Inventing Reality

by Michael Parenti

  Women account for only about 11 percent of persons in print and broadcast news stories taken together, usually appearing as celebrities and the wives of important political leaders.19 Women also commonly make the headlines as victims of male violence, especially homicide. But they seldom appear as the victims of public policy. Thus abortion is covered less from the perspective of the women who are victimized by the outlawing of safe and legal services and more as a political issue concerning official decision-makers. Only when discussing a communist country like Romania has the press given attention to the awful effects abortion bans have had on women and unwanted children.20

  Women of accomplishment are very likely to make the news if they are unusual “firsts”: the first woman astronaut, the first woman on the Supreme Court, the first female vice presidential candidate for a major party. However, the more general battle for economic, social, and sexual equality and for material betterment and health-care that women have been waging is slighted. Women made up 65 percent of the minimum-wage work force; but as with the Black struggle, the class dimensions of the women’s struggle is not a fit subject for the mainstream media. The press regularly ignores issues of desperate concern to working-class women and women of color.21

  SEXISM ON THE JOB

  Women at the St. Petersburg Times (Fla.) say they are forced to work in a sexist atmosphere in which lewd comments, discrimination and even girlie pinups are a fact of newsroom life. In a recent report to management, the women detailed their grievances:

  “Colleagues feel they can talk freely about women’s bodies and their bodily functions—in front of women.” One male supervisor told a pregnant staffer, “Your breasts are really getting huge.” Another told a woman that “she’ll have to choose between being a mommy and being a journalist.” A third man told a woman reporter she was getting raises because another manager “has the hots” for her.

  One woman said, “Times management has become precisely the kind of exclusive, all-white, all-male club that we lambast in our editorial pages.” Women who complain have been dismissed as a “lesbian clique.”

  While several section editors and an assistant managing editor are women, virtually all top management jobs are held by White men. Only one of the company’s twelve directors is a woman.

  Men routinely get better assignments. When a riot broke out in a local housing project, two women reporters were told they could not go because it would be “too dangerous.”

  After meeting with women staffers, management announced that it would not tolerate discrimination and outlined a program for change.

  Adapted from Howard Kurtz, “Newspaper Accused of Sexism,” Washington Post, July 20, 1991.

  IMAGE POLITICS AND CONSERVATIVE BIAS

  While posing as an objective chronicler of the events of the day, the press generally functions more as a public relations conduit for top government leaders, especially that most exalted leader of all, the president, “who is viewed as the ultimate protector of order.”22 A systematic examination of twenty-five years of presidential news in the New York Times and Time magazine, and ten years of CBS newscasts, reveals a “consistent pattern of favorable coverage of the President,” with sympathetic stories outnumbering critical ones by two to one.23

  Conservative presidents are especially well served. Note how the press called Ronald Reagan “the Teflon president,” thereby attributing to him some mystical capacity to remain untarnished by the fray—when in fact the press itself was acting as his Teflon Shield by treating him almost reverentially and being unwilling to direct any criticism at him for the policies and scandals of his administration.24 Even during the height of the Iran-contra scandal, Reagan was hailed by the media as a leader who commanded wide popularity and affection—though national polls showed more than half the public disapproved of the way he handled his job.25

  Frequently the president’s statements are publicized by the press with no opposing facts. Thus when Reagan claimed that his administration had advanced the interests of minorities and females more than previous ones, the press dutifully reported his assertions without pointing out that he actually had threatened to veto the Voting Rights Act (and only signed it because it passed both houses by veto-proof majorities), and that he had cut back on minority and female appointments and civil rights enforcement in his administration.

  In 1991, when Senator Pat Moynihan proposed that Social Security taxes be cut since the fund regularly accumulated huge surpluses that were being raided by the government to finance the general budget. President Bush was quick to appear before the cameras and denounce Moynihan’s proposal as an intolerable tampering with Social Security. While posing as a defender of the fund’s integrity, Bush was actually violating it. But the many viewers who relied solely on the evening news for their information would never know of this deception since the newscasts never explained that the Bush administration was using the Social Security fund to pay for missiles, FBI agents, business subsidies, and the like.

  Presidential election campaigns reveal the media’s conservative bias. Surveys show that daily newspapers endorse Republican presidential candidates over Democratic ones at about a six-to-one ratio.26 Surveying “eighty-four systematic studies,” one media critic found “a very high correlation” between editorial slant and news coverage, with political bias in the news being “overwhelmingly pro-Republican and proconservative.” Despite the talk about a “liberal conspiracy” in the press, “the real question is how liberal electoral politics survives at all with the overwhelming opposition of the conservative press.”27

  In early 1991 the media were criticized for “mistreating” Vice President Dan Quayle by raising questions about his suitability to occupy the presidency, in light of President Bush’s reported illness at that time. The media were criticized not only by conservatives but by liberal Democrats such as Senator Patrick Leahy and House Speaker Tom Foley, who have spent much of their careers trying to demonstrate their respectability and fair-mindedness to conservatives. Overlooked was the fact that media commentators had said almost nothing in three years about Quayle’s politics, his link to the Iran-contra scandal through his legislative assistant Rob Owen, and his ultra-rightist stance on numerous issues.

  Likewise, in the 1988 vice presidential campaign the press raised— but failed to pursue—troubling questions about Quayle’s background: How did he graduate from college without meeting the requirements that other graduates had to meet? Why was he given a second general examination in order to graduate after failing the first, and what was the nature of the second? How did he get into law school when his grades were well below the levels of other applicants? Why did he continue to refuse to make public his academic record—which would have answered some of these questions?

  The press measure liberal candidates by a more exacting standard. Thus, while Quayle never really had to answer any troublesome questions, a liberal Democrat, Senator Joseph Biden, was obliged to drop out of the race for the presidential nomination in 1988 because he falsely claimed to have finished near the top of his law-school graduating class and because he had used without attribution some quotes from a British politician’s speech in a talk of his own. And liberal Democrat Gary Hart was forced to disqualify himself because it was discovered he had engaged in sexual liaisons, an activity that hardly made him unique in Washington, D.C. In contrast, allegations about the adulterous doings of GOP presidential candidate George Bush received almost no press coverage in the 1988 campaign.

  When Dan Rather tried to question Bush on CBS evening news about his role in the Iran-contra scandal, Bush just refused to answer and instead picked a fight. For this evasive but belligerent performance Bush was hailed by his own public relations people as a hero for having “stood up to the media.” In the 1984 vice presidential campaign, serious questions were raised about Bush’s income taxes—but never pursued by the press. In contrast, questions regarding the taxes of John Zaccaro, the husband of Bush’s liberal opponent Gera
ldine Ferraro, received prolonged and intensive coverage, or what one reporter called “ferocious” treatment: “It was a hit squad.”28

  DOUBLE STANDARD FOR RACISTS

  In 1982, President Reagan wrote a letter praising the publisher of overtly racist and anti-Semitic literature. The press made no critical commentary. Nor did the press hold Reagan and George Bush accountable for their tolerance of racist remarks frequently uttered by White House staffers (remarks revealed by Reagan Cabinet member, Terrel Bell). However, during the 1984 and 1988 campaigns, the same news media kept after Jesse Jackson to atone for his “Hymietown” joke (which he did on numerous occasions).

  In 1981, Bush bought property in West Oaks, Texas, and signed a contract stipulating that the land could not “be sold, leased or rented to any person other than of the Caucasian race, except in the case of servant’s quarters.” In 1987, the Nation ran a story about this and several other restrictive covenants Bush had signed. The mainstream media ignored the story and never mentioned it during Bush’s 1988 presidential campaign.

  In that campaign Bush repeatedly made veiled appeals to White racial fears regarding Black criminals, complete with Willie Horton ads. He also spent eight years in the Reagan administration supporting a number of anti-civil rights appointments and measures. Yet ABC/NPR reporter Cokie Roberts could blithely refer to “George Bush’s pro-civil rights record.”

  Adapted from Martin Lee and Norman Solomon, Unreliable Sources (New York: Lyle Stuart, 1990), pp. 246-247.

  The conservative biases of the supposedly liberal media have a feedback effect on political life. As Galbraith noted, political conservatism benefits from:

  ... the deep desire of politicians, Democrats in particular, for respectability -their need to show that they are individuals of sound confidence-inspiring judgment. And what is the test of respectability? It is, broadly, whether speech and action are consistent with the comfort and well-being of the people of property and position. A radical is anyone who causes discomfort or otherwise offends such interests. Thus, in our politics, we test even liberals by their conservatism.29

  The media create conservative effects by slighting the issues and focusing on candidate image. Even when attention is given to an issue, it is usually to conjecture on how the candidate used it to help his or her image and advance his or her electoral chances. Once considered an adjunct to political discussion, image now seems to be the whole point of the discussion. It is not the issues we are asked to judge but the nuances of the presentation.

  A study conducted by the media specialist Michael Robinson found no liberal bias in campaign coverage but rather a “hollowness” and lack of content. The campaign was treated more as a horse race than a clash of programs and policies.30 Who will run? Who will be nominated? Who’s ahead? Who will win? These preoccupations are supplemented with generous offerings of surface events and personality trivia.

  Studies of recent campaigns found that newspapers devoted most of their presidential coverage to the personal attributes of candidates. Television gave even more emphasis to personality than the print media. In one campaign, by a ratio of more than four to one, both print and broadcast media stressed personality and campaign events over issue discussion.31 The media, like the major political parties themselves, treat campaigns not as an opportunity to debate issues, but as a competition for office. The focus is on the race itself with little thought about what—if anything—makes the race a meaningful exercise in democratic governance.

  By focusing on “human interest” trivia, on contest rather than content, the press makes it difficult for the public to give intelligent expression to political life and to mobilize around issues. Thus the media have—intentionally or not—a conservative effect on public discourse. Given short shrift are the concerns of millions of people regarding nuclear arms, Pentagon spending, tax reform, war in Central America, unemployment, and poverty. The democratic input, the great public debate about the state of the Union and its national policies, the heightening of political consciousness and information levels—all the things democratic electoral campaigns are supposed to foster—are crowded off the stage by image politics.

  Not only during election campaigns but just about on every other occasion the news media prefer surface to substance, emphasizing the eye-catching visuals, the “special angle” report, and the reassuring stories, while slighting the more important but politically more troublesome themes. There is so much concentration on surface events that we often have trouble grasping the content of things, so much focus on action and personality that we fail to see the purposive goal of the action. For instance, early in his administration President Reagan dismantled major portions of forty years of domestic social legislation, initiated enormous tax cuts for rich individuals and corporations, dramatically escalated an already huge military spending program, and launched a series of cold-war confrontations against the Soviet Union— all policies of great import. However, the theme that predominated in most of the stories about those crucial actions was whether Reagan was “winning” or “losing” in his contests with Congress, the bureaucracy, labor, and foreign governments. Thus momentous political issues were reduced to catchy but trivial questions about Reagan’s political “score card,” his efficacy as a leader, and his personal popularity.32

  MONOPOLY POLITICS

  Such as it is, media electoral coverage is lavishly bestowed on the two major parties, while minor parties are totally ignored or allotted but a few minutes, if that, over the entire campaign. Thus the media help perpetuate the procapitalist, two-party monopoly.

  In recent contests, presidential candidates of the Peace and Freedom Party, Communist Party, Citizen’s Party, Socialist Workers Party, Workers World Party, and others did all the things presidential candidates are supposed to do. They met voters on street corners, spoke on college campuses and at voter forums, issued position papers and press releases, traveled around the country, and probably spoke directly to more people than did the major candidates. But on election day, most voters had never heard of them.33 Deprived of mass media coverage, a third party cannot reach the voting masses.

  Simon Gerson, who managed the 1980 Communist Party campaign for Gus Hall and Angela Davis, complained of “the consistent spiking of news about them.”34 Other third-party candidates testify to a similar experience.35 As a nationally known ecologist, author Barry Commoner was a frequent guest on national television shows—until the day he was nominated as the presidential candidate for the Citizen’s Party and became virtually a nonperson.36

  While the local media are sometimes accessible to third-party candidates—especially radio talk shows—it is only when they happen to be visiting an area. Unlike the Democrats and Republicans who remain a constant focus for local as well as national media, third-party candidates receive no recurring coverage.37 When they leave town, they leave the local media’s vision. Being momentary rather than constant, the exposure they receive is of limited impact.

  Despite being shut out by the mainstream media, third-party candidates manage to garnish a considerable number of votes, taken together a total of one to two million in each presidential election. But the people who vote for them are rendered as invisible as the candidates themselves. During election-night coverage their votes go unreported. As Peter Camejo, the 1976 presidential candidate of the Socialist Workers Party, commented: “Before the election, Democrats and Republicans and the media waged a campaign to convince the American people that a vote for a third party would not count. To convince them further, they simply didn’t count the votes for most third-party candidates on election night.”38

  By giving elaborate national coverage only to Republicans and Democrats, news organizations are letting us know that these are the only ones worth considering. Candidates who are not taken seriously by the media swiftly discover that they are not taken seriously by many voters. Even when they make face-to-face contact with voters, they still lack legitimacy as candidates for national off
ice, being more a curiosity than a serious choice. People may like what third-party candidates say, because often they are the only ones saying anything, but they usually won’t vote for someone who doesn’t have a chance. Since third-party candidates are not in the news, they are considered to be not really in the race.

  The argument made against giving national coverage to minor-party candidates is just that—they are minor; they do not represent the main concerns of the electorate; they are unknowns. But as Aaron Orange of the Socialist Labor Party stated before a Senate subcommittee: “How can a candidate attract the following ... that would convince the broadcasters that he is a ‘significant’ candidate? Isn’t it a fact that in our present society one can become a ‘significant’ candidate only as a result of repeated exposure on the airwaves?”39

  Whether a candidate is a prominent or an unknown personage is less important in determining media treatment than his or her politics. John Anderson was an obscure member of Congress who did miserably in the 1980 Republican presidential primaries; yet, given his mainstream politics and safe credentials, he was treated like a major candidate by the media when he later ran as an independent. This was in part because he raised no serious politico-economic challenges to the major candidates but ran on an “I-can-do-it-better” platform, thereby making himself safe for big contributors and national media. Dozens of relatively obscure Democratic and Republican contenders, such as Pat Buchanan, Reuben Askew, Patsy Mink, John Ashbrook, Sam Yorty, and Paul McCloskey “were brought ... to the public’s attention by the media. Few had any chance of winning their party’s nomination and none did,” yet they were treated as real candidates.40 In contrast, persons like Barry Commoner, Angela Davis, Gus Hall, and Benjamin Spock (the People’s Party presidential candidate of 1972) were nationally known figures. Before Dr. Spock began his campaign, millions of Americans were already familiar with his name, having read his books on baby care, and many knew of him as a dedicated peace activist. Yet because of media blackout, only a tiny fraction of the public ever knew of his candidacy and his views, despite almost a year of Spock’s active campaigning.41