Once,
when giving an interview about the servility of the western press,
Noam Chomsky was reproached by BBC journalist Andrew Marr, who
demanded that Chomsky explain how he could know that Marr or other
journalists were self-censoring. Noam Chomsky responded that he never
suggested that Marr was self-censoring, that he was sure that Marr
believed everything he was saying. It was just that, as Chomsky noted
at the time: "if you believed something different, you wouldn't be
sitting where you're sitting."
What
Chomsky meant, as thoroughly described in Manufacturing Consent, is
that media organizations are made up of vested corporate interests
and those interests have little interest in hiring people whose
interests don't coincide with their interests. Often times, we forget
this because some media personality seems likable, even honest.
Sometimes this personality even plays the role of a dissident,
criticizing relatively obvious or corrupt targets while ignoring more
fundamental ones. These popular dissidents serve to reinforce the
illusion that the media, while at times corrupt, is not inherently
flawed. That, in fact, there remains trustworthy watchdogs within it
keeping us informed and holding power to account.
Many
popular journalists and stories serve this function of illusionary
dissidence. A celebration of a news show questioning a witch-hunt, a
newspaper exposing blatant partisan corruption, a journalist exposing
a blatantly illegal act. All of these things have one thing common:
they have support of some power institutions. While these journalists
may have acted nobly, they acted nobly within a certain acceptable
framework. Yes, powerful factions had reason to oppose these stories,
but other powerful factions had reasons to support them -- the
democratic party didn't want to be spied upon, few advocate pointless
sadism, and even the president didn't like McCarthy. Without this
essential support, these stories of crusading journalism would have
been left unheard; much like the coup of Jacobo Arbenz, or COINTELPRO, or the Fallujah massacre. We are told about the evils
of McCarthyism, but not the evils of coups. The evils of wiretapping
those with power, but not the evils of more serious infractions on
those without power. The evils of torture, but not the evils of
indiscriminate bombings. We thus create the image of dissidence,
while also discrediting any serious expression of it.
Perhaps
the most popular token dissidents of today's American society are Jon
Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and their gang of court jesters.
Occasionally this group of comics express some well-thought-out
criticism of the absurdities of American society -- for instance,
consider Jon Stewart's recent criticism on the lack of gun control -- but more
often their shows exist to reinforce existing opinions. Because these
people are genuinely funny, we often find ourselves ignoring the
usual displays of servility. Consider Stephen Colbert's interview
with Kathryn Bigelow, in which he repeatedly let her suggest the fallacious idea that torture played a role in the assassination of
Bin Laden. This servility is so common, however, that it often goes
without comment. We don't expect Colbert to confront Bigelow with
facts, any more than we would expect Jon Stewart to ask a General
serious questions. We accept this kind of acquiescence to power as an
inevitable part of their shows. It's not that they aren't on our
side; this is just an unfortunate constraint of working for the mass
media.
However,
whether it's Stewart apologizing for suggesting that Hiroshima and
Nagasaki are war crimes, Colbert's bizarrely aggressive interview
with Julian Assange, or their "do nothing" protest, we are
inevitably struck by the reality that they are simple servants to the
rich and powerful. The latest example of this groveling behavior can
be seen in the following video, in which Jon Stewart and Larry
Wilmore argue that people use Martin Luther King Jr. to justify
various political positions:
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c What Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Would Have Wanted www.thedailyshow.com
Ross Brummet is a student and writer in Los Angeles. Considering himself a utilitarian with libertarian socialist sympathies, he is fond of the views of Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, and Peter Singer. However he finds Kurt Vonnegut and Douglas (more...)