To paraphrase Jonah Goldberg's November 9th column, "
Patriotism Is Not All That," let us now sing against the questionable practice of making specious claims about vaguely-defined entities.
In his column, Goldberg talks about the "patriotism" of the media in ways confusing, roundabout, and to my mind, objectionable. I read Goldberg for the same reason that I read Andrew Sullivan, Michelle Malkin and other conservative commentators: to get a sense of the territory, the arguments, and the philosophy. This is, perhaps, not wise. What I've discovered is that, with the possible exception of Sullivan, most of these commentators seem far more interested in stirring up controversy or in illustrating their own education than they are in making themselves heard outside the sphere of those who already agree with them.
Reading what I've written, it's possible that someone could make the same argument about me. After all, this blog is basically my public journal, and it's no secret that I have strong opinions. But at Codemorse, I try to give credence to all sides of an argument. If I'm wrong about something, or if someone presents to me a credible alternative viewpoint, I'm willing to hear them. You'll see Malkin douse herself in syrup and roll on an ant-hill before you'll hear her make an admission that she may have been wrong.
In that spirit, let's take a look at Goldberg's thoughts, and why they frustrate me.
Quoting Mike Wallace:
“Look, you know as well as I, reporters are in the business because they want to be — first of all, they’re patriots just as much as any conservative. Even a liberal reporter is a patriot, wants the best for this country. And people — you know, your fair and balanced friends at Fox — don’t fully understand that.”
Well, not only is that more than a little condescending. It’s highly concentrated damn foolishness. What Wallace doesn’t fully understand is that lots of people have good reason to suspect that media Brahmans like him are less patriotic than the average Joe.
Now, I'm not sure about you, but answering percieved condescension with your own brand of same seems a mighty peculiar way to be taken seriously on a topic. Unless Goldberg is referring to the media as
the concept of the unchanging, infinite, immanent and trancesdent reality that is the Divine Ground of all being, he's most likely referring to the "media Brahmans" in a more pejorative sense. Perhaps he's implying that the media is like unto "a group of aristocratic families in the New England area of the United States. Since that's spelt "Brahmin," though, I assume he does not.
So, maybe he just means "media Brahmans"
in the sense of cattle. That's pretty damn condescending in its own right. It's especially so if Goldberg is being all subtle on us and using Brahmans as a way of implying that the media is a "Sacred cow," unreasonably immune from criticism. Which is ironic, because the unspoken subject of his column is whether America's government should be criticized by the media, and how much criticism is "patriotic," apparently on some sort of metaphorical sliding scale.
Goldberg's overall point, at least, from what I'm able to suss out, seems to be that just because you claim to be patriotic doesn't mean that you possess the same level of patriotism that other people (presumably Goldberg, amongst other unnamed parties) do.
While Goldberg is correct in the literal sense, I don't really see the point of the argument save to further savage the patriotism credentials of the mainstream media through the implication that they are too "cosmopolitan" to possess the same loyalty to country that others hold.
Goldberg undermines himself in his use of Walter Cronkite as an example. He cherry-picks his Cronkite anecdote while avoiding an enormous logistical pitfall. Yes, Cronkite wore an American military uniform during World War II, but he was also the journalist responsible for bringing the reality of the Vietnam War in all its horrific splendor into the living rooms of previously ill-informed citizens. Cronkite would seem to be a less-extreme example of exactly the sort of Dispassionate Observer that Goldberg questions, more outwardly opinionated in his reportage of the two, but no less willing than Wallace would be to report upon the government in actions both admirable and less-than.
In today's commentator climate, Cronkite would be savaged for his impertinence and his lack of "patriotism," decried by supporters of the war as a leftist communist. By logical default, in the eyes of those watchdogs, you must report loyally and in favor of America. To do otherwise is to render yourself a) A tool of the liberal, opinion-saturated media establishment, b) to give succor to our enemies, or, as Goldberg puts it, c) be a detached "citizen of the world" with less patriotism than other, still unnamed parties. What other option is a reporter left with?
Goldberg either dismisses or willfully ignores the value of reporter as Dispassionate Observer, a mistake which reduces the persuasiveness of his argument greatly. One of Journalism's mandates is to report the facts, and those facts may not always be favorable to one's country. The value inherent in a free press comes from the ability of our reporters to deny "the party line" (whether left or right of it) and report what has happened, not their "take" on events.
It's up to columnists like Goldberg to then give opinions on the news they read, not to give opinion on opinion. That's why we have separate sections for "News" and "Editorials." That many news outlets have blurred the lines between the two is a cause for enormous concern. If anything, I'd argue that impartiality and detachment are qualities needed in much greater amounts than what we currently recieve. I'd argue that getting the facts out to the people, especially in the face of possible falsehoods (or, put more plainly, lies) is patriotism defined.
As for the implication-as-question that American journalism does too much in revealing our nation's problems to the world: it is, at heart, an argument for censorship. Were Goldberg speaking of revealing national secrets, the locations of our troops, our plan of attack and/or defense, I would agree that journalistic revelation is an ill, and one that said-journalists would do well not to engage in.
But he is not, I think, referring to these things at all. He is referring to journalism that questions the decisions and motivations of our government, things made public to the American people and open to the public debate. It is a strength of democracy to have a press which reports unsparingly upon its own government in this manner.
