Cross-posted to my blog, Blog and Tan.

I have previously written about the disappearance of civil discourse in the American media and in the political sphere. One significant aspect of the current environment that bothers me on a daily basis is the disappearance of objective truth. Hard news, presenting investigative reporting and facts, has been replaced by Infotainment in which entertainers--often with clear political leanings--have supplanted more objective journalists as the people bringing the average American his or her news.

In an e-mail exchange with the program director of my local radio station, I wrote to complain that WSB--"Atlanta's News"--favors the right with its all-day lineup of infotainers Neal Boortz, Sean Hannity and Michael Savage. I suggested that they find room in the lineup for someone on the left--perhaps a Jerry Springer (whose show, quite surprisingly, I really like) or an Al Franken (whose show is--to me--pretty dull).

The response was disappointing. I was told that the 3 infotainers in their lineup DO present a range of opinion, in that Boortz is libertarian, Hannity is conservative, and Savage is just offensive to everyone. Moreover, since the station is also home to consumer advocate Clark Howard, they feel they are serving their audience well. When I responded that this high-income mid-30s listener was spending more and more time on Air America, and less and less time on WSB, the program director hoped that I'd at least tune in to WSB for local news.

Look at the ascendancy of Faux News. Fox was a brilliant business move for Rupert Murdoch, who recognized the potential audience for a news channel geared toward the conservative was potentially huge. The network was born in 1996 and today is the top rated cable news channel. Fox emphasizes graphics and entertaining presentation which adds to its blend of news and entertainment; its tagline of "Fair and Balanced" is almost self-mocking in its falsehood. Fox won viewers by programming opinionated commentators in the evening hours; faced with competition from Fox and MSNBC, CNN retalliated by replacing its evening all-news programming with commentators as well, currently putting Paula Zahn and Larry King against Bill O'Reilly and Hannity/Colmes. This effectively deprives the audience of a hard news program while providing it with "entertaining" opinion.

Hannity and Colmes is an amusing attempt by Fox to live up to its "fair and balanced" moniker. Hannity is a star of conservative punditry, but he is to the Harlem Globetrotters as Colmes is to the Washington Generals, who are hired to lose. Colmes describes himSELF as a "moderate" but Fox markets him as a "hard-hitting liberal." Colmes has one book published that got moderate response, partly because he falls far short of being a true hard-hitting liberal. To make this show more of a true balance, a la Crossfire, a real liberal would be required.

The reduction of audience, and therefore manpower, from newsrooms leads to a lack of accountability for public statements. By couching news in "infotainment" shows, news networks evade the spirit of the Fairness Doctrine that existed through the 1980s. Radio does the same, by allowing clearly right-wing broadcasters such as Sean Hannity to market themselves as "the hardest-hitting news available on the radio dial" while expressing nothing but right-wing opinion.

Since this describes the majority of our "news" coverage, misstatements by political figures are rarely critiqued unless the political figure is the opposition party. An example is a recent statement by White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove, who argued that

"If al-Qaida is calling somebody in America, it is in our national security interest to know who they're calling and why. Some important Democrats clearly disagree," Rove said.

This is clearly untrue, as the argument is about whether the President had the authority to listen in to such conversations without a warrant. No-one is arguing the President should not do everything possible to combat al-Qaida, but they are aruging that the President should obey the law--or if the law is outdated, amend it--while doing so. The laws were enacted for a reason, to protect Americans' civil liberties, and to ensure that the President's tactics do not overstep bounds as happened in the 1970s; examples of recent bounds-crossing include spying on Quaker peace groups and vegetarian activists. By mischaracterizing the dispute, Rove's statements weaken the position of Democrats, and lead to further discounting of liberal opinion. But don't expect a fair treatment of this statement on Faux News.

Addendum: After I posted this entry, a new New York Times editorial by Ted Koppel came to my attention which argues that profits rather than politics really motivates newsrooms today.