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UPDATE: I think I’ll use both this and the other Maddow chapter.

In chapter A I spoke about the wonderful paradox of Rachel Maddow who has ruled the cable news ratings post 2016 election by breaking all the rules-particularly the CNN rules. But I then read this piece by Jay Rosen that touches on a particularly important MSM rule, what Rosen calls the ‘view from nowhere.’

One way to describe the ‘view from nowhere’ is the idea that the less of an opinion you have on the news of the day the more accurate your description/analysis of it. There is the MSM view that the less opinion you have, the more authoritative your discussion of the news is.

FN: Do I speak about James Fallow somewhere?

Q. You’ve been using this phrase, “the view from nowhere,” for a while– 

A. Yeah, since 2003… 

Q. So what do you mean by it? 

A. Three things. In pro journalism, American style, the View from Nowhere is a bid for trust that advertises the viewlessness of the news producer. Frequently it places the journalist between polarized extremes, and calls that neither-nor position “impartial.” Second, it’s a means of defense against a style of criticism that is fully anticipated: charges of bias originating in partisan politics and the two-party system. Third: it’s an attempt to secure a kind of universal legitimacy that is implicitly denied to those who stake out positions or betray a point of view. American journalists have almost a lust for the View from Nowhere because they think it has more authority than any other possible stance.

But Rosen is quite skeptical that it actually does have this authority:

A. What authority there is in the position of viewlessness is unearned– like the snooty guy who, when challenged, says, “Madam, I have a PhD.” In journalism, real authority starts with reporting. Knowing your stuff, mastering your beat, being right on the facts, digging under the surface of things, calling around to find out what happened, verifying what you heard. “I’m there, you’re not, let me tell you about it.” Illuminating a murky situation because you understand it better than almost anyone. Doing the work! Having a track record, a reputation for reliability is part of it, too. But that comes from doing the work. “

As Rosen explains, the idea that the more viewless you are the more authority you are is a predominant attitude of the MSM media-the Chris Cillizza, Chuck Todd-media today.

FN: Cillizza takes his status as Nowhere Man so far as to refuse to vote, evidently this is a widely held view among some MSMers.

He calls out the folly that if both sides are criticizing you you’re doing something right. 

Q. You are very critical of the View from Nowhere in journalism. It’s almost a derisive term for you. 

A. That’s true. I let my disdain for it show. 

Q. Why? 

A. Because it has unearned authority in the American press. If in doing the serious work of journalism–digging, reporting, verification, mastering a beat–you develop a view, expressing that view does not diminish your authority. It may even add to it. The View from Nowhere doesn’t know from this. It also encourages journalists to develop bad habits. Like: criticism from both sides is a sign that you’re doing something right, when you could be doing everything wrong.

Both in the previous Maddow chapter and above, I mock the CNN model-Rosen calls out a particular conceit of CNN-that only they are really news because the other two networks have points of view.

“When MSNBC suspends Keith Olbermann for donating without company permission to candidates he supports– that’s dumb. When NPR forbids its “news analysts” from expressing a view on matters they are empowered to analyze– that’s dumb. When reporters have to “launder” their views by putting them in the mouths of think tank experts: dumb. When editors at the Washington Post decline even to investigate whether the size of rallies on the Mall can be reliably estimated because they want to avoid charges of “leaning one way or the other,” as one of them recently put it, that is dumb. When CNN thinks that, because it’s not MSNBC and it’s not Fox, it’s the only the “real news network” on cable, CNN is being dumb about itself.”

Then Rosen opines on where journalism is going next:

“I could be wrong, but I think we are in the midst of shift in the system by which trust is sustained in professional journalism. David Weinberger tried to capture it with his phrase: transparency is the new objectivity. My version of that: it’s easier to trust in “here’s where I’m coming from” than the View from Nowhere. These are two different ways of bidding for the confidence of the users.”

I think theres truth in that. The trouble is the assertion of viewlessness defies belief and can actually increase skepticism and mistrust-as  while pundits clearly have a view point-like that Hillary Clinton is a bad candidate they pretend otherwise. In the case of Clinton they claim that this is a fact but it’s obviously not-it’s an opinion that’s very tough to measure scientifically.

It’s interesting that he sees this new kind of journalism emerging as rather than ‘I come from nowhere’ ‘This is where I’m coming from.’ Indeed, View from Nowhere journalism wasn’t always the dominant style of journalism, there’s a history of the muckrakers-Upton Sinclair, etc-who were brilliant journalists but had a very clear point of view.

It wasn’t really until the age of television that journalism entered the age of objectivity much less the age of viewlessness.

Prior to that newspapers were often frankly partisan and yet did real journalism-the one didn’t preclude the other. And in some ways, you could argue that both Maddow-as well as Keith Olbermann who Rosen also mentions in the piece-is part of this new ‘this is where I’m coming from’ journalism.

Maddow’s style in particular, I’ve come to realize more by the day, is truly fascinating-in that it’s so much her own. The other night in her ritual handoff to Lawrence O’Donnell at 10 he pointed out that she’d expressed an opinion on her show; this was notable, he argued, because she rarely expresses an opinion on her show. I had never thought of that before but it’s true she rarely does.

This is notable because it seems like she does express her point of view a lot. I mean everyone who watches her has no doubt she’s a liberal Democrat-wether you like me are also a liberal Democrat-I think of myself as part of the Rachel Maddow base-or you’re a conservative Republican or part of the MSM. No one doubts she is a liberal Democrat who believes in things like abortion rights for women, universal healthcare, to say nothing of LGBT rights-which is no doubt largely inferred from the fact that she herself is a lesbian woman.

FN: Of course, you’d be mistaken in inferring solely from her being a lesbian in itself and there are gay people who advocate for the GOP.

But she never states any of this-the viewers-rightly-infer it. And this is what’s so impressive about her style. One of Krugman’s favorite sayings is that facts have a well known liberal bias. 

He says it often-I tend to agree with it. But Maddow herself has never said that, likely would never say it. But she’s able to show it every night without in any way saying it. Just by a relentless discussion of known facts in the news that day-quotes from videos and from newspapers she’s able to show that facts have a well known liberal bias.

But the fact that she doesn’t opine on the news-but leads the viewer to often take a very strong opinion-shows that appearances to the contrary she’s not a pundit-quite the opposite. What she proves is some of the best journalism can be done while having a point of view-rather than from a position of viewless agnosticism.

But that as a journalist with a clear liberal Democrat point of view-that she somehow manages to bring out so strongly while never saying a word about this view herself-flies right in the face of the CNN model that to maximize authority you have to be as viewless as possible.

As noted in the previous Maddow chapter, the other thing she does that stands out from the MSM/CNN model is that she doesn’t have a lot of guests. She is actually a kind of throwback to the Dan Rather era of journalism-where the news anchor’s style was that of the Voice of God.

Again, this is doubly ironic as not only is this supposed to be the post Dan Rather era where audiences have too many choices and will get bored if the host’s monologue goes on too long and switch channels-this view was pronounced very loudly after Rather was unfairly dumped despite not misstating any facts in the W drinking-national guard story-but that this VOG model is a stereotypically male model and yet today, she alone is master of it.

It actually shows that the CNN model is quite wrong-Maddow is perfectly capable of talking for 60 minutes and not losing one of her diehard liberal viewers-many of us like to say among cable news journalists we only trust Rachel. 

Rachel never has guests on just to help her mark off the time. While she doesn’t engage in punditry, her guests-she doesn’t have a lot, usually just one or two a night-don’t engage in punditry either. She only brings people on to augment her own analysis, never to carry her and do her own work. I don’t want to put down other journalists on MSNBC but even among the other liberal hosts that I like many of them lean too much on guests. In my opinion some of their sets look like CNN-way too many guests on at a time.

Her guests are interviews who advance her-and the audience’s knowledge. Period. Regarding other MSNBC liberal hosts, I’m a big fan of Lawrence but if anything my complaint is that he has too many guests on his show. He-of all people-is at his best when he goes on long monologues. This after all was a writer for the West Wing. A lot of his guests are good, but there are some, IMHO, who don’t really advance the store of knowledge we already had coming in but just repeat what we already know and have said.

So that would be my unsolicited advice to Lawrence-who I’m a huge fan of: do more long monologues. I feel he’s a natural at it but perhaps the shows producers have worn him down and cajoled him into having lots and lots of guests all the time.

P.S. Let’s be clear I agree with Rosen-it’s not that everyone should/must do This is where I come from journalism and there’s a place for both of them. And while I make the CNN model a foil they have some great shows and reporting as well-one example really is where Brian Stelter has taken Reliable Sources. But that’s more about the journalistic side, I still think CNN overestimates the efficacy of 10 screaming partisans having a foodfight at the cafeteria table.

It would be interesting if more shows experimented with the Voice of God model-I still have this sense that in many ways people learn better from that model than the screaming partisans.

UPDATE: A major point in this book, of course, is criticism of the MSM’s coverage which it argues has a large amount of responsibility for Trump’s fake ‘win.’

But what is the cause of this awful coverage? One aspect no doubt is the idea that of Rosen’s View From Nowhere-that the Beltway aspires to be viewless. The other thing they aspire to be besides pretending to be innocent of any real opinion on anything is also analyzed by Rosen: they seek to be savvy. Basically what MSM journalists aspire to be is viewless and savvy. 

So beyond Rosen’s View From Nowhere coinage he has another for the Beltway Press-The  Church of the Savvy. 

A major complaint in my media criticism is that they only care about the truth to the extent it seems to confirm their own preconceived narrative.

What Rosen does is give us the answer as to why these MSM narratives are usually so awful. It’s bad enough that they decide on a narrative and then lean back on the pack mentality to shut any counternarrative or view out. But even on their own terms so many of the MSM narratives are besides being wrong not even terribly plausible. They simply decide that impeachment plays right into ‘President Trump’s hands and no new facts or data will ever convince them otherwise.

Before the election they felt convinced that Trump’s fomenting faux panic over  a caravan of Mexico rapidly storming the border might be false or even despicable xenophobic but nevertheless effective. How do the Democrats respond they worried.

Trump’s party went on to get wiped out in an even bigger drubbing than the 1974 GOP suffered yet the MSM continues to worry every time Trump starts banging the drum on ‘brown people pouring over the border’ that yes it’s false and yes it’s racist but will it work? 

But they somehow don’t bother to look at the empirical record which shows it didn’t work in 2018.

But how does the MSM decide on these-often bad-narratives? Rosen explains they choose the narrative they think makes them sound most savvy-and presumably ‘viewless.’

So the MSM dominant narrative-that is largely treated as reality itself for weeks and months on a particular issue-is based not on truth and fact but on what sounds to them suitably savvy yet viewless.

You’d think after 34 months since they helped Trump steal the election there’d be some of the introspection they always claim Hillary Clinton won’t do. But instead they just keep doubling down and doubling down on the doubling down-Dean Baquet being the worst offender now as he was then.

 

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