December 10, 2011
That’s not the headline on the ABC News story, of course:
Only three weeks from the Iowa caucuses, the top Republican candidates will square off tonight at a pivotal debate in the state capital. The debate, hosted by ABC News and moderated by Diane Sawyer and George Stephanopoulos, starts at 9pm ET, live from Drake University.
The prime-time debate comes as the GOP race has started to reach a boiling point. With Newt Gingrich surging to the top of the pack, former front-runner Mitt Romney has launched scathing attacks from all sides, from his key surrogates to a political action committee that, while not affiliated with the campaign, is funded by many Romney donors.
We should recognize this as what it is: Hype, of the same sort of stuff Hunter S. Thompson used to write when he was moonlighting as a publicist for a Florida wrestling promoter:
“The entire Fort Walton Beach police force is gripped in a state of fear this week; all leaves have been cancelled and Chief Bloor is said to be drilling his men for an Emergency Alert situation on Friday and Saturday night — because those are the nights when ‘Kazika, The Mad Jap,’ a 440-pound sadist from the vile slums of Hiroshima, is scheduled to make his first — and no doubt his last — appearance in Fish-head Auditorium. Local wrestling impressario Lionel Olay is known to have spoken privately with Chief Bloor, urging him to have ‘every available officer’ on duty at ringside this weekend, because of the Mad Jap’s legendary temper and his invariably savage reaction to racial insults. Last week, in Detroit, Kazika ran amok and tore the spleens out of three spectators, one of whom allegedly called him a ‘yellow devil’ . . .” – from Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail ’72
The TV network publicists want to hype up this “pivotal” debate as a cage match between Newt and Mitt, so that viewers tune in to see these two Mad Jap stranglers go at one another. The multimillionaire ABC celebrity superstar anchors Diane and George want to burnish their reputations as Important Journalists by presiding over an event of historic consequence and, for that very reason, Rick Santorum might finally catch a break.
What better “news” for ABC than to have their cage-match debate destroy both of the Mad Jap stranglers? And what better dramatic turn in the saga of Campaign 2012 than for the upset winner to be the scrappy underdog now polling in single digits? Can’t you just hear Diane and George in the post-debate analysis segment, “I was surprisingly impressed with Rick Santorum”?
This is predictable, you see. It’s about the narrative arc, because TV news is show business, and show business requires a story that captures the public imagination. The people who run TV news are, to a greater extent than most viewers understand, deliberately controlling the story, deciding what is and is not “news.”
Our perceptions are being manipulated by these people, as I argued last month in my American Spectator column, “Debating the Deciders”:
During the third debate — Aug. 11 in Ames, Iowa, televised by Fox — the moderators clearly were trying to incite clashes between Bachmann and former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who both were going all-out to win that week’s Iowa Republican Party straw poll. Pawlenty came out the loser in both the Thursday debate and the Saturday straw poll, and by Sunday quit the race. Meanwhile, the race had been transformed by the entrance of Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who quickly rose to become the front-runner. Perry seemed an unstoppable juggernaut until his performance in three June debates derailed his bandwagon. While most of Perry’s debate damage resulted from self-inflicted wounds, this is not to say that the manipulations of moderators were without effect. Howard Kurtz watched as the Fox News team planned for the Sept. 22 debate in Orlando, Florida, aiming to “get some fireworks going,” as Fox managing editor Bill Sammon put it.
Political bias isn’t the only bias of which news media are guilty, although they’re guilty as hell of that. Even those in the media who are conservative tend to have their own prejudices, including the prejudice for inciting “fireworks” in debates — and beating other networks.
That’s why I’ve got a gut hunch about tonight’s debate: The ABC moderators aren’t willing to let Fox News play the “pivotal” role with the Dec. 15 debate. If this race is going to pivot, by God, Diane and George will do the pivoting. I’ve called Santorum a “brutal counter-puncher” in debates (he got some heavy body blows in on Perry during that Orlando debate), and if my hunch is right, the ABC moderators will let him use those skills. Here’s what to look for: Controversial “gotcha” question to either Mitt or Newt and then, after they’ve attempted to evade the question, the moderators call on Santorum to respond, at which point he hammers on the front-runner, who then gets 30 seconds to respond and this back-and-forth then turns into a shouting match — “fireworks!” — with the two candidates interrupting each other.
Let’s face it: The media view Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann as yesterday’s news. Wouldn’t they relish their role as Deciders and Gatekeepers in picking Santorum as the new “Flavor of the Month”?
Should this happen — and it’s just a gut hunch, so I can’t guarantee it will happen – those of my readers who don’t like Santorum are going to be screaming bloody murder about these liberal network celebrities deliberately maniupulating the GOP presidential race. And my response will be, “You just now noticed this? They’ve been doing it all year, and it took you 12 months to catch onto it?”
The problem with some people is that they’re insufficiently cynical. No matter how many times they get played for suckers, they’re still suckers. And the carnies who run TV news have a professional obligation never to give a sucker an even break.
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