Tabloid Journalism as a Reaction to Information Technologies

Alterman's essay, Lies About Blowjobs, Bad. Wars? Not So Much, opens with an intriguing hypothesis for those of us with an interest in charting the effects of technological shifts in the new-media ecology on various discourse networks.

At a recent conference on the Clinton Administration at Hofstra University, ex-press secretary Jake Siewart made a point that had previously eluded me: It was during the early days of Clinton's presidency that the democratization of instant information made the insider press corps obsolete. To retain their importance and self-regard, these journalists had to invent a new function for themselves, and they did: interpreting, not reporting, the news. But instead of doing the hard work of researching the historical, economic, sociological and political contexts of a given story and then finding a way to explain these in lay terms, they preferred to rely on what came most easily to them: cocktail party gossip, green room small talk, semiofficial leaks and unconfirmed rumor, almost always offered up as if the source had no interest in pushing a point of view.

As a literary critic I'm wary of the clear-cut distinction between reporting and interpreting that Alterman makes in the paragraph above. As students in my English and American Fiction course should recall from our reading of Graham Greene's The Quiet American, I believe that the decision to choose to report or not to report certain information, however purely objective or factual it might appear, already involves several interpretive moves. I suspect that Alterman would probably concede this point, since he reminds us that responsible journalists should always consider why a source is presenting them with information, particularly when that info is leaked.

In any case, I wholeheartedly agree with his larger points: that the media elite held Clinton to a different standard than other presidents, particularly Bush Jr., when it comes to lying and that lying about a blowjob is trivial compared to lying about the need to invade another country. These points have been made by Alterman and others elsewhere, and I've got some of them on file.

My reason for archiving this essay is its opening hypothesis about the Washington press corps turning to tabloid journalism as a response to the "democratization of instant information" made possible via the Internet. It makes sense, though I'm not sure how one could go about proving the claim. While its important to recognize the extent to which our media (and here I mean the communication technologies, not professionals working in the broadcasting or publishing industries) influence the type of communication or discourse that circulates in a society at a given time, we don't want to fall back on a crude technological determinism.

The (technological) medium is the message, yes, to a certain degree. But the economic forces behind these technologies, particularly the communications networks, are equally important. Don't neglect the economic incentives that would prompt journalists to align themselves, perhaps not even consciously, with the politicos who represent the market interests of the largest shareholders of various media empires.