Posner: Threat or Menace?

[libertango]

Richard Posner has an op-ed in the New York Times. As happens all too often with Posner, the thinking is remarkably muddy. (This is a man who said, in Harper's, that he didn't think the Nisei internment cases were so bad. This is a Judge who was quoted in the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin that people who think Federal judges base their legal opinions solely on their interpretation of the law and the Constitution are living, "in a make-believe world.")

Anyway... Posner makes some assertions as to why news media are becoming more ideological. Basically, he blames you, me, and himself (though probably not in the order) as the collective audience. Since the Times "chunks" their longer stories, here's a key quote from the third page:

"Being profit-driven, the media respond to the actual demands of their audience rather than to the idealized ''thirst for knowledge'' demand posited by public intellectuals and deans of journalism schools. They serve up what the consumer wants, and the more intense the competitive pressure, the better they do it. We see this in the media's coverage of political campaigns. Relatively little attention is paid to issues. Fundamental questions, like the actual difference in policies that might result if one candidate rather than the other won, get little play. The focus instead is on who's ahead, viewed as a function of campaign tactics, which are meticulously reported. Candidates' statements are evaluated not for their truth but for their adroitness; it is assumed, without a hint of embarrassment, that a political candidate who levels with voters disqualifies himself from being taken seriously, like a racehorse that tries to hug the outside of the track. News coverage of a political campaign is oriented to a public that enjoys competitive sports, not to one that is civic-minded."

There's no question the behavior he describes has taken place. My problem is with his assertion about motive. If coverage along these lines was genuinely, "what the consumer wants," we'd expect a) news audiences to be growing, and b) voter participation to be growing.

It's precisely because the exact opposite of those two outcomes are what we're stuck with that one can only think that news organizations are, either intentionally or unintentionally, blocking consumers' desires for better coverage. Not only that, Posner quotes the dismal sales performance of news organizations of all commercial stripes earlier in the article.

The sheer duplicity of Judge Richard Posner is breathtaking.

Comments

[kate-schaefer.livejournal.com]

I don't think Posner is being duplicitous here. Many news organizations are trapped in some kind of death-spiral, zeroing in on exactly what their remaining readers/viewers/listeners really, really want, to the exclusion of all else. They end up greatly pleasing their target audience, but at the same time narrowing their focus so much that only their core audience, their most precisely targeted audience, is interested at all, and they're very satisfied indeed. At that point, they fear broadening focus lest they lose that extremely satisfied group by satisfying them less.

There's nothing about the statement, "News coverage of a political campaign is oriented to a public that enjoys competitive sports, not to one that is civic-minded," that suggests to me an increase in voter participation. It suggests an increase in watching the results, but not an increase in doing anything to bring desired results about.

You may have a more informed reading than I do...