The Great Rightwing Noise Machine, Described in "Network Propaganda"

Network Propaganda: Manipulation Disinformation, and Radicalization in American Politics takes 387 pages -- large pages with small writing -- to say what was obvious even without it -- the rightwing media is different.  The centrist, center-left, and even leftwing media share a common basis in facts and commitment to factual accuracy.  The rightwing media is indifferent to such things and only wants to serve an ideological agenda. Center right media has almost disappeared.  Though 387 pages (not counting end notes), Network Propaganda is made more readable by large numbers of graphs and tables, all illustrating the obvious.  It goes on, chapter after chapter, making this blindingly obvious point and illustrating it by more graphs and tables.  

But frustrating as it is to be constantly hit over the head with the obvious, chapter after chapter, it raises a disturbing question. A strong democratic conservative party is key to the health and survival of democracy.  By that standard, the US is in big trouble. Is access to accurate, reality-based journalism essential to the existence of a democratic conservative party?  Because if it is, the US is in even bigger trouble.

The book also has some interesting designations. It classifies most major news outlets -- the Washington Post, New York Times, Politico, CNN, and network news except for ABC -- as center-left.  In the center it places ABC news, the Wall Street Journal, The Hill, Reuters and the Associated Press. Some people might see the Wall Street Journal and The Hill as center-right, but Network Propaganda classifies media by their consumers and identifies these publications as centrist because they attract about equal numbers of center-right and center-left viewers/readers.  All these publications tend to clump together and have similar reporting.  There are intemperate far-left publications every bit as stridently partisan and untethered to facts and publications on the right.  But they do not have a significant following and feel the pull either to join the fact-based community or lose followers.*  

What Network Propaganda sees as "mainstream" rightwing news is disturbing -- Fox News, of course, and talk radio. Also Bretibart, which became a major publication during the 2016 election.  Even Zero Hedge, a notorious conspiracy site, is discussed as a mainstream rightwing publication. The center right has no significant following.  There are no middle brow general news sources on the center right,** only a few boutique publications like the National Review and Reason, with no large popular following.

Of course, at this point right wingers might concede all these points and dismiss them as proof of pervasive liberal bias in our news media, which leaves conservative audiences no choice but to seek out alternative outlets.  The authors proceed in painstaking detail to outline why this is not true, to show that mainstream publications make a sincere attempt to ground their reporting in facts, to reject stories that fit a narrative but are not accurate, and to acknowledge error when made.  Rightwing publications freely trim the facts to fit their narratives and never admit error, no matter how egregiously false a story.  As an example, the book cites a quote from one of Tony Podesta's hacked e-mails:

CHAI would like to request that President Clinton call Sheik Mohammed to thank him for offering his plane to the conference in Ethiopia and expressing regrets that President Clinton’s schedule does not permit him to attend the conference. 

 The Daily Caller ran this quote, omitting the section declining the offer, and expressing outrage that Clinton never reported this flight as an in-kind donation to the the Clinton Foundation.***  There are other examples I will cite in another post.

So, granting the current state of our media, how did this situation come about?  Network Propaganda dismisses as unimportant much cited factors such as internet technology spreading rumors, fringe sources entering the mainstream, monetized fake news, Russian hack and leak, or search algorithms manipulating users.  Asymmetrical polarization of the news predates the internet.  Fringe and fake stories to not gain significant following unless promoted by a major node of communication.  Russian propaganda was only convincing to people who wanted to believe it.  Algorithms -- thus far -- have minimal impact.  The authors did acknowledge that algorithms may have to be addressed in the future, but considered them of minimal effectiveness at the time.

So what is driving asymmetrical polarization of news?  The authors see historical roots.  In the 19th century, objective journalism was not even a concept.  The entire press was unabashedly political.  Some healthy democracies continue in this model today.  In the 20th century, the idea arose that journalists should be objective and report facts, rather than promote and agenda.  This model reached its culmination following WWII.  Most of the population got its national and international news from the three networks, NBC, ABC, and CBS.****  Each city had a newspaper that addressed mostly local news.  Radio stations were also highly localized and were dedicated mostly to local news and music. And even in this environment, the right wing regularly complained about pervasive liberal bias in the news and complained that they were shut out and confined to small publications, well out of the mainstream.  

The authors point out that there was leftwing criticism as well. They attribute the rise of the rightwing media to changes in technology and regulatory framework that removed barrier to their entry.  Cable allowed television stations to escape regulatory constraints, including the Fairness Doctrine. CNN was the first cable network to offer an all news format.  Satellite broadcasting extended the range of radio stations.  FM radio offered better quality music, so AM responded with talk radio.  With the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine, Rush Limbaugh was able to begin his show, which proved an immense hit and paved the way for countless imitators.  It sounds as if the authors believe that when historians write the story of how US democracy failed, blame will fall, first and foremost, not on Rupert Murdoch, but on Rush Limbaugh.

But that raises an awkward question that the authors shy away from.  They hold themselves out as bold truth tellers, saying that polarization of this country is not equal, that the right wing is to blame, and that the rightwing media is not equivalent to the mainstream or leftwing media. But they do not confront to next and most obvious question.  Is the real, underlying problem the audience?  It the real reason that the right wing media has gone off in such a different direction from the rest of the media because some 30% of the population can't handle complexity and don't want to be bothered with unwelcome fact -- they just want a simple narrative telling them that they are the forces of good fighting the forces of evil?

The authors dismiss that concept as "not necessary" to their theory of asymmetric polarization.  Instead, they postulate that, as a matter of pure historical accident, the right wing broke away from the mainstream media before the left did, and that as a result, the left rallied around the mainstream media and came to trust it.  They propose that if things had played out slightly differently, it might have gone the other way.

Color me unconvinced.  The authors do present one piece of empirical evidence to support their claim that media has radicalized its listeners, rather than vice versa.  The present polls showing that in 1998, Republicans were only slightly less likely to trust mainstream media than Democrats -- 52% versus 59%.  (Independents clocked in at 53%).  In 2000, all parties' trust in media had fallen and was now 47-53-53, still with only a slight divergence.  Over the ensuing years, Republican trust in mainstream media fell to 31% and stayed stable -- until the Trump candidacy, at which point it fell to 14%.  (P. 325).  So that is something.

On the other hand, the authors also grudgingly acknowledge that the Republican coalition is more cohesive than the Democratic coalition, and that this greater cohesion may lead members to cohere around a relatives small but disciplined set of outlets all telling the same story, rather than a broad, undisciplined array of sources that can be fact checked against each other.

Given long term rightwing hostility to mainstream media, dating back to at least the 1940's, I am inclined to believe the underlying problem is the audience, which media messaging has both enlarged and radicalized.

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*Nor does Network Propaganda address the distinction between what might be called low-brow, middle-brow and high-brow outlets, or between general news and specialty news.  In general, I would classify low-brow as tabloid-level news, middle brow as most mainstream programs and publications, and high brow as news "journals."  And, generally speaking, general news is a middle-brow phenomenon, with low brow publications focusing mostly on sports and gossip, and high brow publications writing in-depth articles about fairly narrow topics.

**At least by the authors' definition of the Wall Street Journal and The Hill as centrist.

***Just for the record, the e-mail does seem to imply that Clinton had accepted rides on private airplanes, including of non-citizens in the past and was only declining this one because of a scheduling conference.  I do not know the law and ethics here, other that the obvious point that there is no legal or ethical obligation to make a tax disclosure of a plan flight one did not take.

****Time and Newsweek were also national news magazines.