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