This week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in) was rather unusual. Instead of focusing on a specific bite of news, or a topic drawing coverage, host Todd Wilken and I spent most of our time discussing a new survey that I truly believe is worthy of coverage.
A key element of this study is the role that “fake news” plays in cleaving America into two warring cultures. However, that omnipresent term really isn’t defined. Apparently, when Americans think about “fake news” we are rather like U.S. Supreme Court justices contemplating pornography — they know it when they see it. Hold that thought, because we will come back to it.
The key is that “fake news” has become the fightin’ word attached to the many ways in which a rising tide of advocacy media is tearing apart the foundation of American public discourse.
Here at GetReligion, we think that there is more to this than mere political bias. For decades, many — not all — American journalists have struggled to do accurate, fair-minded coverage of religious, moral and cultural issues (think “Kellerism”). This trend has now spread into other parts of American life, leaving far too many citizens, on left and right, locked inside concrete news and entertainment silos. For many citizens, the next step is to embrace conspiracy theories or even dangerous forms of rebellion.
All of these themes show up in the new study, “Democracy in Dark Times,” which is the 2020 edition of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture’s Survey of American Political Culture series. The team that produced it includes a scholar, sociologist James Davison Hunter, whose works — “Culture Wars,” for example — will be familiar to many GetReligion readers.
Think of it this way: This man wrote a book in 1994, a quarter of a century ago, entitled “Before the Shooting Begins.”
The new study, using terms central to Hunter’s book “To Change the World,” seeks to “understand not just the political weather, but the cultural climate shaping the election as well.”
Here is a crucial passage — long, but essential — on the role advocacy media is playing:
The American public’s deep misgivings toward governmental and economic institutions extends to a suspicion of the media. Just over two-thirds (68%) of all Americans agree that “you can’t believe much of what you hear from the mainstream media,” and just under two-thirds (63%) believe that “media distortions and fake news” are a very or extremely serious threat to America. Moreover, most of those who think such distortions fall short of posing a “very serious” threat still concede that they are at least a “somewhat serious” threat to “America and America’s future”; only 16 percent of Americans — fewer than one in six — dismiss media misrepresentations as not a serious threat. Importantly, most — 75 percent — of those who expected the 2020 election to be the most corrupt in history also say that you can’t believe the mainstream media. Even the majority (58%) of those who don’t expect a highly corrupt election believe that the mainstream media lacks credibility. Clearly, media skepticism runs deep throughout American political culture.
Yet again, important partisan dynamics underlie these figures. Consider the difference between self-identified Republicans and Democrats: Republicans are about twice as likely as Democrats to suspect the veracity of the media. Ninety-one percent of Republicans, for example, disbelieve the mainstream media, compared to 43 percent of Democrats. Likewise, media distortion is seen as a very serious threat by 83 percent of all Republicans and 45 percent of all Democrats. Perhaps this gap signals the alignment of the media’s mainstream with the vision and agenda of the Democratic Party; perhaps it signals the abandonment of the mainstream viewpoint by the Republican rank and file. It’s probably both. That possibility becomes credible when considering that eight of 10 Republicans (80%) agree (and most of them “completely”) that “the mainstream media exaggerated coronavirus in order to take down Donald Trump”; this, compared to only 9 percent of all Democrats — a difference of 71 percentage points. At least on this question, Republicans are almost nine times as likely as Democrats to suspect that public information is subservient to a political agenda!
Note, in that passage, the word “exaggerated,” when describing coverage of COVID-19. How many Americans would say that a climate of hostility in elite American media shaped media coverage of Trump, and his supporters, throughout most of the past five years?
Now ask this question: How many Democrats would say that a climate of hostility shaped news and commentary by Fox News (or Rush Limbaugh) during the administration of President Barack Obama?
You may say, “Those are two different kinds of media.”
Millions of Americans will now say, “Really?”
One half of America believes that the 2016 election was flawed, if not rigged, and, thus, was invalid. The other half of America believes that the 2020 election was flawed, if not rigged, and, thus, was invalid. What role did journalists in various newsrooms play in creating that standoff?
“Democracy in Dark Times,” indeed. This leads us back to those concrete information silos:
Evidence from the survey shows how starkly different the Americans inhabiting these information silos are, and, as a result, how it is that people who tune in to these discrepant sources of information perceive completely different realities in the world around them.
For example, only a quarter (24%) of those who rely upon Fox as their primary information source for politics venture out into a nation whose “founding fathers were part of a racist and sexist culture that gave important roles to White men while harming minorities and women.” Three-quarters (76%) do not live in such a world. By contrast, this racist and sexist heritage is perceived by 81 percent of those who tune to CNN, 84 percent of those who rely upon major national newspapers, 78 percent of those who tune to public television or national public radio, and about two-thirds (64%) of those who tune to the three major networks. The difference between Fox viewers and viewers of the other major networks could not be sharper.
Similarly, four out of five Fox viewers (81%) reject the notion that police and law enforcement unfairly target racial and ethnic minorities, while four out of five CNN viewers (80%), readers of major papers (82%), consumers of public broadcasting (78 %), and two-thirds of the followers of the major networks (66%) confront a world where this is the regrettable reality that they face.
What is endearing in one political culture is disgraceful, even reprehensible, in the other.
Let’s end by looking, once again, at the term “fake news.”
A quick glance at another graphic from the “Darkness” study demonstrates how crucial “fake news” is to America’s current conflicts.
Yes, note the “Media distortions and fake news” bullet at the top of the “conservative partisan” threat cloud.
Let me say “bravo” for the use of the word “distortions” in the study, attached to “fake news.” This at least hints that the quality, or accuracy, of many media reports plays a major role in this public-discourse drama.
Now, what about the topics in the blue, liberal, threat cloud? How many of them are, in part, built on some form of “fake” or distorted news?
Consider, once again, the “fake news” typology that has been used here at GetReligion. It argues that different Americans tend to define this term in different ways. Thus, “fake news” consists of:
(1) Rumors and outright hoaxes.
(2) Flawed, messed up reports that include mistakes and factual errors.
(3) Advocacy journalism that is clearly biased for or against specific groups or points of view in public debates. This may be linked to balance in these reports, in terms of who is quoted and who is not, or even the visibility of these stories. See "Kellerism."
(4) Opinion features that, under normal circumstances, would never be seen as news.
(5) Stories in which most of the information, or the most crucial information, is drawn from anonymous sources (often in ways that violate traditional journalism standards). This makes it hard for readers to gauge the validity or motivations of these sources.
(6) News reports that a specific politician or group wants voters to ignore.
Has “fake news” — as defined in items (2), (3), (4) and even (5) — influenced how progressives view “evangelical Christians”? How about “Donald Trump and his supporters”?
There is no question that various forms of “fake news” have influenced how conservatives view “immigrants and immigration” and “Joe Biden and his supporters.”
But how about the left? Maybe “fake news” is affecting the “climate” on both sides of this war?
Just asking.
Enjoy the podcast and, please, pass it along to others.