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The Spiral of SUCKcess in "Mainstream" News Media
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Copyright 2007 by James Craven/Omahkohkiaayo i'poyi
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Intro
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When "news" is a commodity (an object for sale and profit) then news, along with the producers and the reporters of it, all must be bought and "sold" like any other commodities--like Cornflakes.
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Those who select, package and report the news all understand the "game" or the core imperatives of the news business. When the typical editor or reporter says that no one ever told them what to report or not report, they may well be telling the truth because no one had to tell them what was "permissible" to cover and what is taboo; that is how and why they got hired in the first place: they demonstrated throughout their previous work that they had the right paradigm, understood the game and did not need to be told about limits and taboos.
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The game of commodified-profit-driven news goes like this:
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Access brings The Scoop; The Scoop brings Exposure; Exposure brings Celebrity; Celebrity brings Expanded Access; and Expanded Access brings an even Bigger or Expanded Scoop and...
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We have all seen the news conferences where we suspected past presidents were doing what Bush does openly: Not call on a particular reporter as punishment for a previous question thought to be too impertinent or touching on some taboo. We have seen even the most repected journalists, with many years of covering the White House, frozen out from being called on to posing questions as punishment for previous transgressions--with Bush even openly acknowledging he was denying Access as punishment.
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Imagine the following scenarios:
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Bush is at the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. giving a speech about how horrible the Nazi Holocaust was (actually happened) and some journalist (perhaps with a terminal disease and deciding to atone for all the years of "Faustian" deals with the powerful to pose only softball qeustions to advance his career) dares to ask the following question: "
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"Mr. Bush. Given that you have never been qualified for nor ever held, even one position, including your present one, that you could have obtained without the direct influence and force of your family wealth and name, and given that your grandfathers Prescott Bush and George Herbert Walker were, along with Fritz Thuyssen, principal financiers of Hitler from 1924 onward, cited for "Trading With the Enemy During Wartime" for selling Nazi financial securities AFTER Pearl Harbor, and were also co-investors in a synfuel plant at Auschwitz using concentration camp labor, and given where you are and just gave a speech, why do you not feel some need to apologize for the roles--and wealth acquired--in the Holocaust played by your own family from which you continue to benefit personally?"
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Or, how about this scenario for the next Clinton speech on AIDS:
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"Mr. Clinton. Given your present work on AIDS and with AIDS victims through your foundation, have you acquired any new sense of appreciation of just how reckless, self-indulgent and dangerous was your apparent unprotected sex (as evidenced by the "presidue" on the infamous blue dress) with Ms Lewinsky, in addition to it being a betrayal of all those who trusted you to use your political capital for good instead of to save your own political hide and in addition to it putting yourself in a position to be blackmailed and thus potentially compromise national security? And did you have an AIDS test prior to resuming any marital relations with Mrs. Clinton or any other women?
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No reporter would dare to pose such questions and none would need to be told that such questions are taboo. So not only NOT asking taboo questions, but also knowing what questions are taboo and career-destroying, along with a willingness to do Faustian Bargains to do softball questions and interviews, is the key to Access which is part of the key to the Spiral of upwardly-mobile SUCKcess in commodified-for-profit journalism. And just as profits bring market power and market power brings more profits for the news organizations--in relation to competing news organizations--so it is that "Access" brings the Scoops--relative to those garnered by competing journalists--that then bring more of the Exposure to the Public and the Powerful that is necessary to build Celebrity that is necessary for further Access to the Powerful who can hand out or deny ongoing Access.
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Now there are various ways into The Spiral of SUCKcess in Journalism but staying in and moving "upwardly" still depends upon ongoing and preferred Access to the Powerful which requires understanding and accepting what is taboo and what is permissible.
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One can, for instance, supposedly like Woodward and Bernstein, "accidently" hit upon a Big Scoop like Watergate, go on to get more Exposure for the two relatively young reporters that went on to lead to Celebrity and the levels of Expanded Access that they now both enjoy.
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One can enter the Spiral of SUCKcess via some kind of Gimmick or Stunt that leads to instant Exposure that then leads to Celebrity that then leads to Access and so on.
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One can enter as a lateral move as an already-made Celebrity in say Infotainment like Katie Couric on the Today Show making a lateral move to masquerade as a journalist on another venue of Infotainment caled the CBS Nightly News and getting even more Access to the movers and shakers than she had on the Today Show.
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One can also do a "Jeff Gannon" in which one can be summarily be given Access and be summarily declared and accredited as journalist never having been one. James Guckert, who had two internet sites celebrating Gay porn and offering himself as a Gay Escort, while using the personna and pseudonym "Jeff Gannon", an ultra-right-wing and virulently homophobic "journalist", was accredited by the White House (what was the Secret Service doing?) and given entrance over 100 times as Jeff Gannon. Further, he was repeatedly called on to pose extremely sycophantic and softball questions at presidential press conferences. He was also, while operating under a pseudonym, at least publicly, one of the few given the name of Valerie Plame a CIA NOC [Non-Official cover] officer and operative.
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But in all cases, continuing Access, the real "coin of the realm" in commodified-for-profit journalism, depends upon willingness to be a part of the ongoing fraud and Faustian ballet known as The Mainstream News Media". The news makers know, that to have some appearance of "credibility",their counterparts in the Faustian Bargain, masquerading as journalists, also need to have some kind of credibility of their own and thus the movers-and-shakers will allow some of what appear to be tough questions by those interviewing them. After all, naked sycophancy, like Fox's "Fair and Balanced" is just too naked and thus self impeaching. So the "maintstream" journalists and the movers-and-shakers the interview do a delicate tango in which each is giving the other just enough (pseudo-tough questions and answers) to preserve some facade of ligitimacy on all sides.
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There are a few exceptions of journalists like Seymour Hersh, I.F. Stone, George Seldes, Edward R. Murrow who did some serious investigative journalism and did ask some very tough questions on taboss subjects. Because they have built solid reputations for serious journalism, they would occasionally get access not because they had done Faustian Bargains to get it, but, paradoxically, because they hadn't. The powerful, often smug and arrogant, thought they could control them and/or out-think them and thus gave them some access in order to try to shine vicariously through them and/or try to project an image of "I have nothing to hide from anyone even the toughest of the uncorruptable journalists...".
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But just ask Dan Rather what happens to Access, Scoops, Exposure and Celebrity when one dares to pose some taboo questions or pusue lines of investigation (like Bush's illustrious military record in the "Champagne Squadron" [Chickenhawk sons of the powerful] of the Texas Air National Guard) Where is he now?
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Rather was outright set up in a sting known as "the poison pill" in intelligence circles. When a story is building, dangerous facts are coming out and a whole cover-up is unraveling, then documents appearing to be very genuine, enough to pass initial scrutiny, documents that feed the frenzy even further, are planted. Competitive journalists, wanting to "scoop" th eothers, and to be "first with the most exclusive", can be counted upon to jump on the planted documents without a whole lot of expert scrutiny. Then, at a propitious moment, some defect in one or more of the documents is suddenly "discovered", that acts as a "poison pill" tainting the veracity of the whole story and indeed also tainting the motives and competence and overall reputation of the journalist that advanced the story or "scoop". Never mind that the content of the document was correct and backed-up from other sources and documents not tainted. Never mind that it is a classic sting and trick that all journalists should know about, be cautious of being trapped in, and, also, question who would have the expertise and motive to fake the documents well enough to pass initial scrutiny--questions never asked as Dan Rather's "Spiral of SUCKcess" turned into a downward spiral toward the margins of journalism.
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And THAT is why the Blogosphere can, if handled properly, be so dangerous to the powers-that-be. Or, if not handled properly, the Blogosphere can be just another "Opiate of the Masses" mostly giving palliatives and the illusion of being heard and "making a difference" while the "freedom of speech" it brings, if not used to pose the most penetrating questions, or, if used merely to feed one's narcissism and need for attention, can be like having the "freedom of speech" in the remotest regions of Antarctica--as one is drowned out by the shere volume and noise of the internet.
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