[Dialogue] Al Gore on the Media

[LAURELCG@aol.com]

>   

>  Text of Gore Speech at Media  Conference

> Oct 06 10:04 AM  US/Eastern

>    

> 

> By The Associated Press

> NEW YORK

> 

> Here is the text of former Vice President Al Gore's remarks at the We

> 

> Media conference on Wednesday in New York:

> 

> I came here today because I believe that American democracy is in grave

> danger. It is no longer possible to ignore the strangeness of our public

> discourse . I know that I am not the only one who feels that something has

> gone basically and badly wrong in the way America's fabled "marketplace of

> ideas" now functions.

> 

> How many of you, I wonder, have heard a friend or a family member in the 
last

> few years remark that it's almost as if America has entered "an alternate

> universe"? 

> 

> I thought maybe it was an aberration when three-quarters of Americans said

> they believed that Saddam Hussein was responsible for attacking us on

> September 11, 2001. But more than four years later, between a third and a 
half

> still believe Saddam was personally responsible for planning and supporting

> the attack. 

> 

> At first I thought the exhaustive, non-stop coverage of the O.J. trial was

> just an unfortunate excess that marked an unwelcome departure from the 
normal

> good sense and judgment of our television news media. But now we know that 
it

> was merely an early example of a new pattern of serial obsessions that

> periodically take over the airwaves for weeks at a time.

> 

> Are we still routinely torturing helpless prisoners, and if so, does it feel

> right that we as American citizens are not outraged by the practice? And 
does

> it feel right to have no ongoing discussion of whether or not this 
abhorrent,

> medieval behavior is being carried out in the name of the American people? 
If

> the gap between rich and poor is widening steadily and economic stress is

> mounting for low-income families, why do we seem increasingly apathetic and

> lethargic in our role as citizens?

> 

> On the eve of the nation's decision to invade Iraq, our longest serving

> senator, Robert Byrd of West Virginia, stood on the Senate floor asked: "Why

> is this chamber empty? Why are these halls silent?"

> 

> The decision that was then being considered by the Senate with virtually no

> meaningful debate turned out to be a fateful one. A few days ago, the former

> head of the National Security Agency, Retired Lt. General William Odom, 
said,

> "The invasion of Iraq, I believe, will turn out to be the greatest strategic

> disaster in U.S. history."

> 

> But whether you agree with his assessment or not, Senator Byrd's question is

> like the others that I have just posed here: he was saying, in effect, this 
is

> strange, isn't it? Aren't we supposed to have full and vigorous debates 
about

> questions as important as the choice between war and peace?

> 

> Those of us who have served in the Senate and watched it change over time,

> could volunteer an answer to Senator Byrd's two questions: the Senate was

> silent on the eve of war because Senators don't feel that what they say on 
the

> floor of the Senate really matters that much any more. And the chamber was

> empty because the Senators were somewhere else: they were in fundraisers

> collecting money from special interests in order to buy 30-second

> TVcommercials for their next re-election campaign.

> 

> In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, there was - at least for a short 
time -

> a quality of vividness and clarity of focus in our public discourse that

> reminded some Americans - including some journalists - that vividness and

> clarity used to be more common in the way we talk with one another about the

> problems and choices that we face. But then, like a passing summer storm, 
the

> moment faded. 

> 

> In fact there was a time when America's public discourse was consistently 
much

> more vivid, focused and clear. Our Founders, probably the most literate

> generation in all of history, used words with astonishing precision and

> believed in the Rule of Reason.

> 

> Their faith in the viability of Representative Democracy rested on their 
trust

> in the wisdom of a well-informed citizenry. But they placed particular

> emphasis on insuring that the public could be well- informed. And they took

> great care to protect the openness of the marketplace of ideas in order to

> ensure the free-flow of knowledge.

> 

> The values that Americans had brought from Europe to the New World had grown

> out of the sudden explosion of literacy and knowledge after Gutenberg's

> disruptive invention broke up the stagnant medieval information monopoly and

> triggered the Reformation, Humanism, and the Enlightenment and enshrined a 
new

> sovereign: the "Rule of Reason."

> 

> Indeed, the self-governing republic they had the audacity to establish was

> later named by the historian Henry Steele Commager as "the Empire of 
Reason."

> 

> Our founders knew all about the Roman Forum and the Agora in ancient Athens.

> They also understood quite well that in America, our public forum would be 
an

> ongoing conversation about democracy in which individual citizens would

> participate not only by speaking directly in the presence of others -- but

> more commonly by communicating with their fellow citizens over great 
distances

> by means of the printed word. Thus they not only protected Freedom of 
Assembly

> as a basic right, they made a special point - in the First Amendment - of

> protecting the freedom of the printing press.

> 

> Their world was dominated by the printed word. Just as the proverbial fish

> doesn't know it lives in water, the United States in its first half century

> knew nothing but the world of print: the Bible, Thomas Paine's fiery call to

> revolution, the Declaration of Independence, our Constitution , our laws, 
the

> Congressional Record, newspapers and books.

> 

> Though they feared that a government might try to censor the printing press 
-

> as King George had done - they could not imagine that America's public

> discourse would ever consist mainly of something other than words in print.

> 

> And yet, as we meet here this morning, more than 40 years have passed since

> the majority of Americans received their news and information from the 
printed

> word. Newspapers are hemorrhaging readers and, for the most part, resisting

> the temptation to inflate their circulation numbers. Reading itself is in

> sharp decline, not only in our country but in most of the world. The 
Republic

> of Letters has been invaded and occupied by television.

> 

> Radio, the internet, movies, telephones, and other media all now vie for our

> attention - but it is television that still completely dominates the flow of

> information in modern America. In fact, according to an authoritative global

> study, Americans now watch television an average of four hours and 28 
minutes

> every day -- 90 minutes more than the world average.

> 

> When you assume eight hours of work a day, six to eight hours of sleep and a

> couple of hours to bathe, dress, eat and commute, that is almost

> three-quarters of all the discretionary time that the average American has.

> And for younger Americans, the average is even higher.

> 

> The internet is a formidable new medium of communication, but it is 
important

> to note that it still doesn't hold a candle to television. Indeed, studies

> show that the majority of Internet users are actually simultaneously 
watching

> television while they are online. There is an important reason why 
television

> maintains such a hold on its viewers in a way that the internet does not, 
but

> I'll get to that in a few minutes.

> 

> Television first overtook newsprint to become the dominant source of

> information in America in 1963. But for the next two decades, the television

> networks mimicked the nation's leading newspapers by faithfully following 
the

> standards of the journalism profession. Indeed, men like Edward R. Murrow 
led

> the profession in raising the bar.

> 

> But all the while, television's share of the total audience for news and

> information continued to grow -- and its lead over newsprint continued to

> expand. And then one day, a smart young political consultant turned to an

> older elected official and succinctly described a new reality in America's

> public discourse: "If it's not on television, it doesn't exist."

> 

> But some extremely important elements of American Democracy have been pushed

> to the sidelines . And the most prominent casualty has been the "marketplace

> of ideas" that was so beloved and so carefully protected by our Founders. It

> effectively no longer exists.

> 

> It is not that we no longer share ideas with one another about public 
matters;

> of course we do. But the "Public Forum" in which our Founders searched for

> general agreement and applied the Rule of Reason has been grossly distorted

> and "restructured" beyond all recognition.

> 

> And here is my point: it is the destruction of that marketplace of ideas 
that

> accounts for the "strangeness" that now continually haunts our efforts to

> reason together about the choices we must make as a nation.

> 

> Whether it is called a Public Forum, or a "Public Sphere" , or a marketplace

> of ideas, the reality of open and free public discussion and debate was

> considered central to the operation of our democracy in America's earliest

> decades. 

> 

> In fact, our first self-expression as a nation - "We the People" - made it

> clear where the ultimate source of authority lay. It was universally

> understood that the ultimate check and balance for American government was 
its

> accountability to the people. And the public forum was the place where the

> people held the government accountable. That is why it was so important that

> the marketplace of ideas operated independent from and beyond the authority 
of

> government. 

> 

> The three most important characteristics of this marketplace of ideas were:

> 

> 1) It was open to every individual, with no barriers to entry, save the

> necessity of literacy. This access, it is crucial to add, applied not only 
to

> the receipt of information but also to the ability to contribute information

> directly into the flow of ideas that was available to all; 2) The fate of

> ideas contributed by individuals depended, for the most part, on an emergent

> Meritocracy of Ideas. Those judged by the market to be good rose to the top,

> regardless of the wealth or class of the individual responsible for them; 3)

> The accepted rules of discourse presumed that the participants were all

> governed by an unspoken duty to search for general agreement. That is what a

> "Conversation of Democracy" is all about.

> 

> What resulted from this shared democratic enterprise was a startling new

> development in human history: for the first time, knowledge regularly 
mediated

> between wealth and power.

> 

> The liberating force of this new American reality was thrilling to all

> humankind. Thomas Jefferson declared, "I have sworn upon the alter of God

> eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." It

> ennobled the individual and unleashed the creativity of the human spirit. It

> inspired people everywhere to dream of what they could yet become. And it

> emboldened Americans to bravely explore the farther frontiers of freedom - 
for

> African Americans, for women, and eventually, we still dream, for all.

> 

> And just as knowledge now mediated between wealth and power, self- 
government

> was understood to be the instrument with which the people embodied their

> reasoned judgments into law. The Rule of Reason under- girded and 
strengthened

> the rule of law. 

> 

> But to an extent seldom appreciated, all of this - including especially the

> ability of the American people to exercise the reasoned collective judgments

> presumed in our Founders' design -- depended on the particular 
characteristics

> of the marketplace of ideas as it operated during the Age of Print.

> 

> Consider the rules by which our present "public forum" now operates, and how

> different they are from the forum our Founders knew. Instead of the easy and

> free access individuals had to participate in the national conversation by

> means of the printed word, the world of television makes it virtually

> impossible for individuals to take part in what passes for a national

> conversation today.

> 

> Inexpensive metal printing presses were almost everywhere in America. They

> were easily accessible and operated by printers eager to typeset essays,

> pamphlets, books or flyers.

> 

> Television stations and networks, by contrast, are almost completely

> inaccessible to individual citizens and almost always uninterested in ideas

> contributed by individual citizens.

> 

> Ironically, television programming is actually more accessible to more 
people

> than any source of information has ever been in all of history. But here is

> the crucial distinction: it is accessible in only one direction; there is no

> true interactivity, and certainly no conversation.

> 

> The number of cables connecting to homes is limited in each community and

> usually forms a natural monopoly. The broadcast and satellite spectrum is

> likewise a scarce and limited resource controlled by a few. The production 
of

> programming has been centralized and has usually required a massive capital

> investment. So for these and other reasons, an ever-smaller number of large

> corporations control virtually all of the television programming in America.

> 

> Soon after television established its dominance over print, young people who

> realized they were being shut out of the dialogue of democracy came up with 
a

> new form of expression in an effort to join the national conversation: the

> "demonstration." This new form of expression, which began in the 1960s, was

> essentially a poor quality theatrical production designed to capture the

> attention of the television cameras long enough to hold up a sign with a few

> printed words to convey, however plaintively, a message to the American

> people. Even this outlet is now rarely an avenue for expression on national

> television. 

> 

> So, unlike the marketplace of ideas that emerged in the wake of the printing

> press, there is virtually no exchange of ideas at all in television's 
domain.

> My partner Joel Hyatt and I are trying to change that - at least where 
Current

> TV is concerned. Perhaps not coincidentally, we are the only independently

> owned news and information network in all of American television.

> 

> It is important to note that the absence of a two-way conversation in 
American

> television also means that there is no "meritocracy of ideas" on television.

> To the extent that there is a "marketplace" of any kind for ideas on

> television, it is a rigged market, an oligopoly, with imposing barriers to

> entry that exclude the average citizen.

> 

> The German philosopher, Jurgen Habermas, describes what has happened as "the

> refeudalization of the public sphere." That may sound like gobbledygook, but

> it's a phrase that packs a lot of meaning. The feudal system which thrived

> before the printing press democratized knowledge and made the idea of 
America

> thinkable, was a system in which wealth and power were intimately 
intertwined,

> and where knowledge played no mediating role whatsoever. The great mass of 
the

> people were ignorant. And their powerlessness was born of their ignorance.

> 

> It did not come as a surprise that the concentration of control over this

> powerful one-way medium carries with it the potential for damaging the

> operations of our democracy. As early as the 1920s, when the predecessor of

> television, radio, first debuted in the United States, there was immediate

> apprehension about its potential impact on democracy. One early American

> student of the medium wrote that if control of radio were concentrated in 
the

> hands of a few, "no nation can be free."

> 

> As a result of these fears, safeguards were enacted in the U.S. -- including

> the Public Interest Standard, the Equal Time Provision, and the Fairness

> Doctrine - though a half century later, in 1987, they were effectively

> repealed. And then immediately afterwards, Rush Limbaugh and other

> hate-mongers began to fill the airwaves.

> 

> And radio is not the only place where big changes have taken place. 
Television

> news has undergone a series of dramatic changes. The movie "Network," which

> won the Best Picture Oscar in 1976, was presented as a farce but was 
actually

> a prophecy. The journalism profession morphed into the news business, which

> became the media industry and is now completely owned by conglomerates.

> 

> The news divisions - which used to be seen as serving a public interest and

> were subsidized by the rest of the network - are now seen as profit centers

> designed to generate revenue and, more importantly, to advance the larger

> agenda of the corporation of which they are a small part. They have fewer

> reporters, fewer stories, smaller budgets, less travel, fewer bureaus, less

> independent judgment, more vulnerability to influence by management, and 
more

> dependence on government sources and canned public relations hand-outs. This

> tragedy is compounded by the ironic fact that this generation of journalists

> is the best trained and most highly skilled in the history of their

> profession. But they are usually not allowed to do the job they have been

> trained to do. 

> 

> The present executive branch has made it a practice to try and control and

> intimidate news organizations: from PBS to CBS to Newsweek. They placed a

> former male escort in the White House press pool to pose as a reporter - and

> then called upon him to give the president a hand at crucial moments. They

> paid actors to make make phony video press releases and paid cash to some

> reporters who were willing to take it in return for positive stories. And

> every day they unleash squadrons of digital brownshirts to harass and hector

> any journalist who is critical of the President.

> 

> For these and other reasons, The US Press was recently found in a

> comprehensive international study to be only the 27th freest press in the

> world. And that too seems strange to me.

> 

> Among the other factors damaging our public discourse in the media, the

> imposition by management of entertainment values on the journalism 
profession

> has resulted in scandals, fabricated sources, fictional events and the

> tabloidization of mainstream news. As recently stated by Dan Rather - who 
was,

> of course, forced out of his anchor job after angering the White House -

> television news has been "dumbed down and tarted up."

> 

> The coverage of political campaigns focuses on the "horse race" and little

> else. And the well-known axiom that guides most local television news is "if

> it bleeds, it leads." (To which some disheartened journalists add, "If it

> thinks, it stinks.")

> 

> In fact, one of the few things that Red state and Blue state America agree 
on

> is that they don't trust the news media anymore.

> 

> Clearly, the purpose of television news is no longer to inform the American

> people or serve the public interest. It is to "glue eyeballs to the screen" 
in

> order to build ratings and sell advertising. If you have any doubt, just 
look

> at what's on: The Robert Blake trial. The Laci Peterson tragedy. The Michael

> Jackson trial. The Runaway Bride. The search in Aruba. The latest twist in

> various celebrity couplings, and on and on and on.

> 

> And more importantly, notice what is not on: the global climate crisis, the

> nation's fiscal catastrophe, the hollowing out of America's industrial base,

> and a long list of other serious public questions that need to be addressed 
by

> the American people.

> 

> One morning not long ago, I flipped on one of the news programs in hopes of

> seeing information about an important world event that had happened earlier

> that day. But the lead story was about a young man who had been hiccupping 
for

> three years. And I must say, it was interesting; he had trouble getting 
dates.

> But what I didn't see was news.

> 

> This was the point made by Jon Stewart, the brilliant host of "The Daily

> Show," when he visited CNN's "Crossfire": there should be a distinction

> between news and entertainment.

> 

> And it really matters because the subjugation of news by entertainment

> seriously harms our democracy: it leads to dysfunctional journalism that 
fails

> to inform the people. And when the people are not informed, they cannot hold

> government accountable when it is incompetent, corrupt, or both.

> 

> One of the only avenues left for the expression of public or political ideas

> on television is through the purchase of advertising, usually in 30-second

> chunks. These short commercials are now the principal form of communication

> between candidates and voters. As a result, our elected officials now spend

> all of their time raising money to purchase these ads.

> 

> That is why the House and Senate campaign committees now search for 
candidates

> who are multi-millionaires and can buy the ads with their own personal

> resources. As one consequence, the halls of Congress are now filling up with

> the wealthy. 

> 

> Campaign finance reform, however well it is drafted, often misses the main

> point: so long as the only means of engaging in political dialogue is 
through

> purchasing expensive television advertising, money will continue by one 
means

> or another to dominate American politic s. And ideas will no longer mediate

> between wealth and power.

> 

> And what if an individual citizen, or a group of citizens wants to enter the

> public debate by expressing their views on television? Since they cannot

> simply join the conversation, some of them have resorted to raising money in

> order to buy 30 seconds in which to express their opinion. But they are not

> even allowed to do that.

> 

> Moveon.org tried to buy ads last year to express opposition to Bush's 
Medicare

> proposal which was then being debated by Congress. They were told "issue

> advocacy" was not permissible. Then, one of the networks that had refused 
the

> Moveon ad began running advertisements by the White House in favor of the

> President's Medicare proposal. So Moveon complained and the White House ad 
was

> temporarily removed. By temporary, I mean it was removed until the White 
House

> complained and the network immediately put the ad back on, yet still refused

> to present the Moveon ad.

> 

> The advertising of products, of course, is the real purpose of television. 
And

> it is difficult to overstate the extent to which modern pervasive electronic

> advertising has reshaped our society. In the 1950s, John Kenneth Galbraith

> first described the way in which advertising has altered the classical

> relationship by which supply and demand are balanced over time by the

> invisible hand of the marketplace. According to Galbraith, modern 
advertising

> campaigns were beginning to create high levels of demand for products that

> consumers never knew they wanted, much less needed.

> 

> The same phenomenon Galbraith noticed in the commercial marketplace is now 
the

> dominant fact of life in what used to be America's marketplace for ideas. 
The

> inherent value or validity of political propositions put forward by 
candidates

> for office is now largely irrelevant compared to the advertising campaigns

> that shape the perceptions of voters.

> 

> Our democracy has been hallowed out. The opinions of the voters are, in

> effect, purchased, just as demand for new products is artificially created.

> Decades ago Walter Lippman wrote, "the manufacture of consent...was supposed

> to have died out with the appearance of democracy...but it has not died out.

> It has, in fact, improved enormously in technique...under the impact of

> propaganda, it is no longer plausible to believe in the original dogma of

> democracy." 

> 

> Like you, I recoil at Lippman's cynical dismissal of America's gift to human

> history. But in order to reclaim our birthright, we Americans must resolve 
to

> repair the systemic decay of the public forum and create new ways to engage 
in

> a genuine and not manipulative conversation about our future. Americans in

> both parties should insist on the re-establishment of respect for the Rule 
of

> Reason. We must, for example, stop tolerating the rejection and distortion 
of

> science. We must insist on an end to the cynical use of pseudo studies known

> to be false for the purpose of intentionally clouding the public's ability 
to

> discern the truth.

> 

> I don't know all the answers, but along with my partner, Joel Hyatt, I am

> trying to work within the medium of television to recreate a multi- way

> conversation that includes individuals and operates according to a 
meritocracy

> of ideas. If you would like to know more, we are having a press conference 
on

> Friday morning at the Regency Hotel.

> 

> We are learning some fascinating lessons about the way decisions are made in

> the television industry, and it may well be that the public would be well

> served by some changes in law and policy to stimulate more diversity of

> viewpoints and a higher regard for the public interest. But we are 
succeeding

> within the marketplace by reaching out to individuals and asking them to

> co-create our network.

> 

> The greatest source of hope for reestablishing a vigorous and accessible

> marketplace for ideas is the Internet. Indeed, Current TV relies on video

> streaming over the Internet as the means by which individuals send us what 
we

> call viewer-created content or VC squared. We also rely on the Internet for

> the two-way conversation that we have every day with our viewers enabling 
them

> to participate in the decisions on programming our network.

> 

> I know that many of you attending this conference are also working on 
creative

> ways to use the Internet as a means for bringing more voices into America's

> ongoing conversation. I salute you as kindred spirits and wish you every

> success. 

> 

> I want to close with the two things I've learned about the Internet that are

> most directly relevant to the conference that you are having here today.

> 

> First, as exciting as the Internet is, it still lacks the single most 
powerful

> characteristic of the television medium; because of its packet-switching

> architecture, and its continued reliance on a wide variety of bandwidth

> connections (including the so-called "last mile" to the home), it does not

> support the real-time mass distribution of full-motion video.

> 

> Make no mistake, full-motion video is what makes television such a powerful

> medium. Our brains - like the brains of all vertebrates - are hard-wired to

> immediately notice sudden movement in our field of vision. We not only 
notice,

> we are compelled to look. When our evolutionary predecessors gathered on the

> African savanna a million years ago and the leaves next to them moved, the

> ones who didn't look are not our ancestors. The ones who did look passed on 
to

> us the genetic trait that neuroscientists call "the establishing reflex." 
And

> that is the brain syndrome activated by television continuously - sometimes 
as

> frequently as once per second. That is the reason why the industry phrase,

> "glue eyeballs to the screen," is actually more than a glib and idle boast. 
It

> is also a major part of the reason why Americans watch the TV screen an

> average of four and a half hours a day.

> 

> It is true that video streaming is becoming more common over the Internet, 
and

> true as well that cheap storage of streamed video is making it possible for

> many young television viewers to engage in what the industry calls "time

> shifting" and personalize their television watching habits. Moreover, as

> higher bandwidth connections continue to replace smaller information

> pipelines, the Internet's capacity for carrying television will continue to

> dramatically improve. But in spite of these developments, it is television

> delivered over cable and satellite that will continue for the remainder of

> this decade and probably the next to be the dominant medium of communication

> in America's democracy. And so long as that is the case, I truly believe 
that

> America's democracy is at grave risk.

> 

> The final point I want to make is this: We must ensure that the Internet

> remains open and accessible to all citizens without any limitation on the

> ability of individuals to choose the content they wish regardless of the

> Internet service provider they use to connect to the Worldwide Web. We 
cannot

> take this future for granted. We must be prepared to fight for it because 
some

> of the same forces of corporate consolidation and control that have 
distorted

> the television marketplace have an interest in controlling the Internet

> marketplace as well. Far too much is at stake to ever allow that to happen.

> 

> We must ensure by all means possible that this medium of democracy's future

> develops in the mold of the open and free marketplace of ideas that our

> Founders knew was essential to the health and survival of freedom.

> 

> Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.