Hillarysworld

Media and Obama...   (Interview one-on-one with Tina Brown of The Daily Beast)

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The co-founder of The Daily Beast discusses the age of cable polarization and the media's inflammatory role in culture.


Link to Video on CNN <----  Definitely worth watching!!


Transcript link



Excerpt of the segment that was Tina Brown interview follows:

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KURTZ: Tina Brown, welcome.

TINA BROWN, CO-FOUNDER, "THE DAILY BEAST": Good to be here, Howie.

KURTZ: This is in some ways an ugly time in America. You have an obscure pastor threatening to burn Korans, you have the mosque controversy here in New York, you have these phony accusations against Shirley Sherrod, whether she was a racist.

Are the media playing an inflammatory role in these kinds of stories?

BROWN: The media's undoubtedly playing an inflammatory role in the sense that, to be honest, at this point cable TV, particularly, is only about conflict. And the Web is there to amplify it.

But the fact is, is that it is what it is. The media isn't going to change. That aspect of life is not going to change. So it actually behooves people who are actually facing controversial things to be very, very careful when they're going in that they're not going to start pressing all these buttons.

KURTZ: Why are you so willing to accept it as a fact of life? I mean, it seems to me that, especially if race is involved, if religion is involved, if some fringe character like this pastor Terry Jones is involved, we not only obsess on this story, we practically create the story. And you're saying that I should just accept that because that's the way it is.

BROWN: Well, I don't think it's attractive to accept it, but I think we live in a world where there's massive aspects of the media which can't in any sense be controlled. I'm talking about social media, I'm talking about what Sarah Palin can post on her Facebook and it goes viral.

So whatever the so-called responsible media are doing, there's so much other media, that it drowns out anyone who's playing responsible in the media.

KURTZ: Part of that drowning out, it seems to me, is increasing polarization in cable news. I mean, any night you can turn on Fox and MSNBC and see their hosts sniping at each other. And I just wonder, does that remind you, for example, of the (INAUDIBLE) papers in Britain?

BROWN: Well, actually, the difference is that because there are so many papers in Britain, and because the quality of the quality papers is so good, and because it's a smaller country where everybody can pick one paper that it speaks to, that polarization in fact isn't nearly really as influential as cable news is here, frankly, or to polarize the country. And everyone knows -- for instance, the London "Daily Mail" is a wildly inflammatory tabloid newspaper, but people kind of recognize it for what it is, which is kind of Vaudeville, if you like.

KURTZ: And yet, in the cable arena you have more and more Republicans only appearing on Fox News, more and more Democrats only appearing on MSNBC. And it seems to me that it kind of reinforces the partisan views of those who watch, who already may be leaning to the left or the right.

BROWN: I'll tell you what I do think is a great danger, is that in the Web world now we're seeing that -- I'm told that soon we're going to see a situation where, for instance, when you type in "mosque" on Google, if you're somebody of the Tea Party's persuasion, you're going to get one kind of search coming to the top. And if you're somebody of the more liberal persuasion, you're going to get another answer coming to the top.

KURTZ: Because the --

BROWN: Search can be tooled soon to the self-selecting searcher.

KURTZ: So the Google guys are going to anticipate what you want and give it to you? And by doing so, in a way insulate you, because we all rely on Google and Yahoo!

BROWN: Right. We're going to be echo chambers of our own making, which is extremely dangerous, because it actually will mean that we just reinforce our own prejudice, hysteria and ignorance. It's a disastrous notion, which is why we still need to fight for media that is objective, that is fair, that has standards.

KURTZ: I love to read people I disagree with, as long as they're not utterly predictable and you're going to get the same talking points every time.

On this same topic, Glenn Beck has become an influential and certainly divisive figure after that Lincoln Memorial rally, that huge rally.

Do you see him as something of a cultural phenomenon? What's your take?

BROWN: Well, I do. I think that he's a fascinating demagogue, actually. He really is a demagogue.

And he has become sort of the white Malcolm X in a strange way. I mean, the way he goes out there with this kind of very -- he's very much kind of -- it's white racial politics, in a sense, because he's really saying -- a lot of his message is, you know, that Obama is a racist.

I mean, all the stuff that we keep hearing about "Hussein Obama" and the references to Obama being undoubtedly kind of racist, really, in all the terminology.

KURTZ: He's backed off that a little bit, and now he seems to be talking a lot about God and America --

BROWN: Yes, he talks about God, but when you drill down to what he's actually saying, he calls him a Nazi and socialist who's taking over the country. I mean, his language is extremely inflammatory.

And he likes to play it now revivalists and religious bring it together. But he's playing a double game, because actually he's a hypocrite. And he's a Tea Party hypocrite. He's preaching one thing and he's actually being another.

KURTZ: Speaking of the president, let's take a step back. How would you describe Barack Obama's coverage by the news media during the campaign?

BROWN: It was idolatry, I would say. Pure idolatry. I mean, he had his rough moments, but the media drank the Kool-Aid in such gulps, that it was really shocking to me.

KURTZ: And embarrassing?

BROWN: I thought it was embarrassing in the sense that it was so clear that they were in love with Barack Obama. I mean, I thought he was an extraordinary candidate, but I did feel that Hillary Clinton got an incredibly rough ride, that she could not in fact compete with the -- those (ph) who fell in love with that new story, because it was a great story. It was an "American Idol" moment.

When Obama spoke at that convention in -- the John Kerry Democratic Convention, that was an "American Idol" debut like Susan Boyle. And (INAUDIBLE), he rose.

KURTZ: Right. And Obama got the best coverage of any presidential candidate in my professional lifetime or maybe in recorded history.

And now you go to 2010, and the president is widely depicted, I would say, in the press as ineffective, as professorial, as too passive, as boring, even. What happened in terms of -- did journalists fall out of love with their heartthrob?

BROWN: Well, there is for a start no way he could have met those expectations.

KURTZ: No. We jacked them up sky high.

BROWN: Jacked him up so high that there was no place to go but down. But I do think that what has surprised and dismayed the media is the sense that they really felt that he was a candidate -- you had connected with him on some deep, hopeful level. And actually, since he's been in office, his major flaw that really surprised us all, I think, is that his communications and connective skills have been the weakest part of his presidency. And that, I think, has baffled people.

KURTZ: But, to some extent, he never could have walked on water the way he was portrayed in 2008. And so here's a guy who has gotten a fair amount done, if you want to measure it by legislative success, and yet we're just pounding on him. And I'm not saying unfairly, because there is this sense that he's not connecting with the public.

BROWN: Well, I think that right now there's this philosophy herd (ph) instinct which takes one way or the other. For instance, I think that we are hypnotizing ourselves now about the bad news in the economy to such a degree that it's out of control. I mean, if you talk to people from China and India and so on, they do not see the American economy in the same kind of dismal terms that if you turn around every single publication says that you're in.

KURTZ: But, I mean, clearly there's a lot of pain.

BROWN: A lot of pain.

KURTZ: Long-term unemployed, people who never expected to lose their jobs out of work for a long time.

BROWN: The jobless recovery is a horrific and painful experience right now in America, but it's also -- we don't want to make it even more of a self-perpetuating philosophy so that --

KURTZ: And you think that is happening?

BROWN: I think it could happen because, again, I think that the media velocity that goes on is such that you can also hypnotize yourself into a further depression. You see what I'm saying?

KURTZ: Right.

BROWN: That the real depression is bad enough. Let's not also psych ourselves into a place where we really feel that we've depressed ourselves and we're in some kind of a paralysis.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KURTZ: Up next, more of my sit-down with Tina Brown as we turn our attention to London's tabloid troublemakers and whether print magazines still have a future.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KURTZ: More now of my conversation in New York with Tina Brown.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KURTZ: This phone hacking scandal at "The News of the World" in your home country, where the newspaper, you know, tapped into the messages of all kinds of celebrities, British royals, maybe even Diana, you refer to that Rupert Murdoch paper as a "squirming zoo of lowlife." But that doesn't mean it's not popular, right?

(LAUGHTER)

BROWN: It actually means that's why it's popular.

KURTZ: But that's interesting to me, because why do Brits tolerate -- why do the British people tolerate these kinds of tactics? And we saw it with the sting against Sarah Ferguson, where reporters lie, where they will do anything to get a story, where they will break the laws. Certainly a couple of people from "News of the World" have gone to jail.

Or do they secretly kind of love it?

BROWN: Well, "The News of the World" has always been a "yellow journalist" rag. I think the difference is that those tactics alas have spread beyond "The News of the World." That's the issue, really, not that "The News of the World," which has always been a squirming zoo of lowlife, it's just that, all of a sudden there's a ton of other papers that do the same thing.

So I think -- I mean, there used to be such a thing really as the sort of popular tabloid that was a popular punchy paper, but it didn't have --

KURTZ: And still sort of responsible journalism, yes.

BROWN: Yes, still kind of responsible. But actually, a lot of these kind of tactics are going on in other tabloids.

KURTZ: But why is there no pushback against that? Why do they not seem to pay a price, at least from my distance across the Atlantic?

BROWN: Well, you know, the problem is, is that so much of the media is actually owned by Rupert Murdoch. He owns the quality papers too, the two biggest ones.

KURTZ: He owns The Times and The Sunday Times.

BROWN: You are having pushback from "The Guardian," which is not owned -- not part of that group. You are getting pushback from "The telegraph." You are.

But a large portion of the media is now owned by News International. So I'm not suggesting that The Sunday Times, for instance, or The Times uses such tactics as "The News of the World" does. But there is a kind of -- there's a lot of media out there that is of the same persuasion. And that --

KURTZ: And if other people see that it works --

BROWN: And the success of it, it's a bit like with Fox News. I mean, if you start -- the Glenn Becks of the world, the stuff they do and the stuff they say is very popular. And actually, it means that the other cable channels are chasing for that success.

KURTZ: I've seen that once or twice.

You became pretty well known as the editor of "Vanity Fair," and then of course as the editor of "The New Yorker." Is it more challenging in some ways to put out "The Daily Beast," to deal with an online publication where you're virtually always on deadline?

BROWN: I'm absolutely loving it. And I finally found something commensurate to my own impatience.

(LAUGHTER)

KURTZ: That's the secret?

BROWN: Yes, it is. It's alive. It's fresh.

You know, I'm actually really loving it. And of course the challenge is to keep your standards up while being fast. But I've got a really great staff who understand that there is such a thing as rigor and standards while doing it on the run.

And it's not easy, but it can be done. And I think we've created a really good journalistic culture there. We now have over five million unique visitors. We've just been nominated as one of the five best news sites in "TIME" magazine, which was very thrilling because we were right there underneath "The Guardian" newspaper. So we felt pretty good about that since we're only a little toddler, not even 2 yet.

(LAUGHTER)

KURTZ: But as somebody who group liking to hold a magazine or a newspaper in his hands, was it just a mental adjustment to not have a paper product?

BROWN: It was a mental adjustment. I still love print. And I'm not one of the people who thinks that print is dead at all. I think that print is never -- it's always going to have its role.

Yes, I've missed that sometimes. But I am really enjoying the mobility and the nimbleness of having been able to grow a company in which I've been, you know, a founder and develop it out from there. There's nothing quite as thrilling as having your own company that you share with a group of wonderfully like-minded, you know, partners who, you know, are allowing us to be journalistically sort of free and easy.

KURTZ: But you don't think that speed fuels superficiality and sometimes mistakes? I mean, we all --

BROWN: You can --

KURTZ: -- feel that pressure. Oh sure.

BROWN: You can make mistakes, and we do. And then we try to make sure that we correct those mistakes quickly.

But what I am finding is, is the best writers can write fast because it's not that they are being sloppy. They have to be able to think. So if you want something really good done, go to a really smart person because they know what they think.

KURTZ: What about a magazine like "Newsweek," which is in the process of being sold? In fact, there's been rumors you that might be a candidate to take them over.

BROWN: I think "Newsweek" very much has a future. I'm not one of these people who thinks that "Newsweek" doesn't have a future. I think it's a great brand. I think that, actually, they had a very good issue this week, as a matter of fact, on the Gates piece. It was terrific.

KURTZ: Could you be part of that future?

BROWN: No. I mean, I very much love what I'm doing, Howard. You know, I feel very much that I'm in the Web world and I'm loving it. So I haven't really thought about it.

KURTZ: But magazines in general are hurting. Fewer people are reading them. A few people are always watching TV news. People are also picking up newspapers, although they do go to newspaper Web sites.

So there is this sort of mentality now that the Web is not only the future, that it might be the only future. You're not ready to give up on print?

BROWN: No, I'm not. I think the Web is powering the future, without question.

I think that the energy of the Web is going to end up reversing what we expected, which was that magazines would sort of have a Web site or newspapers would have a Web site. I actually think that the digital is powering the print now. But it doesn't mean to say that print doesn't have a role. I just think that the emphasis has flipped.

KURTZ: So are you getting less sleep these days as a digital journalist?

BROWN: I sleep like a baby.

(LAUGHTER)

KURTZ: Tina Brown, thanks very much for joining us.

BROWN: Thank you, Howie.

(END VIDEOTAPE)


At least now, we have the media waking up a bit early on the likes of Beck and Palin. I hope this gets more light of day.. and I hope people are careful going forward in greater examination of the charlatans and fakes in the political world.


-- Edited by Sanders on Sunday 19th of September 2010 06:28:55 PM