Miscomprehending the News

I had another one of those episodes of momentary incomprehension today, which sent me off on a mental tangent before I realised that I had completely misunderstood something I'd heard.  It happened when I heard on the radio that Bari Weiss had been appointed to oversee CBS News in the States - I thought that they had said that CBS was appointing Barry Weiss.  Why are they appointing that dude from Storage Wars, was my immediate reaction.  I mean, he might know a lot by antiques, rummaging through storage containers full of junk and making suggestive comments to women young enough to be his granddaughter, but how is any of that relevant to current affairs?  Don't get me wrong, I like Barry Weiss, Storage Wars was never as good after he left, but I just didn't see the link to running a TV news division.  Eventually, of course, I realised that they were talking about somebody completely different and that this was another chapter in mainstream US media's attempts to appease Trump and his fascistic followers by appointing someone perceived as a conservative to runs its news outfit.  Because, right now, if you try to run a news service that strives for balance, then you find yourself being accused by every rabid right-wing lunatic of pushing a liberal/left-wing bias in your reporting.  Now, I'd like to say that this phenomena is unique to contemporary Trumpland, but the reality is that it is neither new, nor confined to the US.  Here in the UK, since the late nineties, TV news, particularly BBC news, has found itself under constant assault by the government of the day alleging bias of one kind or another.  In fact, it goes back even further than that.  Back in the sixties, after Harold Wilson won his first general election, I seem to recall that for some time he refused to give interviews to the BBC, on the grounds that they had consistently shown an anti-Labour bias, instead favouring ITN.

In this latter case, I'd argue that there probably was bias in the way the BBC reported politics at the time.  Not a conscious bias against Labour specifically, but a bias in favour of the establishment, the status quo.  Because, after all, the BBC, while not directly controlled by the UK government, has always been the 'national broadcaster', the 'voice of the nation', which inevitably meant that it was always going to take the establishment line, on current affairs, at least.  Of course, what constitutes 'the establishment' has changed over subsequent decades, giving successive governments room for manoeuvre when comes to accusations of bias.  All such complaints, obviously, are attempts to control the news agenda and bend the way in which events are reported to be most favourable to those in power.  Or, increasingly, those seeking power with, for instance, Reform UK seemingly having mesmerised the BBC's current chief political correspondent into putting some pretty naive analyses of the party and its leader.  But getting back to the US, you might be justified in asking, bearing in mind the plethora of insane right-wing news outlets there, all busily spewing out demented fascist propaganda, why are Trump and his cronies seemingly so obsessed with controlling the 'old' media, like CBS News?  The answer is simple - despite their proliferation and their billionaire backing, the vast majority of those crackpot outlets simply don't have much reach beyond the true devotees of the MAGA cult.  The only exception being, perhaps, Fox News.  For the average US viewer, the likes of ABC, NBC and CBS are still their main sources of news, either directly via their networks, or via their affiliates.  So long as they still exist in their current form, then an alternative interpretation of events to that of the Trumpists is available, one that allows viewers to make up their own minds about what is going on, rather than being fed the unhinged propaganda of the right.

But, you know, I've warmed to the idea of Barry Weiss becoming head of CBS news.   On Storage Wars he always seemed a pretty OK guy who didn't himself (let alone the show) too seriously.  Maybe that's the approach that's needed with US news coverage - a reassurance that surely this madness can't continue indefinitely and for now we should take it all with a pinch of salt while appreciating the sheer absurdity of it all.