The crisis of democracy is a media crisis. And the mainstream press is losing
This time last year, there was a cruel joke in circulation: The most spiteful year in recent memory would reset itself at midnight on Dec. 31, and we’d be forced to relive 2020 from the beginning.
The worst 12 months ever were behind us, with their burnt offerings of deadly pandemic, political race-baiting, violent uprisings, QAnon absurdity and toilet paper hoarders. We had a new president-elect, access to lifesaving vaccines, a peaceful election and a rebounding Charmin supply.
Little did we know that 2021 would be hellbent on stealing the apocalyptic crown from 2020. Its opening number? A deadly attempted coup at the U.S. Capitol building and the rise of the delta variant. Its closing salvo? Omicron and congressional hearings that have revealed that the calls to overturn the election results were indeed coming from inside the House.
Fox News, social media juggernaut Facebook and a constellation of hard-right outlets reveled in the fear of uncertain times, sowing doubt among their followers about the election outcome, vaccinations and the alarming wokeness of “Sesame Street.” The comparatively traditional news media showed up to this poison-tipped knife fight with plastic sporks.
To be fair, the D.C. press was already depleted, thanks to covering a new fresh hell every hour since 2016. Disproving disinformation made them targets of a president and a press arm that advocated violence.
The problem is that “bothsides journalism,” as it’s come to be called, has outlived the “fairness doctrine” that created it, which was abolished in 1987 under then-President Reagan. The careful, equitable reporting of “PBS NewsHour” and NPR remains a valuable public service, but in this age of extremes, the point-counterpoint structure is sorely out of step with the bombast of politicians.
Getting to the bottom of anything requires it having a bottom, and that’s an issue in a parallel news universe where lifesaver Dr. Anthony Fauci is a demon, climate change is a hoax and ingesting horse dewormer is safer than a Pfizer shot in the arm.
It’s not a problem for those leading the charge. Take Fox
News host Tucker Carlson. He’s behind a three-part series that promotes unfounded and disproved conspiracy theories about the Jan. 6 siege. Make-believe narratives. Presented as fact. On an ostensibly “mainstream” network, watched by millions.
In his adoring interview with “nice kid” Kyle Rittenhouse — the teen who brought an AR-15 rifle to a Black Lives Matter protest and who was charged with killing two unarmed men and maiming another — Carlson assured viewers that Rittenhouse was a patriot, not a racist. He never mentioned a widely circulated photo of the “sweet kid” in a bar flashing white-power signs with Proud Boy members, wearing a “free as f—” T-shirt. And in that siloed universe, no one was there to challenge him. The teen’s acquittal emboldened would-be vigilantes and mass shooters. Social media helped reach them. Rep. Madison Cawthorn, R.-N.C., took to Instagram Live to rally his followers: “Be armed, be dangerous, and be moral.”
The asymmetrical nature of the media is both a byproduct of and a fuel for the asymmetrical nature of modern partisanship: While Chuck Todd of NBC’s “Meet the Press” is interviewing Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, about practical ways of surviving the pandemic, “Fox Nation” host Lara Logan is comparing Biden’s chief medical adviser to Nazi war criminal Dr. Josef Mengele.
In these circumstances, even newsrooms not in thrall to the hard-right cabal would be hard-pressed to strike the right tone, to see the big picture. But as social media’s dominance deepens and rightwing platforms grow, mainstream media are in crisis and local newspapers are in a fight for survival against venture capitalists.
After an overwhelming year, it might seem harsh to blame the old-school press for not assembling the pieces of the puzzle into a warning siren for our system of government. But it isn’t enough to hope that 2022 will magically offer solutions to either our media crisis or our democratic one. It will require swift and forceful change. Otherwise, the joke’s on us.