INTELLECTUAL ELITISM IN MEDIA

Two foreign TV shows always leave me feeling disappointed in the quality of U.S. political discourse and media coverage of it: ABC's Q&A from Australia and BBC's Question Time. 

Q&A and Question Time impress me because they allow common citizens to address questions, sometimes challenges, directly to media pundits and politicians in a live TV format. Unlike the highly staged and hyped "town halls" of America's election cycles, these programs grind on with regularity from week to week. They address the current news cycles and issues in a present way.

If you watch these programs, available on YouTube in the U.S., you will quickly note the discomfort of even the most seasoned pundits and politicos. There they are, face-to-face with their fans, detractors, constituents and critics in front of the live viewing public. While the discourse is moderated and generally civil, there is a whiff of the gladiatorial. And this is a healthy kind of spectator combat.

American television has become infested with pundits, who are designated avatars for commoner opinions, based on poll-taking and statistical manipulation. It displays a general intellectual elitism in major media of all political stripes. 

Ken Starr and Alan Dershowitz may have seasoned and informed opinions, but they do not elect politicians. The people elect them. If I had to rely on Geraldo Rivera to be my proxy in elections, I would seriously consider leaving the country. 

Part of the problem in the U.S. is the proliferation of "institutes" and "foundations", comprised of retired politicians and younger intellectuals who prefer the label of "think tank" to "lobby" on their resumes for a number of reasons. These non-profits are seldom non-partisan. They are fronts for political and economic ideologies. 

The funnel from institutes and foundations into major media punditry is well established. Too much so. And it has corrupted our public political and social discourse. Rather than formulating our own opinions and verbalizing them, we are prone to quote some pundit or another. And that applies to the more intelligent of us. The less intellectually curious regurgitate the partisan dribble of Hannity or Maddow as substantive political or economic opinion. 

Here in Boston, Massachusetts, some public-minded Brahmans set up WGBH, a broadcast TV outlet, in the 1950's. Their intention was the broadening of public education through commercial-free broadcast TV. WGBH and similar outlets which developed in major cities eventually led to the Public Broadcasting Service, PBS. 

As a child in a working-class, bilingual home, I experienced WGBH as a window into a civilized world beyond my own. Imagining being surrounded by the minds I encountered there led me to reach out of my environment for better education and company. I do not exaggerate. 

Decades later, I volunteered at the WGBH studios during several fundraising events. That experience, while disappointing on some levels, felt like giving something back to the institution which had meant so much to me. I have to wonder if my experience of WGBH is now shared by children today in less prosperous circumstances.

I believe our media are letting us down generally. Click baiting is evidence of the detrimental effects of corporate capitalism on public discourse. Fake news is the child of corporate click-hunger. The incentive is no longer to inform. The incentive is to draw in the demographic, determined by computer-armed bean-counters, at any cost. And truth is too easily sacrificed.

I find truth in shows like Q&A and Question Time. It is the simple truth that the public is more awake than credited. The angry Woke do not solely possess morality or justice. The intelligence of the public is greater, if somewhat less polished, than the intellectual elite infer ever day on American media.

 I have written to PBS here in the U.S. I have challenged them to develop a weekly national show along the lines of Q&A and Question Time. I encourage you to do the same. It is time to break through the glass wall of intellectual elitism in American corporate media.