A Look at Dick Cheney’s Hunting Accident Through the Eyes of Media Scholars and Comedians
Neil Postman’s book Amusing Ourselves to Death claims that public discourse not only affected but in fact determined by the dominant form of communication. Since the dawn of the nation, the United States has undergone a shift from print culture to electronic culture. Media determinist Postman attempts to demonstrate how “under the governance of the printing press, discourse in America was different from what it is now- generally coherent, serious and rational; and then how, under the governance of television, it has become shriveled and absurd” (16). Postman offers data such as literacy rates from the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries to support his claim that the era of print culture produced a society of much more intelligent, engaged democratic citizens. His evidence clearly shows that, indeed, these early Americans appeared to be highly involved in not only political action but philosophical thought as well. However, a fallacy lies in his statement that “no literary aristocracy emerged in Colonial America. Reading was not regarded as an elitist activity, and printed matter was spread evenly among all kinds of people” (Postman 34). Laws against teaching slaves to read absolutely negate any idea of a classless culture of readers with completely equal access to both education and reading materials. Postman’s romanticization of this early modern society entrenched in the enlightening process of reading the written word fails to account for the grave civil injustices of the time which allowed for anything but a true democracy in which each citizen has equal opportunity and equal political power.
Postman argues that “in reading, one’s responses are isolated, one’s intellect thrown back on its own resourcesâÂ?¦ thus reading is by its nature a serious business. It is also, of course, an essentially rational activity” (50). This does not always hold true in today’s media system. For example, Riccardi and Gerstenzang’s Los Angeles Times article “Hunter Suffers Setback as Criticism of Cheney Grows” offers much more contextual and background information on recent political happenings in the Vice-President’s life than does The Daily Show. Correspondent Rob Corrdry quipped, “The Vice President is standing by his decision to shoot Harry Whittington. Now, according to the best intelligence available, there were quail hidden in the brush. Everyone believed at the time there were quail in the brush. And while the quail turned out to be a 78- year-old man, even knowing that today, Mr. Cheney insists he still would have shot Mr. Whittington in the face. He believes the world is a better place for his spreading buckshot throughout the entire region of Mr. Whittington’s face” (13 Feb. 2006). His comedy depends upon an assumption that the audience has a certain intellectual level and political awareness; the joke is simply not successful unless the listener relates it to Cheney’s reaction to the weapons of mass destruction which were never found in Iraq and yet were the basis for the Bush Administration’s invasion. The Daily Show is in fact a prime piece of evidence in support of Postman’s argument that “television speaks in only one persistent voice- the voice of entertainment” (80). Yet Postman does not seem to allow any leeway whatsoever for the idea that entertaining news does not necessarily negate its informational and political value. Yes, Rob Corrdry’s claim that “Look, the mere fact that we’re even talking about how the vice president drives up with his rich friends in cars to shoot farm-raised wingless quail-tards is letting the quail know ‘how’ we’re hunting them. I’m sure right now those birds are laughing at us in that little ‘covey’ of theirs” (13 Feb. 2006) is hilarious, but at the same time subtly raises controversy and debate over Cheney’s position on terrorism, national security, and freedom of information. The Los Angeles Times article fails to relate the story to any of these pressing issues and relies mainly upon stating simple facts such as “Whittington had left the line of hunters to retrieve a downed quail, and Cheney was unaware that the attorney was behind him when he turned to fire at a covey of birds, according to a report from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. Officials classified the shooting as due to “hunter’s judgment factors” (Riccardi). While in this case Postman is correct in classifying print as ‘serious’ and television as ‘absurd’, his black and white outlook on alternate media forms weakens his overall argument in a twenty-first century media environment. Perhaps Postman never could have predicted infotainment programming such as The Daily Show, but in an era of information saturation as well as one of grave international unrest, sometimes the public can benefit most from a less severe delivery of the news.
In “U.S. Media at the Dawn of the Twenty-First Century”, Robert McChesney focuses less on media determinism and more on the economic structure of democracy and its media system. He writes that “the main concern of the media giants is to make journalism directly profitableâÂ?¦ [including] stories that are inexpensive and easy to cover, like celebrity lifestyle pieces, court cases, plane crashes, crime stories, and shootouts” (54). McChesney’s probe into the market influence on the press helps to explain the abundance of coverage on the Cheney hunting incident, which on a larger scale has very little impact on the government, the nation or the world. Each of the three media outlets referenced in this paper was able to acquire and assemble their information at a very low price; the story did not require foreign news bureaus, flights for reporters, or extensive research. McChesney sees this shift towards cheap, easy news as incredibly dangerous for the United States, or any democratic society for that matter. McChesney would no doubt find the abundance of popular political blogs extremely treacherous; with the incredible ease at which they are produced and accessed, millions can be reading statements such as “âÂ?¦some Democrats and competing broadcasters charged that Cheney chose to speak only with Fox News because of a perception that the cable channel is sympathetic to the Republican administration. They called for the vice president to hold a news conference with the rest of the media. This just goes to show you that the media think this whole thing is about them. They were upset they were fed the story. They were upset they were actually expected to work” from Matt Margolis’ Blogs For Bush website and making important democratic decisions based upon that information and rhetoric.
McChesney’s article focuses mainly on corporate media saturation and the perils of profit-driven journalism. Unlike Postman, however, he finds some value in the electronic media forms of the modern democracy, quoting John Leonard’s praise of U.S. commercial television as “weirdly democratic, multicultural, utopian, quixotic and more welcoming of difference and diversity than much of the audience that sits down to watch it” (McChesney 31) yet he glumly adds his belief that “the output is woeful in view of the massive resources these firms command” (32). No doubt Bob is glum over the plethora of spots on Dick Cheney’s human-hunting in the affluent Los Angeles Times or on the profitable Comedy Central which can afford to cover much more critical and pertinent information if they so choose.
Michael Schudson contradicts McChesney in his book The Power of News, stating that the “media are obligated not only to make profits but to maintain their credibility in the eyes of readers as they do so” (5). He discusses the problem of journalistic bias, which he classifies into four distinct categories. The Times article displays the “technical bias” of being forced to rely on “the mechanical rather than the ideological” (10) in order to maintain integrity and professionalism. All three sources illustrate the “official bias”; that is, a reliance of legitimate government and expert sources to provide information. Both the right-leaning blog and the leftist television show cited quotes from the government in order to legitimize their stances. Above all, Schudson views the news in all its forms as “a social and cultural institution far more complicated than anything one could reduce to an articulate political ideology” (16). He does not view the media in a strict cause-and-effect relationship with society, but rather a system of symbols which represents shared values and helps form and strengthen cultural identification. If in fact the news IS culture, as Schudson posits, then the media must serve a democratic function and must be constantly in search of ways to improve democracy. Not one of the three media sources cited in this article seek to question the status quo or incite a democratic change for the betterment of the nation. While The Daily Show challenges the decisions of the Administration and the weblog attacks the behavior of the media, neither goes beyond to question our entire system or propose any solutions to these alleged failure of American democracy.
By judging contemporary news pieces through the eyes of Postman, McChesney, and Schudson one can begin to see the deeper conflict which lies between democracy and the current press system of the United States. In a country as large as America, the Republic needs mass media in order to survive. But in order to maintain today the standards and lofty goals of those who founded the country, our media must turn a critical eye towards itself and seek out solutions for the problems it finds. The study of media scholars is essential to upholding to true ideals of democracy and should be applied not only in a comparison such as this, but to every single media form and every single media outlet each day. Only then will the media begin its recovery towards what could one day be a truly free and democratic press system.
