end endless whining in politics by trying something different this election cycle:
Don’t read, watch, post, like, share, or give money to any party, activist group, or politician who constantly complains about their media coverage—whiners are losers who don’t deserve the attention.
Do join good organizations and political groups built around a clear set of values and a concise mission about what they want to achieve with others—and how.
Pick a candidate or issue that really matters to you and dedicate yourself this cycle to talking more directly with others about why you support the campaign or policy effort. Don’t worry about how the media or others talk about the candidate or issue—focus instead on your own knowledge and articulation of why you support this effort or person and share this politely with those who might be interested.
Blubbering about being mistreated, misunderstood, or underappreciated by the press is unfortunately what drives a lot of political activity these days. But Americans don’t have to participate in these childish performances. They can model a better, more substantive and practical form of politics themselves—and who knows, maybe get some good coverage in the process.
John Halpin is the president and executive editor of The Liberal Patriot, where this article was originally published.
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Sorry. The media is complicit in the extreme divisions we are seeing in this country now. From George Floyd to Russian Collusion to Trump's legal issues and even Supreme Court decisions, the media is for the most part heavily biased against anything conservative, and is happy to misinform us. Oddly, they sometimes return with "corrections" many months after the fact when the damage has already been done.
I agree with your prescription (I don't think it's exhaustive, but it's good enough). Still, I don't share your glass-half-full assessment of mainstream media, much of which has more-or-less explicitly abandoned journalism for activism.