The President, Fox News, And Death

In Malcolm Gladwell's wonderful new book, Blink, he shares a word-test used in psychological research. When a subject is given several sets of words and is asked to remove the odd, unrelated word from each set, a curious thing happens. If the words removed are something like this––grey, Florida, retirement, mortality, funeral–– the subject responds differently than if the words have nothing to do with the unhappy facts of aging and death. Unknown to the subject, the subject's walking pace has been measured since he or she entered the research clinic. When the subject takes the test with the mortality-laced words, that subject walks away slower from the test than a person who takes a test emphasizing something happy.

Hence, it can be safely said that words affect impressions and moods and even behaviors.

Permit me to jump from psychology to news. I want to refresh your memory about the collective gasp heard when Democrats lost last year's presidential election. What was heard in that gasp? Among other things, there were criticisms of the power of talk-radio and Fox News. In fact, John Kerry listed these things in a post-election statement he gave to his supporters. You see, to Democrats, both radio hosts and Fox News worked to undermine democracy, working as mouthpieces for the Republican machinery. Even Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 jabbed at Fox with all the pre-election force he could muster.

Today, please note a strange fact. Fox News and talk radio are as strong as ever, and presumably, as partisan as ever. As many if not more people as last year are tuning in to these media services. Scoffing and mockery have not stopped among the leftist critics of these apparently right-wing behemoths. And yet, never in the history of American polling has a president's approval rating been so low. How, pray tell, can this be, if the United States electorate is blindly controlled by a partisan media machine? From where have Americans been getting their deep and allegedly trenchant insights into the presidency, if not from the allegedly pro-Bush Fox News, the right-leaning Wall Street Journal, and the talking mouths that tickle our ears from their radio towers? If the Republicans could so effectively control what people think last year, how have they failed so miserably this year? What has changed?

Perhaps nothing has changed, though that this is an off-election year is a major factor. So, too, are high fuel prices a powerful factor in shaping perception. And Bush is a lame duck, which is no small thing.

But there might be another factor: pyschological manipulation. Here is something I learned from Fox News, which provides us with a powerful example of psychological warfare. Read this brief submitted by Fox's Brit Hume:

Burying the Lead?

Nearly 79 percent of Iraqis voted to adopt the country's new constitution, but you might not know it from reading the Associated Press report on the election. The first paragraph notes that Sunnis are already calling the vote "a farce." In the second paragraph, the AP reports that two more U.S. Marines were killed in Baghdad last week.

The story then speculates that the victory could fuel the insurgency and reports on several more acts of violence across the country since the election. The AP finally points out the constitution's overwhelming margin of victory in paragraph 27.

Why would the Associated Press do this? Why would it choose to highlight what was not the news for a particular weekend, you know, that historic weekend two weeks ago when Iraqis approved the new constitution nearly 4 to 1? Was the AP trying to affect your psyche, to control your behavior, to make you walk more slowly? I think so.

I am not afraid to admit that this sort of language manipulation is common to all news sources and political parties. I concede that it is hard to trust what one hears and reads. Scepticism cannot be used too frequently, I'm afraid. But when the mass of the media constantly drip and drip and drip information that is not entirely true, or that is shaped or colored in order not to inform you but to change you and the world (journalists are not above the messianic impulse), you need more than scepticism. You need intellectual vigor, even a pugnacious spirit, to strip the skin of deception down to the bone of truth.

Here's another great brief from Hume:

Reasons for Ratings?

A new CBS poll (search) shows the president's job approval rating has hit an all time low of 35 percent and 68 percent of respondents tell CBS that the country is on the wrong track. CBS cites the Iraq war, the Libby indictment, and the response to Hurricane Katrina (search) as reasons for the decline, but the poll's weighted sample may be more telling.

Twenty-eight percent of those polled identified themselves as Republicans, compared to 35 percent who said they were Democrats. But CBS dropped the importance of Republican responses even further weighting the sample so that Republican responses counted for only 24 percent of the final results. Thirty-seven percent of voters in last year's election called themselves Republicans, while 37 percent said they were Democrats, and 26 percent called themselves Independents.

Is this the sort of reporting by Fox News so disdained by the left? It sure could be. It sure should be.

But my overall point is this: Don't let anyone, including me, force you to walk slower, unless it is the truth that slows you down.

Contratimes

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.