Posner on Blogs and the Media
Instapundit recently pointed out a NY Times article by Richard Posner on this topic.
Is this the distinguished Richard Posner or some impostor? Is he pulling our legs or is he serious?
The NY Times article by Posner on blogs and the decline of the Mainline Press at first seems exactly what you would expect when a distinguished person is asked to write on a timely topic. You find a judicious summary of everything you know about the subject and nothing at all that you did not know.
But there are some quirks to it. Here are some.
Posner seems to believe in the strange theory that competition produces polarization.
He also claims to believe that the press serves up pap and issue-free political comment because that is what the public wants. Only very few intellectual types, like himself, prefer a lively discussion of issues; or so he says.
And he confuses various definitions of the word “liberal”.
Now Posner is a very smart individual, and he knows that if you want to convert people to your views, you must convince them that you have listened to their arguments and are sympathetic to them. And I think he sees his audience as readers of the NY Times, who are familiar with the “liberal” views on issues and have to hear these from him else they will respond with them. And, to be sure he ends up skewering the Main Stream Media, so perhaps his approach, in a lawyerly way, is the best approach, if you want to change minds.
But still, some of his comments are hard to swallow.
First, does the New York Times, or the Washington Post really have intense competition that has polarized it? As far as I can tell, the Times and the Post and the Globe in Boston, and so on, were the only “quality” “intellectual” papers in their locations, and what competition they might have in the “quality” market is mainly from one another. Most other markets have exactly one large circulation newspaper, if you can call it that.
So attributing their behavior, which has been almost uniform in this group, to competition is a bit odd. But competition, far from producing polarization, brings competitors to converge. Are Walgreens and CVS grossly different from one another? Do supermarkets give up niches to their rivals, or do they all look more or less alike? And automobile makers: do they really split up markets and make cars recognizably different from one another?. Republicans never give up at trying to attract black voters, because they want all the votes they can get. They compete everywhere.
The idea of serving a niche audience is the idea of not competing for all potential readers.
It is based upon desire to avoid competition, to allocate markets between rivals rather than compete. In politics it is chracteristic of parties that represent a point of view, not parties that want to compete for votes from everyone.
I would attribute the polarization of the main stream media to complacency and entrenched political views, in particular the radicalized “liberalism” of the anti-war movement of the 1970s. In fact you can more fairly ascribe it less to “competition” than lack of competition, which allows the decision makers to ignore the wants of their customers.
Of course polarization of the press has been around for centuries, but originally newspapers were mostly creations of political parties, subsidized by them.
This does not explain the same left wing bias in TV networks that one finds in the main stream press. Here competition has led to almost perfect convergence in viewpoints among network news. And it is there that the vapidity and idea free coverage of news reaches its apogee.
Is this because that is what the public wants? The dramatic development of blogs which argue ideas, and which sniff out news developments buried by big media indicates that it is not and was not what the public wants. The development of blogs (and of the Limbaugh phenomenon) suggests, contra Posner, that there is a vast audience for idea based political argument.
Posner seems to adopt the cynical view that everyone always pursues his own interest and his own prejudicial views. He begins by accepting the notion that the main stream press, through elaborate process, checks reports meticulously and carefully while bloggers routinely lie and spread false rumors (presumably to further their causes), or at least are free to do so.
From my limited readings, I find almost the reverse. Certainly there are bloggers who write nonsense and purvey it. One quickly learns to read them (if at all) only for amusement at their folly. Most of us have the capacity to judge the reliability of a source from its past record. And many bloggers pride themselves on their honesty and integrity and are quick to point out errors that they have made. And comments by readers convey many different points of view and reactions to claims in the blogs.
The media, on the other hand, love sensation, rarely and only grudgingly admit errors, and are extraordinarily tendentious in their choices of what is newsworthy.
The great accomplishment of the press in the Viet Nam era was to convert the terrible defeat that the Viet Cong received in its Tet Offensive, into a victory for them, through tendentious reporting.
The mainstream media seems intent on doing something similar in the present conflict.
Is Posner aware that the management of corporations that own networks pride themselves on not interfering with editorial matters on their news broadcasts? Their own political orientations then have little or nothing to do with biases of the networks.
Does he remember the scandal of the faked demonstration of cars catching fire that a network flogged on 60 minutes or some such program, slandering an automaker? He insinuates that media would never do such things to big advertisers.
The word liberal at one time connoted someone who favors liberty and freedom for individuals. For a liberal in that sense to push for censorship would indeed be surprising. But today the word is used to describe the left wing of the Democrats. These are a mélange of Maoists (like one of Clinton’s cabinet members) Stalinists, Fidelists and the like, whose affinity for political correctness and for the suppression of any non pc speech is by now considered normal. What on earth can Posner mean by the comment
The argument for filtering is an argument for censorship. (That it is made by liberals is evidence that everyone secretly favors censorship of the opinions he fears.)" [Non-liberals, I suppose, in their hearts aspire to make the arguments we hear from “liberals.”]
And consider these gems:
"The mainstream media do not kick sacred cows like religion and patriotism."[I suppose Posner is too busy with his judiciary work and his thinking about deep issues to read the mainstream media, and I cannot blame him for that. But if you don’t read it, why comment idiotically on its supposed content?]
"The limited consumer interest in the truth is the key to understanding why both left and right can plausibly denounce the same media for being biased in favor of the other." [Advocates for Castro or crazy Kim or for restoration of Saddam Hussein will plausibly find our media far to their right; most of us plausibly consider it to our left. Is Posner speaking as a typical consumer here? Does he have access to information on consumer interests unknown to us?]
"The critics describe the attack (by the Swift Boat people) as consisting of lies propagated by the new right-wing media and reported as news by mainstream media made supine by anxiety over their declining fortunes." [That he quotes such comments suggests Posner is out of touch with reality. I never saw reports of the Swift Boat people in the main stream media, and their attacks consisted of very powerful commercials which most big media refused to air. One of the most powerful of these commercials consisted mainly of a tape of a speech by Kerry from many years ago.
"(They [conservatives]) would prefer that American abuse of prisoners be concealed." [Posner shows an interesting opinion of the integrity of conservatives here.]
"It took CBS so long to acknowledge Dan Rather's mistake because there are so many people involved in the production and supervision of a program like "60 Minutes II" who have to be consulted." [Posner is a busy man, so I guess we can excuse him for not reading the report of the CBS investigation of the incident]
"So a newspaper that appeals to liberal readers will avoid exposés of bad behavior by blacks or homosexuals" [as the NY Times did the bad deeds of Stalin in the 1930s. Naturally this is no reflection on its integrity.]
"Conservatives were unembarrassed by the errors of the Swift Boat veterans." [Neither the media nor the Kerry campaign deigned to comment on the Swift Boat veterans claims, as far as I can tell. I wish Posner would point out these errors to me, because I have been trying to find them myself. Ah! I guess copying that Kerry tape could be considered an error. How embarrassing!]
"Only members of the intelligentsia, a tiny slice of the population, deliberate on public issues."
I suppose then, that it is Posner’s belief that the rest of us poor slobs outside this tiny group should stop blogging and leave all decisions to these our betters. Perhaps voting should be restricted to the intelligentsia?
There is something charmingly quaint and dated about the attitudes Posner displays here. He manages to impart the notions that the hoi polloi, the non-intelligentsia conservatives, have no interest in ideas, lack integrity, have little interest in truth, and have an attitude toward censorship comparable to that of Stalinists. This is exactly what “liberals” think of the American rabble. If he were describing Jews instead of conservatives it would be appropriate to consider him an Anti-Semite. Here it supplies him with the credentials of being a member of the intelligentsia himself. Does he really need such credentials?
Is this the distinguished Richard Posner or some impostor? Is he pulling our legs or is he serious?
The NY Times article by Posner on blogs and the decline of the Mainline Press at first seems exactly what you would expect when a distinguished person is asked to write on a timely topic. You find a judicious summary of everything you know about the subject and nothing at all that you did not know.
But there are some quirks to it. Here are some.
Posner seems to believe in the strange theory that competition produces polarization.
He also claims to believe that the press serves up pap and issue-free political comment because that is what the public wants. Only very few intellectual types, like himself, prefer a lively discussion of issues; or so he says.
And he confuses various definitions of the word “liberal”.
Now Posner is a very smart individual, and he knows that if you want to convert people to your views, you must convince them that you have listened to their arguments and are sympathetic to them. And I think he sees his audience as readers of the NY Times, who are familiar with the “liberal” views on issues and have to hear these from him else they will respond with them. And, to be sure he ends up skewering the Main Stream Media, so perhaps his approach, in a lawyerly way, is the best approach, if you want to change minds.
But still, some of his comments are hard to swallow.
First, does the New York Times, or the Washington Post really have intense competition that has polarized it? As far as I can tell, the Times and the Post and the Globe in Boston, and so on, were the only “quality” “intellectual” papers in their locations, and what competition they might have in the “quality” market is mainly from one another. Most other markets have exactly one large circulation newspaper, if you can call it that.
So attributing their behavior, which has been almost uniform in this group, to competition is a bit odd. But competition, far from producing polarization, brings competitors to converge. Are Walgreens and CVS grossly different from one another? Do supermarkets give up niches to their rivals, or do they all look more or less alike? And automobile makers: do they really split up markets and make cars recognizably different from one another?. Republicans never give up at trying to attract black voters, because they want all the votes they can get. They compete everywhere.
The idea of serving a niche audience is the idea of not competing for all potential readers.
It is based upon desire to avoid competition, to allocate markets between rivals rather than compete. In politics it is chracteristic of parties that represent a point of view, not parties that want to compete for votes from everyone.
I would attribute the polarization of the main stream media to complacency and entrenched political views, in particular the radicalized “liberalism” of the anti-war movement of the 1970s. In fact you can more fairly ascribe it less to “competition” than lack of competition, which allows the decision makers to ignore the wants of their customers.
Of course polarization of the press has been around for centuries, but originally newspapers were mostly creations of political parties, subsidized by them.
This does not explain the same left wing bias in TV networks that one finds in the main stream press. Here competition has led to almost perfect convergence in viewpoints among network news. And it is there that the vapidity and idea free coverage of news reaches its apogee.
Is this because that is what the public wants? The dramatic development of blogs which argue ideas, and which sniff out news developments buried by big media indicates that it is not and was not what the public wants. The development of blogs (and of the Limbaugh phenomenon) suggests, contra Posner, that there is a vast audience for idea based political argument.
Posner seems to adopt the cynical view that everyone always pursues his own interest and his own prejudicial views. He begins by accepting the notion that the main stream press, through elaborate process, checks reports meticulously and carefully while bloggers routinely lie and spread false rumors (presumably to further their causes), or at least are free to do so.
From my limited readings, I find almost the reverse. Certainly there are bloggers who write nonsense and purvey it. One quickly learns to read them (if at all) only for amusement at their folly. Most of us have the capacity to judge the reliability of a source from its past record. And many bloggers pride themselves on their honesty and integrity and are quick to point out errors that they have made. And comments by readers convey many different points of view and reactions to claims in the blogs.
The media, on the other hand, love sensation, rarely and only grudgingly admit errors, and are extraordinarily tendentious in their choices of what is newsworthy.
The great accomplishment of the press in the Viet Nam era was to convert the terrible defeat that the Viet Cong received in its Tet Offensive, into a victory for them, through tendentious reporting.
The mainstream media seems intent on doing something similar in the present conflict.
Is Posner aware that the management of corporations that own networks pride themselves on not interfering with editorial matters on their news broadcasts? Their own political orientations then have little or nothing to do with biases of the networks.
Does he remember the scandal of the faked demonstration of cars catching fire that a network flogged on 60 minutes or some such program, slandering an automaker? He insinuates that media would never do such things to big advertisers.
The word liberal at one time connoted someone who favors liberty and freedom for individuals. For a liberal in that sense to push for censorship would indeed be surprising. But today the word is used to describe the left wing of the Democrats. These are a mélange of Maoists (like one of Clinton’s cabinet members) Stalinists, Fidelists and the like, whose affinity for political correctness and for the suppression of any non pc speech is by now considered normal. What on earth can Posner mean by the comment
The argument for filtering is an argument for censorship. (That it is made by liberals is evidence that everyone secretly favors censorship of the opinions he fears.)" [Non-liberals, I suppose, in their hearts aspire to make the arguments we hear from “liberals.”]
And consider these gems:
"The mainstream media do not kick sacred cows like religion and patriotism."[I suppose Posner is too busy with his judiciary work and his thinking about deep issues to read the mainstream media, and I cannot blame him for that. But if you don’t read it, why comment idiotically on its supposed content?]
"The limited consumer interest in the truth is the key to understanding why both left and right can plausibly denounce the same media for being biased in favor of the other." [Advocates for Castro or crazy Kim or for restoration of Saddam Hussein will plausibly find our media far to their right; most of us plausibly consider it to our left. Is Posner speaking as a typical consumer here? Does he have access to information on consumer interests unknown to us?]
"The critics describe the attack (by the Swift Boat people) as consisting of lies propagated by the new right-wing media and reported as news by mainstream media made supine by anxiety over their declining fortunes." [That he quotes such comments suggests Posner is out of touch with reality. I never saw reports of the Swift Boat people in the main stream media, and their attacks consisted of very powerful commercials which most big media refused to air. One of the most powerful of these commercials consisted mainly of a tape of a speech by Kerry from many years ago.
"(They [conservatives]) would prefer that American abuse of prisoners be concealed." [Posner shows an interesting opinion of the integrity of conservatives here.]
"It took CBS so long to acknowledge Dan Rather's mistake because there are so many people involved in the production and supervision of a program like "60 Minutes II" who have to be consulted." [Posner is a busy man, so I guess we can excuse him for not reading the report of the CBS investigation of the incident]
"So a newspaper that appeals to liberal readers will avoid exposés of bad behavior by blacks or homosexuals" [as the NY Times did the bad deeds of Stalin in the 1930s. Naturally this is no reflection on its integrity.]
"Conservatives were unembarrassed by the errors of the Swift Boat veterans." [Neither the media nor the Kerry campaign deigned to comment on the Swift Boat veterans claims, as far as I can tell. I wish Posner would point out these errors to me, because I have been trying to find them myself. Ah! I guess copying that Kerry tape could be considered an error. How embarrassing!]
"Only members of the intelligentsia, a tiny slice of the population, deliberate on public issues."
I suppose then, that it is Posner’s belief that the rest of us poor slobs outside this tiny group should stop blogging and leave all decisions to these our betters. Perhaps voting should be restricted to the intelligentsia?
There is something charmingly quaint and dated about the attitudes Posner displays here. He manages to impart the notions that the hoi polloi, the non-intelligentsia conservatives, have no interest in ideas, lack integrity, have little interest in truth, and have an attitude toward censorship comparable to that of Stalinists. This is exactly what “liberals” think of the American rabble. If he were describing Jews instead of conservatives it would be appropriate to consider him an Anti-Semite. Here it supplies him with the credentials of being a member of the intelligentsia himself. Does he really need such credentials?
posted by daniel at 10:52 PM
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