Journalism in America: Blues, Buffs & Buttheads
Blitz Magazine
In 1836, in The Pickwick Papers, Charles Dickens wrote the following:
It appears, then, that the Eatanswill people, like the people of many other small towns, considered themselves of the utmost and most mighty importance, and that every man in Eatanswill, conscious of the weight that attached to his example, felt himself bound to unite, heart and soul, with one of the two great parties that divided the town-the Blues and the Buffs. Now the Blues lost no opportunity of opposing the Buffs, and the Buffs lost no opportunity of opposing the Blues; and the consequence was, that whenever the Buffs and Blues met together at public meeting, Town-Hall, fair, or market, disputes and high words arose between them. With these dissensions it is almost superfluous to say that everything in Eatanswill was made a party question. If the Buffs proposed to new sky-light the market-place [sic], the Blues got up public meetings, and denounced the proceeding; if the Blues proposed the erection of an additional pump in the High Street, the Buffs rose as one man and stood aghast at the enormity. There were Blue shops and Buff shops, Blue inns and Buff inns;--there was a Blue aisle and a Buff aisle, in the very church itself.
Of course, it was essentially and indispensably necessary that each of these powerful parties should have its chosen organ and representative; and, accordingly, there were two newspapers in the town-the Eatanswill Gazette and the Eatanswill Independent; the former advocating Blue principals, and the latter conducted on grounds decidedly Buff. '
This passage stuck in my mind a long time ago, but I remembered it recently when I watched the brouhaha about Barack Obama's speech to the schoolchildren of America. The reaction to the announcement of Obama's speech was enough to elicit, from people with brains, gasps and giggles, as American parents bought the idea that Obama was going to brainwash their children, use mass psychology to indoctrinate them, and steal into their brains and turn them into little robots. These are the same people who think that Obama is a closet Muslim, that Obama rhymes with 'Osama' for an actual reason, and that Obama's a socialist who is somehow connected to Hitler and Kim Jong-il (no kidding-check out the blogs).
And it wasn't just parents; there were teachers--people with university educations, who were reluctant to let their students watch Obama's speech. I sat through the painfully comical interview with the painfully stupid Arizona State School Superintendent who could say little other than that allowing children to watch Obama's speech was nothing more than 'hero worship'. He didn't appear to know what the term meant-he just kept saying it because, obviously, someone had told him to.
'Course, Obama told children to persevere, work hard and stay in school. Tsc tsc tsc...bad president. I didn't happen to watch the speech, but I assume it was more entertaining than that of Ronald Reagan, who did the same thing but spoke to America's kids about tax breaks and Republican policy. No indoctrination there!
The Dickens passage popped into my head just a few weeks later when, horrified and disgusted, I watched the mortifying behaviour of Americans during the town meetings held to discuss Barack Obama's healthcare reform package. This, however, was a much more serious case of one party shooting down an idea because it was the other party's idea. Who can forget the middle-aged woman who told the Senate committee how she was nearing the end of her life because, when the lump in her breast was found, her insurer cut her off?
In America, girls are encouraged to marry doctors because, if they do, they'll be set for life. Parents hope that their children may become doctors because, if they do, they'll be rich. In America, medicine means profit. And in order for healthcare to be reformed in that country, Americans have to get it into their heads that, when it comes to healthcare, profit is not the foremost consideration. That's a gargantuan leap. Those who make their living managing hospitals, marketing hospitals or managing companies which supply the healthcare industry, and the shareholders of all of those companies, do not want people to make that leap.
Of course some of the hysterical people at the town hall meetings were on the payroll of interested parties. In this age of rampant corruption, that's to be expected. But the level of ignorance displayed in the Man-on-the-Street interviews was more shocking, as we saw that an astonishing number of people actually believe that Obama's plan would institute 'death panels', which would deny care to the elderly or disabled. And that Canadians have to ask permission of bureaucrats before they can see a physician. 'Didn't help that the Republicans were able to rustle up a disgruntled Canadian-and I'd like to know what her pay-off was.
The question becomes one of where these people got their information. And how they became so hopelessly mired in ignorance. But it's a question easily answered--they got it from their journalists.
Just as there were 'Blue' and 'Buff' journalists in Dickens' day, there are journalists today who are so stuck to their political parties that they've forgotten that they are journalists-or that they're supposed to be. Either they're truly and hopelessly indoctrinated, or it's a matter of the fact that they cash cheques which come from media organizations whose shareholders tell them what side they will fall on--or their advertisers tell their bosses which side they will fall on. These people aren't really journalists; they're simply mouth organs for political strategists, who dismiss the concept of ethical behaviour because winning is all that matters.
I don't even want to know how many people listen to likes of Rush Limbaugh, a man who has failed at everything in life except radio; an under-educated, hate-spewing rube who has likely never fact-checked anything before spouting it as gospel. Then there's Ann Coulter, a very clever lawyer who should know better than to say anything without fact-checking it, and who continually gets caught lying about people and statements and events, but who just keeps on raking in the dough earned by her never-ending spew of bile.
And who can ignore Bill O'Reilly, who actually does have a journalism degree, but keeps on shoveling the shit anyway, distorting and twisting everything that crosses his path and, when he's caught, shouts down opposers? It's amusing to me that O'Reilly is a graduate of Harvard, and that Harvard's seal reads 'Veritas'.
If you take a look at the website of the Society of Professional Journalists, you'll note that it points out that 'professional integrity is the cornerstone of a journalist's credibility'. Then, if you look at its Code of Ethics, you'll see that the main points are: 'Seek Truth and Report It', 'Minimize Harm', 'Act Independently' and 'Be Accountable'.
Well, that pretty much knocks out Coulter, O'Reilly and Limbaugh, as well as a huge number of North Americans who are working as journalists, but who are really nothing more than suits and haircuts being told what to do and say by special interest groups. Either they don't think about the enormous amount of damage they do when they deliberately mis-inform people, or they don't care.
One hopes that there are parents who are now embarrassed about listening to all of the crap about Obama's speech and now know better. One hopes that, each time they realize how very wrong their sources were, that people will stop listening to these base sources. One especially hopes this when it comes to those who are listening to biased sources about American healthcare reform.
When we read Dickens (who was a real journalist), we see that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Our ancestors brought this system, and that mentality, to North America, where it flourished to such an extent that, today, journalists 'belong' to their political parties, and blithely lie so as to support the needs and desires of their masters. In the case of healthcare reform however, this practice, and the idea that the opposition's idea must be shot down, regardless of whether or not it is a good idea, is going to continue to cost people their very lives.