mediasphere

We're coming up on the five-year anniversary of Jon Stewart's verbal skewering of Crossfire in particular and the whole genre of left-right cable gabfests in general.  Stewart said these kind of shows were "hurting America" because of their general blather and failure to ask politicians good, sharp questions. 

Stewart's appearance on Crossfire generated quite the navel-gazing among the commentariat, and played no small role in the eventual disappearance of Crossfire, The Capitol Gang, Hannity & Colmes, and shows of that ilk.  

So, five years later, I have a half-assed blog question to ask -- did Jon Stewart hurt America by driving these shows off the air? 

If you're expecting a lengthy defense of the Crossfire format right now, well, you're going to be disappointed.  My point rather, is to question what replaced these kinds of shows on the cable newsverse.  Instead of Hannity & Colmes, you now have.... Hannity.  Is this really an improvement?   

As inane as the crosstalk shows might have been, one of their strengths was that they had people with different ideological and political perspectives talking to (and sometimes past) each other.  You could argue that the level of discourse was pretty simplistic and crude -- but at least it was an attempt at cross-ideological debate.  People from different ideological stripes watched the same show and heard the same arguments.  Nowadays, if you're looking for that kind of exchange, you either have to fast all week until the Sunday morning talk shows, or go visit bloggingheads. 

Instead of Crossfire-style shows on cable news, you now have content like Hannity, Glenn Beck, Countdown with Keith Olbermann, etc.  These programs have no cross-ideological debate.  Instead, you have hosts on both the left and the right outbidding each other to see who can be the most batsh**t insane ideologically pure.  These shows attract audiences sympathetic to the host's political beliefs, and the content of these shows help viewers to fortify their own ideological bunkers to the point where no amount of truth is going to penetrate their worldviews.  Which allows these hosts to say any crazy thing that pops into their head and hear nothing but "Ditto!" after they say it. 

Again, you have to discount this as a half-assed blog observation, but it seems to me that shows like Glenn Beck or Keith Olbermann are now sucking up the available oxygen in the cable newsverse that programs like Capitol Gang use to breathe.  Is that really a good thing? 

So, five years later, I'd like to ask Mr. Stewart a question -- was your rant good for America? 

UPDATE:  Two quick responses.  First, this commenter argues that the Glenn Becks of the world are far worse than the Keith Olbermanns of the world, and that this post has a "plague on both houses" quality to it. 

OK, let's stipulate that the bulk of the output that I'm decrying in this post comes from the right rather than the left.  I'll even further stipulate that Rachel Maddow represent the best of this kind of format.  So stipulated. 

Feel better now?  Does that stipulation in any way affect the argument I made above?  No, I didn't think so. 

Second, James Joyner responds with this observation:

Contra-Tucker Carlson, I actually believe shows like Stewart’s “Daily Show” and Stephen Colbert’s “Colbert Report” do a better job of illuminating issues than the screamfests did.  But that’s a rather low bar. 

Well...... maybe.  When Stewart is on his game, he is quite the interrogator.  But Carlson was correct about one point -- politicians had a clear incentive to duck the screamfests in favor of "soft news" formats like the morning network shows, late-night talk shows, "fake news" shows like Stewart's or SNL, or even Oprah.  How many politicians now choose to duck Stewart's show entirely for even softer news outlets.  And, to repeat -- what replaced the left-right screamfests?  Ideologically pure screamfests. 

Thanks, but no thanks. 

The New York Times' Alexei Barrionuevo and Simon Romero report on an entertaining leader summit for the Union of South American Nations.  One bone of contention at the summit was a recent military accord between the United States and Colombia. 

The proceedings were apparently broadcast live.  This part stood out: 

Mr. Chávez had previously described the [U.S.-Colombia] accord as a step toward war and had said it involved American designs on Venezuelan oil. He has been threatening to break off diplomatic relations with Colombia.   

President Alan García of Peru, who has warm relations with the United States, took a shot at Mr. Chávez, noting Venezuela’s continued willingness to export oil to the United States.

“Man, why are they going to dominate the petroleum if you already sell it all to the United States?” Mr. García said. The remark drew laughter, though not from Mr. Chávez.

With the caveat that this as a speculative, half-assed generalization, it does seem that certain regions produce vastly more entertaining summits than other regions.  Latin America and the Middle East produce summit meetings with open and entertaining feuding.  Europe and the Pacific Rim, not so much. 

Why is this?  I don't think it's the number of "colorful leaders" -- if that was true, then Silvio Berlusconi would have made the EU summits rip-roaring affairs years ago.  I don't think it's the degree of security tensions -- East Asia has more enduring rivalries than Latin America. 

Seriously, why? 

As I said previously, I've been reading Liaquat Ahamed's Lords of Finance while in Basle.  This seems appropriate, as the book recounts the creation of the Bank of International Settlements, among other events. 

The book has been a fun and informative read, but I was particularly struck by an excerpt from a newspaper article that Ahamed quoted.  The New York World decided to advise Americans travelling to France in the summer of 1926.  At the time, the French were a bit tetchy about U.S. insistence that the French government repay its First World War debts in fill:

Don't boast in cafes that American currency is the only real honest-to-God money in the world.  It isn't.  Besides such bursts of financial patriotism are annoying to people who did not spend the years 1914 to 1916 accumulating world credit by selling munitions, cotton and wheat to other nations which were busy with a war....

Don't confide to your fellow passengers on raileay trains that America is the most generous of creditors because America has cancelled all that part of debts which nobody can collect.  Talk instead of our prowess in tennis, golf or Prohibition.  It comes with better grace. 

Is it just me, or does that seem much snarkier than most commentary you would read today? 

The Financial Times' Peter Garnham reports that China is getting serious about internationalizing the use of the renminbi:

China has kick-started a major plan to internationalise the renminbi and the process is likely to be faster than many expect, according to HSBC....

“China is beginning an ambitious scheme to raise the role of the renminbi in international trade and finance and to reduce reliance on the US dollar,” said Qu Hongbin, China chief economist at HSBC.

“This will likely be a multi-year and gradual process. Yet, we believe the pace is likely to be faster than many expect.”

HSBC said the internationalisation of the renminbi was long overdue, given China’s rising economic power relative to the limited use of the renminbi overseas.

If you read the whole story, you discover that the FT's evidence for this assertion rests entirely on assertions by HSBC officials.  Which leads one to wonder whether maybe, just maybe, the FT should have checked to see whether HSBC has any financial stake in globalizing the use of the renminbi. Crazy talk, I know...

Loyal readers are surely aware that this is not the first time the Financial Times has hyperventilated over Chinese moves that don't necessarily amount to all that. 

Now before anyone accuses me of going all Brad DeLong on the FT, I think a lot of their China coverage (particularly by Jamil Anderlini and Geoff Dyer) has been very informative.  That said, this kind of thinly sourced story does lead one to wonder just how much of the coverage of China's financial moves is hype from financial players with a vested interest in feeding the China bubble. 

Readers -- am I underreacting to this? 

Laura McKenna has a great post on the current state of the blogosphere.  The title to this post sums up (but does not do justice to) her argument.  Lots of respones from other "oldie bloggers": Matt Yglesias, Megan McArdle, Kevin Drum, Russell Arben Fox, Adam Kotsko, Ezra Klein, and Tyler Cowen.

The fact that it took me a few days to stumble onto it suggests she's onto something.  Some of her key points:

Bloggers have undermined the blogosphere. Bloggers do not link to each other as much as they used to.  It's a lot of work to look for good posts elsewhere, and most bloggers have become burnt out. Drezner and Farrell had a theory that even small potato bloggers would have their day in the sun, if they wrote something so great that it garnered the attention of the big guys. But the big guys are too burnt out to find the hidden gems. So, good stuff is being written all the time, and it isn't bubbling to the top.

Many have stopped using blogrolls, which means less love spread around the blogosphere. The politics of who should be on a blogroll was too much of a pain, so bloggers just deleted the whole thing....

In the past, I could easily figure out which blogs had linked to me and then send them a reciprocal link. For whatever reasons, Google Blog and Technorati aren't picking up the smaller blogs, and I have no idea who's linking to me....

So blogging has changed a lot in the past six years. It's still an excellent medium for self-expression and professional networking, but it will no longer make mega-stars. It's actually a good thing that the hoopla has died down. No one should spend that much time in front of a computer. The expectations were unrealistic. Use your blogs to target particular audiences and have a clear mission, and you'll get a following. Blogging should be the means to another goal -- a rough draft for future articles/books, a way to network with professionals, a place to document your life for your children, a way to have fun. Those are very real and good outcomes of blogging and that's why I'm continuing to keep at.  

Laura is definitely onto something -- professionalization, partisanship and speciaization have hit the blogosphere pretty hard.  The linksearch problem might be abetting this -- like Laura, I have more difficulty now tracing who's linked to my posts than I did a few years ago. 

That said, I will defend the "focal point" argument Henry and I made oh so many moons ago.  When the unexpected happens in the world, I do think new blogs and new bloggers can emerge rapidly.  Think of Simon Johnson's Calculated Risk Baseline Scenario blog in response to the global financial crisis, or Tehran Bureau in response to the Iran election imbroglio. 

The difference might be that new bloggers are not exactly neophytes on their subject matter.  Johnson was the IMF's chief economist, for example.  My fellow bloggers here at Foreign Policy are not exactly novices in the subject matter.  So it might be more accurate to say that the days when someone like Matt Yglesias or Kevin Drum could be vaulted into the top tier of bloggers has come to an end. 

As to whether this is a good or bad thing, I'm hopelessly compromised here because of my total selling out move to Foreign Policy.  I'll let the readers be the judge.

Whenever there is a discussion about the structural shifts taking place in the American economy, there's usually a question along the lines of, "where will the new jobs come from?" 

This is a fantastically difficult question to answer.  The answer requires an ability to predict future sectoral trends in the economy, which last I checked is pretty difficult.  For example, we know that many journalists are going the way of do-do, but what will they do instead?

The New York Times' Noam Cohen, however, has pointed the way towards future employment opportunities for writers: 

In its short history, Twitter — a microblogging tool that uses 140 characters in bursts of text — has become an important marketing tool for celebrities, politicians and businesses, promising a level of intimacy never before approached online, as well as giving the public the ability to speak directly to people and institutions once comfortably on a pedestal.

But someone has to do all that writing, even if each entry is barely a sentence long. In many cases, celebrities and their handlers have turned to outside writers — ghost Twitterers, if you will — who keep fans updated on the latest twists and turns, often in the star’s own voice.

Because Twitter is seen as an intimate link between celebrities and their fans, many performers are not willing to divulge the help they use to put their thoughts into cyberspace.

Britney Spears recently advertised for someone to help, among other things, create content for Twitter and Facebook.  Kanye West recently told New York magazine that he has hired two people to update his blog. “It’s just like how a designer would work,” he said.

Guest Twitterers are just the beginning.  I see a robust future for Twitter script doctors ("the first clause is great, but the last three words died in the 18-24 demographic."), Twitter proofreaders ("are we using the English or American version of 'harbor'?"), and -- in world politics -- Twitter translators and diplomatic advisors ("Mr. President, I'm not sure that twittering 'the dollar is here to stay, motherf***ers!' is really the right message to send right before the London summit.") 

And, as Tom Ricks points out, foreign actors might need some assistance on this front as well. 

Via Andrew Sullivan, I see that Thomas P.M. Barnett is a wee bit nervous about the impending release of his book: 

I am not feeling very optimistic about the book's reception. I just don't sense any buzz. Maybe that's because I'm living in Indiana under a foot and a half of snow, but it does haunt me. Far more than passing kidney stones, I feel like waiting on a book release is like a woman waiting for labor--mostly it's dread and regret and the inability to get a decent night's sleep.

I know that's being self-absorbed, but--again--that's why it's like heading toward labor: there is this all-consuming sense of an onrush of something either very good or very bad and you have a hard time sensing the possibility of anything in between those two extremes.

As someone who is also waiting on a book to come out, I sympathize with Barnett's pain.  I suspect, however, that his agita is actually worse than a garden-variety book author. 

This has to do with the nature of book publishing and the state of the world.  When publishing a book, all international relations authors not named Bob Woodward must endure a 3-12 month window during which the book is copyedited, typeset, and then published.  During this period, an author can make limited changes to the text -- but nothing significant. 

This gap doesn't matter all that much -- unless, of course, one is writing about world politics in a time of flux.  In that case, authors feel like a hostage to current events.  And because of the financial crisis, I've read an awful lot of first chapters recently that seemed out of date the moment they were published. 

From FoxNews.com: 

As the state Senate's impeachment trial for Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich draws to a close, media relations pros say he might have been better off mounting a defense in the state capital rather than on the airwaves. 

Wow. 

I look forward to the follow-up stories:

• Media relations pros suggest that Tom Cruise stop talking about Scientology,
• Media relations pros suggest winning the Super Bowl is better for one's career than losing it.   

Readers are encouraged to suggest other pathbreaking predictions by media relations pros.