Matthew Robert Kerbel - Remote and Controlled: Media Politics in a Cynical Age, Second Edition

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Remote & Controlled

Dilemmas in American Politics

Series Editor L. Sandy Maisel, Colby College

Dilemmas in American Politics offers teachers and students a series of quality books on timely topics and key institutions in American government. Each text will examine a "real world" dilemma and will be structured to cover the historical, theoretical, policy relevant, and future dimensions of its subject.

Editorial Board

Jeffrey M. Berry

Tufts University

John F. Bibby

University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

David T. Canon

University of Wisconsin-Madison

Rodolfo O. de la Garza

University of Texas-Austin

Diana Evans

Trinity College

Linda L. Fowler

Dartmouth College

Paul S. Herrnson

University of Maryland-College Park

Ruth S. Jones

Arizona State University

Paula D. McClain

University of Virginia

Karen O'Connor

American University

Samuel C. Patterson

Ohio State University

Ronald B. Rapopart

The College of William and Mary

Craig A. Rimmerman

Hobart and William Smith Colleges

Larry Sabato

University of Virginia

David Shribman

Boston Globe

Walter J. Stone

University of Colorado-Boulder

Books in This Series

Remote and Controlled: Media Politics in a Cynical Age, Second Edition,
Matthew Robert Kerbel

Checks and Balances? How a Parliamentary System Could Change American Politics,
Paul Christopher Manuel and Anne Marie Cammisa

"Can We All Get Along?" Racial and Ethnic Minorities in American Politics , Second Edition ,
Paula D. McClain and Joseph Stewart Jr.

The Angry American: How Voter Rage Is Changing the Nation, Second Edition ,
Susan J. Tolchin

Two Parties Or More? The American Party System,
John F. Bibby and L. Sandy Maisel

Making Americans, Remaking America: Immigration and Immigrant Policy,
Louis DeSipio and Rodolfo O. de la Garza

From Rhetoric to Reform? Welfare Policy in American Politics,
Anne Marie Cammisa

The New Citizenship: Unconventional Politics , Activism , and Service,
Craig A. Rimmerman

No Neutral Ground? Abortion Politics in an Age of Absolutes,
Karen O'Connor

Onward Christian Soldiers? The Religious Right in American Politics,
Clyde Wilcox

Payment Due: A Nation in Debt, a Generation in Trouble,
Timothy J. Penny and Steven E. Schier

Bucking the Deficit: Economic Policymaking in the United States,
G. Calvin Mackenzie and Saranna Thornton

Remote & Controlled

Media Politics in a Cynical Age

Second Edition

Matthew Robert Kerbel
Villanova University

Dilemmas in American Politics

First published 1999 by Westview Press

Published 2018 by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

Copyright 1999 Taylor & Francis

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Notice:
Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kerbel, Matthew Robert, 1958
Remote and controlled: media politics in a cynical age / Matthew
Robert Kerbel. 2nd ed.
p. cm. (Dilemmas in American politics)
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
ISBN 0-8133-6869-3
1. Mass mediaPolitical aspectsUnited
States. 2. United StatesPolitics and government20th century. I. Title.
II. Series.
P95.82.U6K47 1999
302.23'0973dc21 98-35203
CIP

ISBN 13: 978-0-8133-6869-6 (pbk)

For Gabrielle, with the wish that her generation may find a way to renew optimism, excitement, and hope

Contents

1. ii
2. iii

Guide

It probably shouldn't have surprised me. After all, I knew doubts about government ran fairly deep. Still, I couldn't quite shake the memory of the response I got from the students in my introductory American Government class when I asked how many of them trusted politicians, at least some of the time. No hands went up. Not one. And this was a fairly talkative group. For the most part sophomores, they had concluded by age twenty that little good could be expected from people who had made a career of public service. The verdict was unanimous. And they are not alone. Surveys show that their opinions mirror larger national attitudes, albeit to an extreme degree. It wasn't always like this. Why is it now?

Shortly thereafter, "Meet the Press" hosted Bush White House Chief of Staff Samuel Skinner. Things were not upbeat in the Bush administration at the time. Nor were they pleasant on the Sunday program, as Skinner was pelted with acerbic questions of dubious value to anyone outside the administration. Were his views on key social issues different from the president's? How could he claim to be competent when the White House was so disorganized? Why were people in the administration saying nasty things about his capability behind his back?

The reporters asking these questions know better than anyone that administration officials were undermining Skinner because the White House is staffed by people with huge egos, a variety of personal beliefs, and their own agendas. There is always disorganization, and people backbite. The presumption underlying the reporters' questions troubled me as much as the reaction to politicians I had gotten from my sophomores. Do we really want perfection to be the standard against which journalists measure our politicians and political organizations? Show me an institution that does run smoothly, where everyone is of like mind, where all motives are pure. A university, perhaps? A television newsroom?

Reporters could say that government is different, that public officials should be held to a higher standard, given how their actions affect hundreds of millions of people in this country and potentially billions abroad. That is precisely why exchanges like the one on "Meet the Press" are so disconcerting. High standards are important, but impossible standards can foster an endless, dubious, presumptuous dialogue between reporters and political figures that makes it easy to tear down politicians in the name of protecting the rest of us.

I kept thinking about my sophomores. They didn't have to watch "Meet the Press" to get the messageit's pervasive. In newspapers and on broadcast and cable television, on talk radio, even on computer conferences, it is hard to escape the idea that politicians are not to be trusted, that politics is played primarily for selfgain, that no one is any good. This seemed to me more than the reflection of a healthy skepticism of the sort with long roots in our rebellious culture. I began to wonder about the relationship between these two things, between my turned-off sophomores and "Meet the Press," about how it is possible for us to educate ourselves to the ways of government without acquiring the journalist's cynical pose. At the nexus of political learning and political involvement lies the dilemma we will discuss here. Democracy is problematic without knowledge, but it is equally problematic without participation. Is there a way to survive the bombardment of cynical coverage and still feel the desire to be part of the process?

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