For those who watch political commentary on television news channels without throwing up in their mouth a little and/or scoffing out loud at the TV screen like a crazy person, I salute you!
At the risk of beating a long dead horse, I’d once again like to point out the almost laughable partisanship of the news channels, MSNBC and Fox in particular. Last night, after Obama’s speech, I found myself flipping back and forth between the two aforementioned networks, comparing their post-speech commentary (which, by the way, is absolutely endless, and I end up paying attention for an hour or two longer than is necessary just to see if anyone in the long line of guest commentators will say something substantially different from what has been said prior. This of course never happens.) I thought Obama’s speech was very, very good; I don’t know if it was on the level of Kennedy’s Inauguration speech, or King’s “I have a dream…” speech. Though it certainly marked an historical moment, I wasn’t sure it was an historical oration. Perhaps the coming decades will prove me wrong.
Let’s say I was ambivalent, and looking for the experts in the electoral process, those who have followed and reported on politics for many years, to offer some context. Instead, on MSNBC, I heard Keith Olbermann basically cream his pants, along with Chris Matthews and the rest; and on Fox News, I heard Brit Hume and his cohorts treat Obama’s speech with a condescending skepticism that was so tone deaf I began cursing in disbelief. I don’t watch CNN, mostly because I find Wolf Blitzer utterly unappealing, but maybe it is the only news channel left that can even lay claim to objectivity.
Though the differences between Fox News and MSNBC are so blatant and multiple they need not enumeration, I was awed by the totality of their partisanship, even in the careful wording of their reporting.
The primary example for me was how the respective anchors chose to describe the accoutrements of the speech: the classical columns as stage background, the fireworks, the implied hubris of a hyperspacious football stadium. Olbermann used the word “show” when referring to the atmosphere; Hume used the word “spectacle.” Though my dictionary shows them to be basically synonyms, the gradations of meaning between their usages prove this to be a particularly insidious, and clever, bit of political spin. A “show” has content: though it is primarily a visual stimulus, it is not a wholly vacuous entertainment. A “spectacle,” alternatively, is exclusively visual, empty of content. It is often used pejoratively, when someone “makes a spectacle” of himself. Marxist critical theorists have latched onto the “spectacle” as the soulless condition of capitalism. On Fox News, the spectacle of the DNC undermined any sort of legitimacy; it was a dumbshow, and Brit Hume was there to make sure you didn’t fall prey to the pretty lights and stirring music.
In short, even at the level of language, in a single word, the networks were staking a position on the speech. It was amazing to me how subtle was the spin; I can only hope, naively, that viewers of either network recognize the dearth of objectivity in their reporting.
