On my way home tonight, I listened to NPR’s Andrea Seabrook talk about “Politicians And Their Wives: What’s Fair Game? [1]”
I recalled a political science class from the early 1980s and a professor who was examining the dignity of the office of Presidency…and how it was eroding. He related how when FDR got out of a vehicle, the media would turn their heads, examine their nails, look up at the birds, point their cameras away until he got in his chair and covered his legs. Regardless of the words, accusations, criticisms in print, the visual privacy – and dignity – was preserved.
I also recalled the (comical to me at the time) formal morning coat of the 1981 inauguration, as Reagan wanted to restore the dignity that supposedly was lost when Carter walked the parade route and had a “People’s Inauguration.”
I imagine the professor mentioned above would have been appalled at the television coverage of Reagan’s colon polyps a few years later and probably outraged at the media of today.
So what changed?
Day time talk shows? The topics got juicier until they gave way to the low bar audience egging on the chair throwing, cat fighting, cheating dregs of society … fueling the ratings that generated more of the same and the inevitable copycats.
The rise of tabloid news? As I watch neither, it’s probably unfair to connect “professional wrestling” with the “news”, but I’d like to think that when the WWF/E/whatever-they-are-now stopped pretending it was not fake, at least one “news” outlet claiming impartiality and lack of prejudice could also stop pretending as well. Unfortunately, not only did that not happen, but as those sought after ratings rose for the mud-slingers, the little remaining credibility of the bystanding mainstream media was tossed out in their own efforts to retrieve lost shares of viewership, sinking to the level of the network leader. And dignity? The talking heads crush that of the opposition party while they trumpet indignity over any opposition to their favored party.
[2]The Internet and ubiquitous cell phone cameras make information spread so much faster and easier. So also the disinformation. Ripley and Barnum would have killed to capture the attention of the denominator that craves the sensationalism, outright falsehoods, deliberately misleading stories, and more that make up the “news” today. It’s a wonder anyone is willing to subject themselves to the public eye (see “This is why it’s so difficult to get good people to run for political office [3]“).
Of course, there are good things to come from private technology – Rodney King’s word would not have been enough to explain away falling off that curb – but there are so many more bad things. Setting boundaries is even more necessary, and yet so much more unobtainable.
I admit I am oversimplifying, but with the Patriot Act and fear tactics legitimizing monitoring, and tabloid advocacy demanding more dirt – real or manufactured – everything becomes “fair game” and we all lose a little more for it.
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