The great media war and the survival of the press
by David Atkins
Lenny Alcivar, Romney campaign spokesman, gives a hint as to the Romney campaign's media strategy:
When this election is over, one of the lessons that will be learned by the mainstream media is that they no longer have a toe-hold on how Americans receive their news. Never before – in a way that has taken Democrats off stride – have we seen the confluence of an aggressive online community, led by Breitbart, and an aggressive campaign team not willing to cede an inch of ground to Democrats. This combination has created a new political reality. We no longer allow the mainstream media to define the political realities in America. The rise of Breitbart, Drudge and others, combined with an aggressive Romney campaign is a powerful tool in the arsenal of the conservative movement.
If I talk to Breitbart about an issue, thousands more will hear our message than if we give a quote to one of the hill rags.
That's a fascinating counterpoint to this:
Some of the conservatives, such as Justice Clarence Thomas, deliberately avoid news articles on the Court when issues are pending (and avoid some publications altogether, such as The New York Times). They've explained that they don't want to be influenced by outside opinion or feel pressure from outlets that are perceived as liberal.
But Roberts pays attention to media coverage. As Chief Justice, he is keenly aware of his leadership role on the Court, and he also is sensitive to how the Court is perceived by the public.
There were countless news articles in May warning of damage to the Court - and to Roberts' reputation - if the Court were to strike down the mandate. Leading politicians, including the President himself, had expressed confidence the mandate would be upheld.
Some even suggested that if Roberts struck down the mandate, it would prove he had been deceitful during his confirmation hearings, when he explained a philosophy of judicial restraint.
It was around this time that it also became clear to the conservative justices that Roberts was, as one put it, "wobbly," the sources said.
As any reader of progressive blogs knows well, the traditional media is not at all liberal. But it doesn't have to be anymore. Even Fox News isn't far enough right for many Republicans. We've reached a new low when Drudge and Breitbart become the key mouthpieces for the Republican presidential nominee.
For all the faults of the traditional media, it does serve the key purpose of orienting a large portion of the public around a single set of facts. Often those "facts" are wrong, as in the runup to the invasion or Iraq, or the happy talk during the creation the housing bubble. But those dramatic press failures don't negate the use value of a resource that appears as authoritative as it can be in establishing a baseline from which public policy can be made. When the left criticizes the press, it is usually less in the hope that it disappear completely, than in the hope that it actually report the news with the objectivity the actual facts demand, regardless of the natural partisan bias of those facts.
The right doesn't care a whit about objectivity, of course. The right simply wants its partisan message blasted to as many people as possible, while forcing the traditional press to cover their "stories" because, well, people are talking about them.
Ultimately, members of the press need to realize that this is a fight for the very survival of their profession. Few politicians on the left--much less presidential campaigns--are willing to say that they intend to ignore the traditional press in favor of pushing out their message through some of the least reputable, most conspiracy-minded progressive blogs. This isn't a "both sides do it" issue.
The American right is at war not just with basic morality and science, but with the very notion of journalism itself. They want a Supreme Court that resides in a bubble without the context of public opinion, and an electorate that gets its information straight from bloviating tinfoil hatters.
At some point the establishment press is going to have to call this out for what it is, even if it means losing the 25% of the Dittoheads who have gone far off the deep end. It's not as if those folks are going to be paying subscribers or revenue generators, anyway.
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