From a discussion on NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday this morning with Scott Simon and Ed Deggans:
NPR: Has heated rhetoric become a format?
Eric Deggans, TV and media critic for the St. Petersburg Times: Oh-h-h, yes! It's a format that earns millions of dollars for several people particularly in cable news and on talk radio. Contentious political debate is what fuels ratings and what earns big profits.
NPR: In the wake of the shootings in Tucson, were there some comments about the vitriol which were, in a sense, vitriolic themselves?
ED: Yeah. I'm thinking in particular of Bill O'Reilly who took on the New York Times, saying they were demonizing conservatives and cited a line from a New York Times editiorial which actually said that the contentious debate about the health care legislation increased death threats against Democratic law makers. It was, you know, true!
NPR: People have observed over the past few years, for example, that this didn't just happen when 63 million people watched Walter Cronkite overnight. But -- I don't know -- hasn't colorful and intemperate speech been a part of politics and journalism?
ED: Sure. I think, though, that we have these media platforms that are increasingly bringing this debate into our lives in more intimate ways. We have blogs. We have websites. We have internet radio. We have satellite radio. We have all these different platforms. I think people have increasingly surrounded themselves -- particularly people who are interested in this stuff -- in a silo of media that reflects their opinions back to them. We've reached a point where we can't agree on objective facts! We can't agree on things that typically we used to be able to agree on -- even when we were at our most contentious. You can't necessarily say that this shooting was inspired by political rhetoric. But certainly it's a wake-up call that can make you take another look at what's happening and take some sort of corrective action.
NPR: You mentioned Bill O'Reilly. Keith Olbermann over on MSNBC, who debates Bill O'Reilly often on his broadcast, seemed to own up to maybe using intemperate speech.
ED: What's interesting to me about that is that this fits in with the argument that liberal commentators have been making for a while. So it's easier for Keith Olbermann to say, well, maybe I crossed the line, because that doesn't turn off his audience. In fact, that will appeal to his audience because he knows there's a huge segment of his audience who believes that. So while I agree with him and I'm glad that he's willing to put that out there on the table publicly, it's easier for him to do that because it fits his brand as a commentator.
NPR: I was interested in something you wrote this week in answer to people to say, "Look, this is just talk. It's rhetoric. There's no proof that rhetoric leads to action."
ED: Right. Well, what I noticed was that we have an entire free-broadcasting media system built on the idea that media images promote specific reactions. That's the point of commercials on TV. The idea that you present a product in an attractive way and it makes people want to buy it. If that isn't good enough to fuel an $8 billion TV commercial industry and pay, by the way, the salaries of Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck, Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow and everyone else who works for free TV, then certainly that notion might be something we want to think about when it comes to the really extreme rhetoric that we've seen out there.
NPR: For a number of reasons -- maybe because it's simply entertaining -- do we exaggerate the influence of cable news outlets? I ask because just a fraction of the people who watch Brian Williams or Diane Sawyer every night or, for that matter, tune to NPR, are actually watching the cable news services.
ED: Yes, that's true. I do think that we tend to overemphasize the impact. We commentators in the media and journalists have these cable channels playing in our news rooms and in our offices all day. But I would also say that these channels tend to be watched more by people who vote. These channels tend to be watched by people who have standing in their community. They set the tone for the debate that filters down into the community in other ways. So it's important to keep an eye on them!
NPR: I don't have to tell you, Eric, nothing gets on the air these days without going through focus groups. I don't mean individual remarks so much as formats and approaches to programming and that sort of thing. Are the media just providing what the people want and the people don't realize they're getting affected by it, or are people constructing this for themselves?
ED: I don't think there's any doubt that the audience has voted, and they prefer -- particularly in prime time, on cable news, and on talk radio -- these formats where there is contentious debate. But again -- you know! -- if you let people, I'm sure they would drive any speed they wanted to on the roads. But we all decided as a society that it's important to have speed limits. I'm not suggesting a law like a speed limit. What I'm saying is, we all agree that even though we'd like to have as much freedom as possible, sometimes it makes sense for us all to observe some limits for the common good.
