Media Curmudgeon

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January 7, 2008

Television Blurrs the Lines

Guest blogger Bill Grimes, former CEO of ESPN, writes:

"Your blog about media coverage of politics as sports got me to thinking. I agree with your observation that television is purposely blurring the distinction between these two activities.

It seems to me that the news reporters who stand in the cold sidewalks waiting to shout a question at a candidate who is scurrying to his or her next venue are like their sports counterparts who hustle into a strategic position on the football field where they can best intercept the frantic coach who is running into the locker room and pepper him with questions about his decisions and the opposition. The reporters who are actually at the debates seem to convey that the atmosphere there at the conference hall is like that of a wild card NFL playoff -- “it’s important, fans, but there’s a long way off until the Super Bowl” or that of Dick Vitale’s boosteristic delivery of a Duke/UNC hoops game.

Then there was the normally demure Diane Sawyer dressed in high chic designer black barely containing her excitement over her network’s presentation “of this doubleheader debate”. A doubleheader? Sounds like two games to me.

Having watched during the last two evenings of debates as the candidates dodge, shuffle, interfere, and intercept each others’ (verbal) shots, passes and runs (did I miss any sports verbs or nouns here?) I have consciously accepted what I have known for some time – is there a meager difference in the stated positions of the Democrat on any issue of substance and same with the Republicans? More importantly, and sadly, there is no way for any of us to know what any of them would do in a crisis situation because none of them know for certain what they would do either. All candidates can articulate a decision they would make in moments of international peril or how they would change domestic programs such as Social Security, taxes and immigration – and their positions on all are strikingly similar – but such protestations are, of course, made in a theoretical or academic moment of early 2008, not in 2009 and years forward when real decisions which must take into consideration a blurred multitude of interests will have to be made.

In such a situation, how do we decide who to support? How do we select our candidate? We do what so often we human beings do in making most of our life’s decisions: we develop a verbal rationale why we believe in and support candidate A or B, but that decision is made much more on emotion than reason.

That we decide such issues in this subjective, qualitative manner has bothered me over the years, because we human beings with larger brains than any other form of life on earth should be more rationale, quantitative and objective in our decision-making than we are. I have now concluded, as Robert Wright contends in The Moral Animal , that we human beings, not that far removed from our gorilla predecessors and who now face extermination by misdeeds of us smarter animals, make most of our decisions based upon emotional, subjective, qualitative feelings which conform with our needs to be loved, recognized and accepted by those we respect and admire.

To his thought I would add that our decisions are also affected by feelings of guilt. (After all, as Wright demonstrates, we humans are the moral animals, but we are still mostly animals when it comes to pure intellectual reasoning and understanding.) I think our feelings of guilt which differ, of course, from person to person affect our decisions on which candidates to support as well.

To this point I recall as if it were yesterday when in 1974 as head of the CBS AM Radio Station Group I had to select my successor General Manager at WEEI, Boston. There were three viable candidates within the Broadcast Group. Gene Lothery was one. I was not convinced that he was the best candidate but neither was I convinced that he was not. But because he was African American I decided to select him. I was quite proud because he was the first black Vice President in the company. My pride emanated, I believe, from guilt over the plight of blacks in our country. I could remember playing college basketball on our all-white team in 1960 when we would play West Virginia State which was at the time a “Negro College.” I can clearly recall how difficult it was for me to look into the eyes of our victorious opponents when shaking their hands after a game because I knew that they had much less opportunity in life than I had.

My decision turned out not to be my best hire of my career, but how could I have known in advance?

That is how I feel, mostly, about the candidates from both parties in this campaign. Those from both parties sound alike on almost all issues; each possesses differentiating experiences and skills from others but we do not know how any will perform when he or she is in the Oval Office faced with real decisions.

And, therefore, politics may as well be accorded the same level of thought, analysis and decision-making as sports. We select our teams and politicians based upon how closely they match our feelings for our individual needs for recognition, admiration and respect of others and our feelings of guilt, envy and hope – all subjective and elusive.

Such is the imperfection of we humans. We’ve come so far, but have we arrived at a state where our decision-making, judgments and behavior can be guided by intellect, analysis and morality?"

Posted by Charles Warner at January 7, 2008 4:07 PM

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digibandit at January 7, 2008 6:10 PM writes:

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