Today's media is certainly not what it used to be back in 1940's and 1960's. Back then the press took politician's word to be true and the government officials, who were the news makers of the time, were able to shape the outcome of the news by presenting an event/story from their own point of view. With the technological advancement a new type of media emerged, such as Blogs, which make it harder for the government to keep their mistakes concealed from the public.
After the Vietnam War and Watergate Scandal in the 1970’s, the press became more critical of the government and started covering in a more cynical and investigative way. Instead of taking the government officials word as final, the media questioned and analyzed the credibility of those statements; even magnifying small slip outs and faults.
A recent example illustrating Medias’ “attack dog” style of reporting is evident in National Journal’s article published on March 30th, 2011. The article talks about a GOP Congressman Sean Duffy of Wisconsin that tried to relate to common people whose wages were being cut by saying that he too is struggling to make the ends meet; ironically, with a salary much higher than average person’s.
In a town hall meeting, Sean Duffy said he has a family of seven to feed, bills and mortgage to pay, a minivan, and a student loan that he is still paying for from only 174$K salary that the Congress is paying him. The recorded speech was originally posted on the Polk County’s GOP’s blog but was removed shortly after because Sean Duffy was perceived as “fussing” about his salary in the video. Being that Duffy’s salary is almost 3 times bigger than the average citizens, GOP feared that his controversial statement would attract negative publicity and cause Duffy and the GOP to lose credibility among its constituents.
The fears proved justified because TPM (one of the most credible blogs today) republished the video after it was taken down by the GOP. TPM released an article titled “GOPers Demand Sean Duffy Salary Tape Be Pulled from the Internet “which reveals how the local county GOP attempted to strip the blog off its publishing rights by contacting the video provider Blip.tv insisting for the video to be taken down because TPM did not ask for a permission to publish it. Josh Marshal of TPM argued that the party has no right to prevent the disclosure of Sean Duffy’s video because it portrayed the Congressman during one of his public duties. TPM published the video to show the public how out of touch their representatives really are with the lives of common people in Wisconsin and nationwide.
The people in Wisconsin make at least three times less money than their representatives in Congress and are struggling with rising unemployment and wage cuts that the policy makers implement and are not directly affected by. So I think it is justified that the media zooms in on such slip outs as made by Sean Duffy because they reveal to the public how distanced their representatives really are from them. This in turn can make the citizens want to participate more in politics when they see that they are represented by an elite class that is totally out of touch with them.
It is clear that the Government still tries to be the news-maker and to control the extent to which media can report, as demonstrated by the GOP’s attempts to prevent the republishing of Sean Duffy’s salary video, but considering the critical, “attack-dog” style of reporting the media took on since the 1970’s, it is much harder for the government to keep its faults unrevealed.
I do not support that the press should spy on the politicians and report on their private matters. But I do think that this information republished by TPM is relevant because it shows that the Legislative Branch has no idea about the real effects their policies have on the common people. We would not have someone as Sean Duffy say that he is struggling with 174$K if it was otherwise. We live in a Democracy and elect our representatives freely so If we as the public see that the government is not acting for our good as it is supposed to, we can make a change by voting against them on the Election Day.
(Video included)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOO70Ksf_f0 (Video of Sean Duffy)
http://www.sodahead.com/fun/do-you-pity-sean-duffys-poverty-at-174k-per-year/question-1632797/ (TPM republished the video after GOP removed it from their websites blog)
I agree with you that it is essential that we have journalists that direct the public attention to certain issues and to help us (the public) keep government officials in check despite the fact that sometimes the press report unnecessary details of a politician personal life. Without "watchdog" journalist, the public would be lost on the some of the things going on in Washington because we are devoid of time to relentlessly track the actions of our politicians with jobs, school, families, and other obligations.
ReplyDeleteIt is extremely difficult and unsettling to see how people elected into government are so disconnected with the very people who voted them in. Watchdog reports are extremely important for the public because most people are way too busy to dig up the dirt on their own. We need the help of the press but there needs to be a balance between their desire to uncover important stories and their desire to uncover irrelevant, personal stories for solely commercial aspects. I think the balance has been extremely difficult to find for our media outlets, but hopefully they find it soon.
ReplyDeleteThere's always going to be that situation for transparency, and that's one aspect of politics.So yes,we definitely need this "attack dog" style to constantly keep the "higher ups" in check.Then comes the issue of,where is the line drawn? when is it too much? Well that much I agree with my peers and I would say a person's personal life should be left out as long as it does not affect the job they were carried out to do
ReplyDeleteWatchdog journalism is definitely the reporting style of modern times, especially the 21st century. It's even easier than in the 1970s to showcase that type of journalism with the use of the internet. Although it's sort of unethical to go out and spy on politicians, celebrities, etc, I feel like they should be prepared only because of the way "journalism" works nowadays. However, it is saddening to see politicians so detached from the very ideas and policies they claim to care about. On a high note, you're argument was well thought out and I thought you used good examples to represent it.
ReplyDeleteI'm a bit confused about the specifics of this story -- did Talking Points Memo actually break this story? You don't link to them or their coverage of it, and on one of your links it actually cites another site that the local Republican Party contacted to ask them to take the video down. So I think you need to clarify what actually happened here and provide some more evidence to illustrate how the story progressed. I also wonder if you might build on this argument about politicians having a harder time keeping mistakes or misstatements out of the public eye with the "attack dog" media, to add in the role that technological and media development may have played in also making it more difficult for political figures to control news content. Also you will want to read over for some typos here, like Josh Marshall's name. The topic is good and definitely relevant to course concepts. Is it possible for you to put your links into the content of the post to make them more reader-friendly?
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