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Tragedy and Farce: How the American Media Sell Wars, Spin Elections, And Destroy Democracy
Thomas Frank called Tragedy and Farce "an appeal to reason in a dark time." Including the sharpest analysis of 2004 election coverage yet and the first detailed look at the burgeoning media reform movement, this book is both an exposé and a call to action. In it John Nichols and Robert McChesney―two of the country's leading media analysts―argue that during the 2004 election and throughout the Iraq war and occupation, Americans have been starved of democracy's accurate information. More than anything John Kerry, George Bush, or even Karl Rove did, the media's miscoverage of the campaign and war decided the election. Most disturbingly, the flawed coverage reflects new, structural problems within U.S. journalism. Tragedy and Farce dissects the media failures of recent years and shows how they expose the decline in resources and standards for political journalism―as well as the methodical campaign by the political right to control the news cycle. In our highly concentrated media system it has become commercially and politically irrational to do the kind of journalism a self-governing society requires.
- GenresPoliticsNonfiction
211 pages, Paperback
First published November 3, 2005
About the author
John Nichols
326 books65 followersJohn Nichols (2 February 1745 – 26 November 1826) was an English printer, author and antiquary.
He is remembered as an influential editor of the Gentleman's Magazine for nearly 40 years; author of a monumental county history of Leicestershire; author of two compendia of biographical material relating to his literary contemporaries; and as one of the agents behind the first complete publication of Domesday Book in 1783.
His son, John Bowyer Nichols continued his father's various undertakings, and wrote, with other works, A Brief Account of the Guildhall of the City of London (1819).
John Gough Nichols (1806–73), John Bowyer Nichols's eldest son, was also a printer and a distinguished antiquary. He edited the Gentleman's Magazine from 1851 to 1856 and The Herald and Genealogist from 1863 to 1874, and was one of the founders of the Camden Society.
He is remembered as an influential editor of the Gentleman's Magazine for nearly 40 years; author of a monumental county history of Leicestershire; author of two compendia of biographical material relating to his literary contemporaries; and as one of the agents behind the first complete publication of Domesday Book in 1783.
His son, John Bowyer Nichols continued his father's various undertakings, and wrote, with other works, A Brief Account of the Guildhall of the City of London (1819).
John Gough Nichols (1806–73), John Bowyer Nichols's eldest son, was also a printer and a distinguished antiquary. He edited the Gentleman's Magazine from 1851 to 1856 and The Herald and Genealogist from 1863 to 1874, and was one of the founders of the Camden Society.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
October 27, 2007
Bold and telling critique of our media system and how it is failing considerably. Don't believe what you see - don't believe what you read.
August 20, 2019
A national disgrace
The war is a tragedy and the media coverage of the 2004 presidential election was a farce. That is part of what Nichols and McChesney are telling us in this very readable and important book. More saliently they warn that unless the media reassumes its responsibility to tell the truth about how our government operates and about what it is doing that it hides from us, there is a danger that our democracy will be destroyed.
I have been hearing the lie about the "liberal bias" of the press for as long as I can remember. It is a lie told and retold, screamed and ranted about by the actual media powers that be, those who work for Sinclair Broadcasting, Clear Channel, Fox News--the entire Murdoch empire and more--the O'Reilly's, the Limbaugh's, the Ollie North's, the Scarborough's, the Beck's, the evangelical demagogues, the shrill shock jocks of AM radio, the editorial writers at the Wall Street Journal, and even some people working for the New York Times and the Washington Post. Behind these voices of deception are the conservative and controlling owners of our media and their corporate sponsors, people who merely want to massage and indoctrinate the populous into compliant couch potatoes who will buy their products and hail to the chief and not rock the boat.
Recently there have been a slew of books belatedly exposing this lie. Tragedy and Farce is yet another such tome, but in some ways it is among the best of the bunch. Nichols and McChesney take a historical perspective, showing how journalism has gone from 19th century Hearst jingoism to an eclectic array of publications in the heyday of the American press in the early 20th century to the docile and sycophantic reporters who work for today's mass media. An important and at times laugh out loud funny part of the book are the cartoons by Tom Tomorrow. His insightful satire and parody of our political elites and media mavens nicely complement the text.
But do Nichols and McChesney go far enough? They assert there is "a crisis in journalism" and they point to the recent consolidation of media, to the monopolistic franchises and subsidies that some media enjoy (p. 173) thanks to their financial, editorial, and news spin support of various politicians, especially those in the Bush Administration. They warn that "big media plays a well-marked role in defining the choices from which America's two major parties select their nominees for president." (p. 91) And they remind us that so tight is that media control that no third party candidate has more than a remote chance of ever becoming president. But what I would say is replace "big media" in the quote with "corporate America" and change "well-marked role" to "absolutely controlling role" and we are closer to the awful truth.
The plain fact is that we have a democracy by capitalism in this country, that there is no chance for any candidate to achieve the highest office who is not in the pocket of, and whose mind is not to some extent controlled by, the corporate structure that actually runs America. Big media is only one branch, albeit an essential one, of that structure. Until the mass media is non-commercial nothing will change. How could it? How can the average reporter go against the hand that feeds him or her? The authors note what happened to Phil Donahue at MSNBC when he "represented a difficult public face for NBC in a time of war." (p. 86) He was cancelled. If Donahue cannot go against his bosses how can we expect reporters on the beat to write what they know Murdoch or the corporate sponsors do not want to hear?
Apropos is this delicious quote from Theodore Dreiser: "The American press, with very few exceptions, is a kept press. Kept by the big corporations the way a whore is kept by a rich man." (p. 93)
The worst of all the big offenders of course is Fox News and their Orwellian "fair and balanced" slogan. Yes, ignorance really is strength (that is, the ignorance of the populous) and the bigger the lie the better. Noting that Fox News was "actually more gung-ho in its support of the war than US government entities like Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty" the authors quote Russ Baker as saying that the Fox News Channel is "a kind of Gong Show of propaganda." (p. 86) (Yeah, but “The Gong Show” was funnier.)
The authors call "repugnant" the notion that "the great unwashed mass needs to be bathed in a cocktail of propaganda and lies, decontextualized half-truths, and jingoism..." (pp. 85-86) But what is even more insightful is to realize that in creating a compliant, ignorant, indoctrinated and sloganized electorate, the last thing you want is for them to be told the unpleasant truth, and so you have to lie. Having created the sheep, you don't want to apprise them of the wolves, the shearing, or the slaughterhouse.
One final quote: "The years of the Bush presidency will be remembered as a time when American media, for the most part, practiced stenography to power..." (p. 84)
Read this book, by all means, and work toward the de-commercialization of media because only when those who have the responsibility and privilege of addressing mass audiences are free to tell the truth will we as a people be free.
--Dennis Littrell, author of “The World Is Not as We Think It Is”
The war is a tragedy and the media coverage of the 2004 presidential election was a farce. That is part of what Nichols and McChesney are telling us in this very readable and important book. More saliently they warn that unless the media reassumes its responsibility to tell the truth about how our government operates and about what it is doing that it hides from us, there is a danger that our democracy will be destroyed.
I have been hearing the lie about the "liberal bias" of the press for as long as I can remember. It is a lie told and retold, screamed and ranted about by the actual media powers that be, those who work for Sinclair Broadcasting, Clear Channel, Fox News--the entire Murdoch empire and more--the O'Reilly's, the Limbaugh's, the Ollie North's, the Scarborough's, the Beck's, the evangelical demagogues, the shrill shock jocks of AM radio, the editorial writers at the Wall Street Journal, and even some people working for the New York Times and the Washington Post. Behind these voices of deception are the conservative and controlling owners of our media and their corporate sponsors, people who merely want to massage and indoctrinate the populous into compliant couch potatoes who will buy their products and hail to the chief and not rock the boat.
Recently there have been a slew of books belatedly exposing this lie. Tragedy and Farce is yet another such tome, but in some ways it is among the best of the bunch. Nichols and McChesney take a historical perspective, showing how journalism has gone from 19th century Hearst jingoism to an eclectic array of publications in the heyday of the American press in the early 20th century to the docile and sycophantic reporters who work for today's mass media. An important and at times laugh out loud funny part of the book are the cartoons by Tom Tomorrow. His insightful satire and parody of our political elites and media mavens nicely complement the text.
But do Nichols and McChesney go far enough? They assert there is "a crisis in journalism" and they point to the recent consolidation of media, to the monopolistic franchises and subsidies that some media enjoy (p. 173) thanks to their financial, editorial, and news spin support of various politicians, especially those in the Bush Administration. They warn that "big media plays a well-marked role in defining the choices from which America's two major parties select their nominees for president." (p. 91) And they remind us that so tight is that media control that no third party candidate has more than a remote chance of ever becoming president. But what I would say is replace "big media" in the quote with "corporate America" and change "well-marked role" to "absolutely controlling role" and we are closer to the awful truth.
The plain fact is that we have a democracy by capitalism in this country, that there is no chance for any candidate to achieve the highest office who is not in the pocket of, and whose mind is not to some extent controlled by, the corporate structure that actually runs America. Big media is only one branch, albeit an essential one, of that structure. Until the mass media is non-commercial nothing will change. How could it? How can the average reporter go against the hand that feeds him or her? The authors note what happened to Phil Donahue at MSNBC when he "represented a difficult public face for NBC in a time of war." (p. 86) He was cancelled. If Donahue cannot go against his bosses how can we expect reporters on the beat to write what they know Murdoch or the corporate sponsors do not want to hear?
Apropos is this delicious quote from Theodore Dreiser: "The American press, with very few exceptions, is a kept press. Kept by the big corporations the way a whore is kept by a rich man." (p. 93)
The worst of all the big offenders of course is Fox News and their Orwellian "fair and balanced" slogan. Yes, ignorance really is strength (that is, the ignorance of the populous) and the bigger the lie the better. Noting that Fox News was "actually more gung-ho in its support of the war than US government entities like Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty" the authors quote Russ Baker as saying that the Fox News Channel is "a kind of Gong Show of propaganda." (p. 86) (Yeah, but “The Gong Show” was funnier.)
The authors call "repugnant" the notion that "the great unwashed mass needs to be bathed in a cocktail of propaganda and lies, decontextualized half-truths, and jingoism..." (pp. 85-86) But what is even more insightful is to realize that in creating a compliant, ignorant, indoctrinated and sloganized electorate, the last thing you want is for them to be told the unpleasant truth, and so you have to lie. Having created the sheep, you don't want to apprise them of the wolves, the shearing, or the slaughterhouse.
One final quote: "The years of the Bush presidency will be remembered as a time when American media, for the most part, practiced stenography to power..." (p. 84)
Read this book, by all means, and work toward the de-commercialization of media because only when those who have the responsibility and privilege of addressing mass audiences are free to tell the truth will we as a people be free.
--Dennis Littrell, author of “The World Is Not as We Think It Is”
August 1, 2021
Half-liberal 2004 coping/half-interesting.
December 28, 2010
Drives a great argument of what mega media corporations was/is/and should be doing. The focus is centered on media coverage of the 2004 (re)election of bush and the implications of capitalist driven conglomerate media, but the scope is far reaching and can be applied to local and indie journalism. However, Nichols and company leave it to the reader's imagination to apply their analysis to independent/DIY media and they enter the equation of responsible journalism and social activism.
January 6, 2008
la luca lives
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews