October 13, 1992, was the day I gave up on mainstream journalism. It was the day I realized that such "journalism," as it is now practiced, is surreal, irrelevant, unconcerned with facts or reality.
That was the day when I first recognized the appalling nonsense of "he said/she said" journalism. Others have described and lamented this phenomenon at great length, and with more clarity and insight than I can muster here. But since your first time is always special, let me tell you about my terrible epiphany of October 13, 1992.
I was watching the vice-presidential debate, which featured the incumbent, Dan Quayle, and the two challengers, Sen. Al Gore and retired Vice Admiral James Stockdale.
A key exchange in the debate involved Quayle's misrepresentation of a passage from Gore's book, Earth in the Balance. In the chapter in question, Gore argued for a new "Marshall Plan" to promote sustainable development in the Third World. Quayle offered a garbled interpretation of this idea and Gore corrected him.
The point here is that the debate got very specific — with Quayle citing a specific page number, page 304, of Gore's book.
After the debate, I clicked between the networks and watched the talking heads discuss their feelings about which of the candidates was more "convincing" in this dispute. Nobody bothered to pick up a copy of the damned book, turn to page 304, and compare what the candidates said with the rather specific and easily checked facts of the matter.
The book was a best-seller. It shouldn't have been hard to find a copy. Once Quayle cited a specific page number, I got up, walked across the living room, grabbed a copy of the book and looked up the passage. My apartment was apparently better equipped than the research departments of ABC, NBC and CBS news.
Yet none of the "journalists" apparently considered this their job. It did not even occur to them to look up the disputed passage.
What are the facts? What is true? They were not interested in such questions. All they cared about was: 1) repeating what was said by each of the opposing sides on this disputed matter of fact, and 2) reporting their own feelings about how convincing/compelling/inspiring each of the speakers was in making his case.
No one has ever been better at exploiting journalists' disregard for reality than George W. Bush. He and his spokespeople, and especially his vice president, have realized that it doesn't matter if what they say is in any way reconcilable with reality.
The archetypal Bush moment occurred in the White House on July 14, 2003. Sitting just a few feet from a shocked U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, Bush said the following:
"The fundamental question is, did Saddam Hussein have a weapons program? And the answer is, absolutely. And we gave him a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn't let them in."
Astonishing. It wouldn't have been more astonishing if the president had claimed, say, that the Pacific Ocean does not exist. This transcends mere dishonesty. Bush wasn't lying — he was spinning whole new worlds, new histories, alternate realities.
Even more astonishing: few journalists considered it their job to point out that it was impossible to reconcile Bush's statement with the truth.
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