Chastened by their medium's mischievous interference in the election, the TV journalists covering the recount became passive conduits for propaganda. Now back to you, Judy. The election-night fiasco, I suspect, will reinforce this tendency in TV political coverage for some time to come. So, although it is often interpreted as a sign of civic decline, it is perhaps perversely encouraging that the audience for the nightly network news shows has fallen from 60 percent of the viewing public as recently as 1993 to 38 percent in 1998, that the average age of those who do watch them is fifty-seven, and that young people virtually ignore Jennings, Brokaw, Rather, Lehrer, et al. I think so.
Democracy can survive the premature call of an election.
It will have a harder time surviving a medium of mass propaganda disguised as an instrument of truth. More on politics and society in Atlantic Unbound and The Atlantic Monthly. All rights reserved.