Journalism and American Democracy

Done in a twenty minute timed session for class, on an iPad.

Question: Do the debates matter?

The debates matter, though perhaps not to the degree that we have been led to believe. If nothing else, minimally, they have affected the ways parties perceive their potential candidates. The question of how well they’d do in a debate is one they hold important, and where there is such a belief the ponderous weight of factors follow. And when it comes down to it these factors, even minor ones, can have great effects. Not to mention that, as a spectacle, it too can draw crowds. And wayward American Studies students.

As to whether it sways people, gives them an eye into the candidate, it does to some degree. Public speaking can be taught but cannot really be faked. Debate skills again can be taught, but not necessarily faked. And while I might otherwise add discipline, such as that needed to stay within a time limit, is likewise, at last night’s debate we seemed to have none of that. The truth is that while most Americans get a good deal of their news by hearsay (“Obama Says Romney…”) via the news, or clips chosen by the same news, the debates are at least less filtered. While preparation is possible, I expect nothing said last night was ‘off the cuff’, it is still an indication of a personal skill. Not the most relevant one, perhaps, but a skill nonetheless.

But I cannot say that people take such debates seriously. Pollsters and politicos seem to think otherwise, and I can only muster a rational argument against them. Yet when the rational and empirical clash, the empirical usually wins. Still, one imagines it has at least had an effect on the candidates and how their parties choose them. No one wants to be Nixon, and if nothing else, our candidates seem to be getting handsomer, more photogenic. And if in no other way, that means they’re here to say, and be felt, in American elections.

I have opinions, lots of them, on all sorts of things, from why Brazilian industrialization is lagging behind its predicted standards to how the game went last Saturday. I like talking, debating, and expressing these opinions, and this is why columnists always confound me. The fact there is a market for people to state their opinions, whereby you have no recourse or action but to take it in, has always struck me as odd. I have always wondered if people adopt the opinions themselves, thus surrendering part of their thinking to another, or if they do so to test their own thoughts on the matter against someone who, at least in theory, is seasoned. The latter I can at least partially understand, for in theory these are wise people, but the former seems undue surrender to me.

To extend this to a discussion of news generally, opinion pieces are pure interpretation. While they may contain facts, their purpose is not to provide those facts but opinions and analyses. This, I believe, places them squarely outside the definition of news, but that does not make them worthless. Analysis can serve as a textbook and whetstone, allowing people to see how analysis is done, see conclusions others draw, and finally to test their opinions against it and thus become sharper and more aware of a wider variety of thoughts. While one’s opinion must remain one’s own unless they wish to surrender sovereignty to some figure, whether politician or prophet or columnist, the opinions of a person who never contacts opposing thoughts becomes inbred in its ignorance.

As to the actual columns here, they’re interesting and right of center, but in general that seems a relatively safe position. Perhaps that is why they are popular, through mass appeal. After all, mildly conservative opinions are less likely to offend than mildly liberal ones, for while mild liberal ones call for small changes mildly conservative ones usually call for none. This is perhaps best exemplified in “The Principle at Stake at Notre Dame” where she basically avoids condemning abortion despite leaning that direction, and even in the end states she supports, to some degree, the current form it is in. I do not mean to say this is gutless, strong moderates have their own temptations to fight and their own deeply held belief, but it makes me wonder if we’re a right of center nation.

It was remarkably difficult to find wedding announcements. Even regional newspapers of great prominence, like The Plain Dealer didn’t have them, though it did have obituaries. I had to search quite low to find them, and it reminds me of a talk about the duties of news I once had. Granting it was an old reporter complaining about how good things were back in his days, but one of the things he spoke of was the sense of duty and how newspapers used to run such announcements free despite them losing money because of it. He spoke of how this was a great service to historians. Today this is apparently on the decline, but I do wonder whether it is in the duties of newspapers to service the historians. It at least seems like a worthy pursuit. Regardless, I had to resort to google and found wedding announcements in The Dallas Morning News and The Republican. It appears such announcements, excluding ‘nobility’ such as the Clintons or Kennedys, is strictly local news, and not simply general local news, but extremely specific to the locality.

    The Republican is specific to Springfield, Massachussets, and The Dallas Morning News is specific to Dallas, Texas. The first thing that strikes me about them is that the photos are overwhelmingly of European Americans, while statistically they should be about seven out of ten and half respectively based on an admittedly cursory overview of the US census data for the areas. Predictably, they are almost invariably from the local area. I also find it interesting several are announcements after the fact, making this a sort of reverse banns. In the old days, weddings were announced at banns at Church to prevent bigamy, though I doubt newspapers have taken on this purpose. The publics these newspapers serve, if indeed it is equal to the announcers, thus seems to not only be a very specific area but a specific segment, at least along race lines, and perhaps along economic ones, though I cannot make such a determination without indulging in my own prejudices. The man in the soldier’s uniform might be the son of a multimillionaire, for all I know.

I wonder, however, if it is equivalent. Perhaps sending in such things is a specifically cultural custom. I can easily imagine the custom being descended from the banns, in which case it would be part of a certain religious culture that other groups may not take part of. It might also be that other people go to other, more specialized newspapers I simply am unaware of, confirming the hypothesis. However, I have read many newspapers, and thus become their publics, without even being aware that marriage publications like this were a thing. I was aware of obituaries, but the announcement of marriages had somehow passed me by.

http://www.masslive.com/weddings/

http://www.legacy.com/celebration/dallasmorningnews/celebrations-search.aspx?daterange=99999&announcementtype=1

Sidenote: The Republican has an interesting history behind it, if it can be considered a reliable source on itself. Apparently it was involved in the founding of the Republican party all the way back in the 1850s, back when Republican meant ‘anti-slavery’. Apparently several newspaper magnates and newspapers were strong supporters of the party. I wonder how this fits into the role of media and the like?

An iPad is time. It’s the time between classes, the time waiting for class to start, the time waiting in line, the time that is normally wasted on some activity that requires virtually no attention, that is merely a buffer, a loading screen. This is when I reach for a phone, or an iPad, and make use of the time which would have been wasted, and in this sense an iPad brings efficiency to life: it makes me better at the expense of nothing valuable. This is perhaps the largest difference modern technology brings: with the advent of easily transportable mobile computers time, whether spent on work or entertainment, is never farther than my pocket. This had made me both more mobile, and more willing to put up with the little annoyances in life since I can retreat into a screen.

I have gotten a surprising range of comments on my iPad, all the more surprising because I already owned an iPad beforehand, and yet it seems as if my iPad is now open for comment. They’ve ranged from the envious to the praising, from the curious to the crucial, and from among these critical comments I select one to rebut. Specifically, that it was a sign of my generation’s need for ‘instant gratification’. Patience is, after all a virtue. But waiting is not. A love of waiting is as ruinous as a hate of it, since the key to patience is the right time, not before, but certainly not after. The iPad, like a cell phone, like indeed a regular phone, like indeed the postal service, like a thousand inventions and devices before it, simply makes things easier, more convenient, and faster.

I like to imagine a man making the same complaints made of us to a telegrapher, or perhaps even a man who prefers heralds complaining about letter writing, “You and your need for ‘one month gratification!”. It has not changed my wants, my desires, or the fact I really hate boredom. It has merely given me the means to alleviate such. It is a tool, and frankly that is all it could ever be, a tool.

At least until the robot takeover begins.