click on the image for info. about the National Conference on Media Reform in Denver, April 5-7, 2013

“Public opinion research suggests that citizens have little knowledge or understanding of either the source of our dysfunctional politics or the nature of the Republican policy ambitions.”   link

You used to see them on the morning political shows likie Meet the Press and Face the Nation but not so much since their new book, It’s Even Worse Than It Looks was published in May.  Thomas Mann, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and Norman Ornstein, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, are “savvy political scientists who know Washington politics well….regarded as middle-of-the-road guys, centrists, for a number of years in DC” according to the Columbia Journalism Review.

The premise of their book is (1) that the core of Washington’s political dysfunction lies with the Republican Party and (2) that the American press is doing a disservice to citizens and Democracy by failing to point this out.

Basically, they’re saying, “it’s the GOP,  stupid.”   As they put it in The Washington Post: 

“The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence, and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition. “   (click here to read more about the GOP “strategy”)

But they’re also saying “it’s the media, stupid” – but not the same media you would think like Fox News and Rush Limbaugh.   They are talking about actual journalism – not cable news or conservative talk radio, but newspapers and mainstream press that attempt to achieve “balance” in their coverage of politics.    Mann and Ornstein make the case that such “balance” only works when both parties are within the norms.  But when one party is extreme  like the Republicans are currently,  journalistic “balance” or he said/she said approaches to coverage only make things worse.

Below is an excerpt of an interview of Mann and Ornstein by Trudy Lieberman in the CJR.   They make a compelling case  about the press’  failure to help citizens sort  it all out and what this means for Democracy.    Link to the full article here.  Read on.

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The Politics

Why is the GOP to blame for political stalemate you describe in your book? They are now the primary source of the stalemate. At the very beginning of the Obama administration, they made an explicit decision—now well documented—to eschew any policy negotiations with the newly elected president and Democrats in Congress. It’s a strategy of total political opposition—to avoid sharing any responsibility for the performance of the economy and to do nothing that might improve its performance, because that would boost the electoral prospects of President Obama and Congressional Democrats. Their motivation goes beyond differences on the issues. It’s an aggressive, non-negotiable stance, illustrated by the no-new-tax pledge of Grover Norquist, that makes any real constructive policy making impossible.

Are you saying the Republican Party has changed? The result of all this is the transformation of the Republican Party into a radical party—not really a conservative party—that no Republican president in the modern era would have felt comfortable being a part of.

It’s a democracy—Isn’t it okay for one party to do this? Of course, it is perfectly legitimate for a party to propose a radical change of policy course. But it is essential that the public have some grasp of what that party is proposing and what its likely consequences would be. Public opinion research suggests that citizens have little knowledge or understanding of either the source of our dysfunctional politics or the nature of the Republican policy ambitions.

The Press

Because of the partisan nature of much of the media and the reflexive tendency of many in the mainstream press to use false equivalence to explain outcomes, it becomes much easier for a minority, in this case the Republicans, to use filibusters, holds, and other techniques to obstruct…

Where do the media go wrong, in this scenario? There is a strong tendency on the part of the mainstream media to avoid taking sides—in other words, to avoid reaching conclusions that put the onus of our dysfunctional politics on one party or another or on one candidate or another. This can be strength in an era in which the partisan and ideological media have grown in size and importance. But it can also be a trap that does a disservice to the citizenry.

Can you explain a bit more? Reporters admirably embody professional norms favoring fairness and nonpartisanship. But too often even the most talented and dedicated reporters, especially in these partisan times with media watchdogs on the constant lookout for bias, retreat to a formulaic “he says/she says” or “both parties are to blame” that imposes a false equivalence on the underlying reality. Reporters don’t want to be charged with partisan bias, and their editors and producers have strong professional and economic incentives to avoid such charges. The safe response is to insist on “balance,” even if the phenomenon is clearly unbalanced. In their quest to be fair and balanced, they misinform and disarm a public trying to fix our dysfunctional politics.

Can you give a concrete example of this political asymmetry? Our book contains many such examples. One is the widespread belief that both parties are equally to blame for budget deficits and debt. As the story goes, Republicans won’t raise taxes and Democrats won’t cut spending, especially on so-called entitlements. The reality is different. Almost all Republican candidates and officeholders have signed Grover Norquist’s “no new taxes” pledge and impose fealty to it with political committees, threatening primary challenges. As far as they are concerned, tax increases are off the table. Democrats are willing to deal with everything as long as everything is on the table, and deficit reduction is not used as a cover to achieve broader ideological objectives.

How do reporters and columnists write about this? They mainly say both parties are equally implicated in the failure to tame deficits—even though recent fiscal policy history and current negotiating positions suggest otherwise.

Did this dynamic of media balance play out in the healthcare debate? Obama’s healthcare proposals were designed to avoid the pitfalls of past failures by negotiating with many of the healthcare stakeholders and embracing ideas that had been the centerpiece of past Republican proposals. These included state exchanges to foster competition in private insurance, subsidies for low income households, significant insurance reforms including guaranteed issue and affordability for those with pre-existing conditions, and an individual mandate to encourage universal coverage. But once Obama was for them, Republicans turned against them. They refused to negotiate on the contents of a health reform plan, and characterized their old plans as socialistic. Whatever Obama’s messaging failures, the press itself failed to inform the public of the disingenuousness of the Republican opposition and the inaccuracy of much of the rhetoric leveled against the Affordable Care Act. It was safer to cover the politics of health reform and avoid making judgments that were tougher on one party than the other.

Does this apply in other situations? It applies in many situations. You see it in healthcare and on taxes. Reporters should be examining, is it plausible to hold to a no new taxes pledge and be responsible to the issues of the deficit and the debt? What the no new tax pledge has done to the Republican Party is to limit its ability to deal with the problem. Instead they say let’s talk around it. What are the implications in the Ryan budget? Do you ever see that laid out in a television show or a major print piece? Once in awhile the Times or The Wall Street Journal will have something. But most of the time you don’t get this.

So how should reporters cover this? Help audiences understand asymmetrical polarization. Document, and report on it. Who’s telling the truth? Who’s taking hostages?

Can we really expect this to happen? That was one of the reasons we wrote the book. We have learned our book has led to heated discussions in some newsrooms. We know there are enormous challenges. Our goal is get into the discussion within media organizations.

Is the press innately defensive? Yes. It’s getting harder and harder to take risks. That’s part of the argument we’re making. In the face of these partisan wars, the press has become even more defensive and looks for safe harbors. One of these is to treat both sides as equally implicated. It was probably easier to cover things when both parties were operating in the mainstream of American politics. When one party has moved off track in such a breathtaking fashion, he said/she said serves to obscure the underlying reality rather than expose it.

What’s the fallout for you of this book? We built some capital over four decades, based on straight shooting, nonpartisan political analysis and commentary. The new reality of American politics compelled us to spend some of that capital. Neither of us has any regrets. Nor do we believe we’ve become partisan in any way. We reached a conclusion we believe is accurate.

(click here to read the entire article)