Great Speech

Lots of good points here. This guy should be president.

Al Gore:

I came here today because I believe that American democracy is in grave danger. It is no longer possible to ignore the strangeness of our public discourse . I know that I am not the only one who feels that something has gone basically and badly wrong in the way America's fabled "marketplace of ideas" now functions.

How many of you, I wonder, have heard a friend or a family member in the last few years remark that it's almost as if America has entered "an alternate universe"?

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The present executive branch has made it a practice to try and control and intimidate news organizations: from PBS to CBS to Newsweek. They placed a former male escort in the White House press pool to pose as a reporter - and then called upon him to give the president a hand at crucial moments. They paid actors to make make phony video press releases and paid cash to some reporters who were willing to take it in return for positive stories. And every day they unleash squadrons of digital brownshirts to harass and hector any journalist who is critical of the President.

For these and other reasons, The US Press was recently found in a comprehensive international study to be only the 27th freest press in the world. And that too seems strange to me.

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The coverage of political campaigns focuses on the "horse race" and little else. And the well-known axiom that guides most local television news is "if it bleeds, it leads." (To which some disheartened journalists add, "If it thinks, it stinks.")

In fact, one of the few things that Red state and Blue state America agree on is that they don't trust the news media anymore.

Clearly, the purpose of television news is no longer to inform the American people or serve the public interest. It is to "glue eyeballs to the screen" in order to build ratings and sell advertising. If you have any doubt, just look at what's on: The Robert Blake trial. The Laci Peterson tragedy. The Michael Jackson trial. The Runaway Bride. The search in Aruba. The latest twist in various celebrity couplings, and on and on and on.

And more importantly, notice what is not on: the global climate crisis, the nation's fiscal catastrophe, the hollowing out of America's industrial base, and a long list of other serious public questions that need to be addressed by the American people.

One morning not long ago, I flipped on one of the news programs in hopes of seeing information about an important world event that had happened earlier that day. But the lead story was about a young man who had been hiccupping for three years. And I must say, it was interesting; he had trouble getting dates. But what I didn't see was news.

This was the point made by Jon Stewart, the brilliant host of "The Daily Show," when he visited CNN's "Crossfire": there should be a distinction between news and entertainment.
And it really matters because the subjugation of news by entertainment seriously harms our democracy: it leads to dysfunctional journalism that fails to inform the people. And when the people are not informed, they cannot hold government accountable when it is incompetent, corrupt, or both.
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Our democracy has been hallowed out. The opinions of the voters are, in effect, purchased, just as demand for new products is artificially created. Decades ago Walter Lippman wrote, "the manufacture of consent...was supposed to have died out with the appearance of democracy...but it has not died out. It has, in fact, improved enormously in technique...under the impact of propaganda, it is no longer plausible to believe in the original dogma of democracy."

Like you, I recoil at Lippman's cynical dismissal of America's gift to human history. But in order to reclaim our birthright, we Americans must resolve to repair the systemic decay of the public forum and create new ways to engage in a genuine and not manipulative conversation about our future. Americans in both parties should insist on the re-establishment of respect for the Rule of Reason. We must, for example, stop tolerating the rejection and distortion of science. We must insist on an end to the cynical use of pseudo studies known to be false for the purpose of intentionally clouding the public's ability to discern the truth.

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This reminds me, shouldn't illegally purchasing and producing favorable news reports with taxpayer dollars should be an impeachable offense? Where's the outrage from Republicans that the principals of communism are being used by Dear Leader and paid for by us?

Also, see here for how it used to work.

And here for Al's new network, which he talks about at the end of the speech. On that note, the news there is done well, some very interesting mini-docs dealing seriously in subjects not touched by the so-called liberal mainstream media. The pullout in gaza, attacks on demostrators in miami, etc. But the network is almost counter productive in how it delivers news and programming. For instance, the network theme reminds me of the board room creation of Poochie The Dog. (See Max Lugavere on a couch for instance...) It's too "hip and new as brought to you be the unhip and old" to be taken seriously and therefore, probably won't be. That's unfortunate, especially because it appears to be so self inflicting... countdown clocks at the bottom of each segment (called "pods"... for Christ's sake!) and hard news as brought to you by surfing co-eds and of course an overt coolness that actually makes it bland. I have to say, I hope it succeeds for a number of reasons because some of the programming is truly interesting, but they have to have an identity that they, and their audience can be comfortable with. I may have an important story to tell, but if I decide the best way to do it is to scream in a park, who's going to really listen? Right now, they are just juggling too many hats. Again, think Poochie.
My advice, first get rid of headtilters like Max Lugavere and the new age studios and MTVish crazy camera angles. Then stop repeating everything to the point where I think someone in production is just fucking with me by using the same loop. And then, please, please, identify who you want as an audience and have those people make more decisions on marketing, programming, and presentation. If you want the PBS intellect, stop presenting it with TRL.