'This Town': Manners, Media and Politics

Sidney Blumenthal--investigative journalist, author of five books and the political analyst for The New Yorker--has written a political satire about the Washington press corps. The play, This Town, will go up at the Kennedy School of Government this weekend. Why is this news? Because an insider has decided to humorously expose the reality we see every day--sensationalism in the media for the benefit of a sleaze-hungry public.

This Town depicts a press corps hungry for any story that will sell. Finally, a scandal about the First Dog emerges to satiate their hunger, and Scampergate is unleashed. In spite of the play's parody of such "-gates" as Haircutgate, Nannygate and Filegate, Blumenthal paints a dark world in which nepotism, backstabbing and the unquenchable thirst for stardom plague journalism.

What goes on in Washington, D.C., where politics and journalism coexist in an increasingly hostile environment? At a college full of young, ambitious and idealistic would-be journalists, the answer to this question is important. For college students, changing the world seems an actual possibility. But is it all illusion? If one wants to go into mass media, is it inevitable that one will devolve into an ego-crazed, star-seeking leech with no concept of the integrity and purpose of quality journalism?

Who is at fault for the kind of trash the public is exposed to every day, whether it is on television or in the papers? Is it Americans' insatiable appetite for anything juicy, the corruption in government or the media's ethical deterioration?

Allow Sidney Blumenthal to give you his thoughts, from an interview I conducted with him earlier this week:

Is there any integrity left in the media?

Sure. But I think that the dominant reality of press coverage of the 1996 campaign is that the Washington press corps has made itself irrelevant. It has devoted more institutional resources over the previous four years to hollow scandals and character assassination originating in the darkest bacterial recesses of the Republican right. The media has done this to itself.

The Clinton administration has been wrought with mini and not-so-mini scandals, from Haircutgate to Filegate, from Dick Morris to Whitewater. Were these created by a sensationalist media or by an irresponsible government? In other words, do government and media share the responsibility for the decline in Washington's character?

There have been serious constitutional crises in previous administrations, [such as] Watergate.... [The] Iran-Contra affair was a serious constitutional breach. [This administration's] are hollow scandals of little consequence. Why has the press devoted more resources to these than, say, at the height of the health care debate, to health care? Whitewater is the phoniest of phonies. It has been protracted twice as long as Watergate. [From] the beginning of Watergate to [Nixon's] resignation was half the time of Whitewater so far, in which...nothing has been proved. In fact, according to the most comprehensive investigations of the Resolution Trust Corporation, headed by a prominent Republican, which had all of the relevant documents, the president and First Lady were exonerated. So why has the press fixed on it? And why does it continues to fix on it? The character issue is a new McCarthyism.

What about Filegate?

It is not so much a scandal as an imbroglio of incompetence--potentially of significance, but in fact, not. It's a comedy of errors and clowns of a lower order, and without any larger consequences. It's encouraging that everybody on all sides understands that privacy is a value that ought to be respected....

This Town claims that ethics are relative depending on what side--government or journalism--you're on, and that it is objectively respectable to seek the most lucrative and/or prestigious job possible. Was this true 30 years ago too?

Today, the press is so powerful that no one will take it on. It is the ultimate sacred cow. The press says that everyone has the right to the truth, that skepticism is the highest value. But none of the values of the press are applied to the press. They have not only thin skin, but no skin....

[Thirty years ago,] there was more reportage, more straight reportage.... The press is antiseptically objective today, largely because of the wholesale right-wing attack. Statistical studies demonstrate that, in fact, there was more information conveyed about what the candidates said, what their positions were and what their politics were about, than what there is now. This is the nadir of coverage of politics. The networks made the decision because they claim the public isn't interested, but this is a self-fulfilling prophecy and entirely self-serving. Their method...is more debased than ever. The hacks of the past were straighter than the stars of the present.

Where do serious journalists who are still idealistic and ambitious, but who believe in the integrity of journalism beyond what it gets them, fit in in Washington? Is what exists now inevitable?

It's a large, open democratic system. There's no monopoly--but it's not easy.... There are the dangers of the star system, the celebrity culture, the casinos of wealth. There's the cynicism of pure attitude substituting for knowledge, masquerading as hipness. There's the cowardice of easy lashing out at progressive figures attempting very difficult political tasks.

The press corps became supine under Reagan. It took a Lebanese newspaper to break the Iran-Contra scandal. The right-wingers who depicted themselves as journalists were allowed in in the Reagan era. Journalistic objectivity was cast as liberalism. A false polarization of objectivity versus conservatism was created, with each side having equivalent status. On the one hand, "This Week With David Brinkley" features Brinkley, Sam Donaldson, George Will, and then for balance Bill Kristol.

This Town is an insider's look at D.C., so one would tend to believe its depiction. But in the interest of being optimistic, where to now? Is there hope for a commendable Washington, or is it destined to drown in a sea of Scampergates?

Well, one of the most interesting features of this reelection is that the public is rejecting the press' presentation of reality, which is why the press is almost completely without influence at the moment....

Journalistic values, specifically skepticism, must be applied to journalism itself. What has happened in the last few years is that journalists who thought they were acting in the spirit of the Watergate journalists of the past have abandoned their values of skepticism. It is a sorry, pathetic spectacle. It is one of the lowest moments in the history of American journalism. And in this moment, the American public is repudiating it.

Blumenthal is correct that the American public is reacting against "the nadir of the coverage of politics," but does that mean that we can look forward to a day when we will no longer be bombarded with scandal after scandal? While Blumenthal seems to place most of the blame on the press, there is a public that sops up the drivel coming out of media outlets. Who is providing the scandals?

Certainly, a market exists for sensationalist intrigues, but the relative insignificance of, say, Dickmorrisgate, seems to substantiate the claim that Americans care less and less about scandals that have no effect on politics. American culture is one that thrives on sleaze in all forms. The success of such shows as "Hard Copy" and "A Current Affair" is testament to America's affinity for tender half-truths. But these shows' half-baked scandals are not on a par with Whitewater.

The administration has made blunders, but the reason nothing substantial has stuck to Clinton is that in terms of major policy scandals, he has stayed clean. Look no further than his popularity to convince you that America is not skeptical of Clinton's character. In this scandal-hungry and hypercritical America, winning a presidential election without having one's name smeared is virtually impossible. Many forces work to expose the personal lives of public officials in America today, including perhaps their own ethical breaches, but we should not provide a demand for the incessant barrage of overblown snafus we now face.

The press should magnify wrongdoings when they matter, not when they involve a presidential haircut. It is irrelevant whether the press constitutes the cause or the effect. What we know is that journalists have not risen above the desire for gossip; they have not embraced the ethic of their trade; instead, they have kow-towed to the public thirst for all the trash not fit to print.

This Town will be put on at the Arco Forum at the Kennedy School of Government this Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 7 p.m.