Some of you may remember hitting the newsstand for your New York Times or New York Post depending on whether you were having a Cobb salad with sparkling water or a salami sandwich and a Coke for lunch. Whether you wanted to know what was happening in the ongoing battle between Israel and Palestine or the one between the Yankees and Red Sox. It was part of your routine just like sliding open your phone is when you woke up today. The newspaper was a physical and tangible testament to undisputed truth resting in your own two hands, while the elite few who controlled the final draft of that truth could be counted with only one of those hands. We believed the fine, forever print and were assured that they wouldn’t print it if it wasn’t true. How naive we were.
That naivety has worn out quite a bit as we are in a new digital era that is less innocent and more complicated; even if the update on the app from your favorite publication claims to be more user friendly with less bugs. Now those newspaper clippings you saved from 1994 have been dug out of your treasure trunk of nostalgia and put on eBay in hopes that you could at least recover the shipping and packaging costs because you just don’t have the heart to toss it in the recycling bin. Our computers and smart devices have relegated those clippings to relic status but what correlations does print media have with the more technologically advanced way we get news today?
After watching “The Sweet Smell of Success”, directed by the underrated Alexander Mackendrick, I couldn’t help comparing today’s media climate with the one depicted in the dark and seedy streets of New York in 1957. Burt Lancaster portrays J.J. Hunsecker, a sadistic and influential gossip columnist and Tony Curtis plays Sidney Falco, an egocentric press agent looking to snatch any crumbs Hunsecker is willing to leave him. Both are cut-throat and despicable people who feed off of the suffering of others even as they deal with the nuissance of their humanity when they experience the conflict within themselves over their wretched schemes. It is the willingness to suppress that conflict in order to achieve the power and influence they crave. It is, as the title suggests, the key to their success, but ultimately it is their undoing as one lays beaten and bleeding on the streets of old Times Square while the other watches the only person in the world he loves walk out the door, leaving him all alone in his ivory tower.
In the circus that is today’s news cycle, it is not only the ever-present cabal of media moguls that can still be counted on only one hand; but also a plethora of social media celebrities, activists and the five minutes-of-famers who just want attention that have an impact on what is read and heard. The brand name voices of authority like Lancaster’s Hunsecker (character based on Walter Winchell, the godfather of the gossip column) or Orson Welles’ Charles Foster Kane (based on William Randolph Hearst) or even in our “real world” figures like say Rupert Murdoch have given way to the collective finger-wagging shout downs of cable news pundits that gets people to categorize themselves in alignment or in defiance of their views to shape their own custom political identity. In the politics of the 1950’s you essentially only had a choice of chocolate (liberal) or vanilla (conservative); today you can have brown sugar and bourbon infused vanilla (moderate progressive), vegan yuzu jam and kazu sake (democratic socialist), certified gluten free coffee coffee BuzzBuzzBuzz (anarcho-communist) and so on. Watching Rachel Maddow on MSNBC? Neoliberal. Tucker Carlson on Fox? Paleoconservative. Alex Jones? Far-right conspiracy theorist-libertarian-truther-nut job. All have large swaths of followers but none have the undisputed trust of the public of a Walter Cronkite. It’s also important to note that journalists of Cronkite’s time rarely revealed their political leanings because they didn’t want to alienate people as opposed to today where our media personalities proudly wear their allegiances on their sleeves and embrace those that disagree with them more than those who align with them because adversarial journalism sells. It markets itself more like a WWE SmackDown than news because who wouldn’t pay to see Alex Jones get in the ring with Chris Cuomo?
Without a clear leading voice in the legacy media, that distinction in large part has fallen on you. Well, maybe not you alone but the collective you. It is the millions on social media who are being heard not only by the media establishment but the political establishment as well (if you distinguish between the two but that’s another story). But are they listening or simply pandering like they usually do around election time? The idea that social media has given the average person a place at the table in public debate has served as an elaborate publicity stunt in that people have been led to believe that their voice matters because they’re allowed to participate on platforms (terms dictated by Big Tech) in which the final edit is still ultimately decided by the same powers that be who have make it their business to keep it that way. Let’s not forget to mention that it has been extremely cost effective as well. Who needs a beat reporter when you can hire unpaid interns or use some rando’s video footage of the latest subway pushing? For better or worse, citizen journalism is on the rise which, along with the help of the Covid-19 crisis, has had a role in thousands of media jobs being eliminated all while CEOs continue to make millions.
Yes, there is some merit in the impact that social media can have on public policy and civil discourse. It has certainly evolved from the cutesy days of instant messaging and friend reassurance to not only the reporting on current events but also organizing political revolutions and social justice protests. But while some without question view this as a mostly positive development, others feel that it has led to the inmates running the asylum so to speak. On one level the social media movement has been given credit for giving voices to those who have not been heard for far too long while others argue that giving millions of people a soap box complete with loudspeaker has been a destabilizing force to the truths that were once considered the tenets of our society and has brought about a confusion of fragmented ideas that have divided people more than ever. One side viewing the middle ground as a necessary compromise for achieving a better understanding with their adversaries, while the other side rejects compromise as a concession that derails the advancements made toward their own empowerment.
But despite the distrust of the mainstream media that has taken shape from both sides of the public; many have resorted to using the same tactics a CNN anchor would use to vilify a Fox News anchor and vice versa. Back in J.J. Hunsecker’s day he could ruin somebody by simply printing the word ‘communist’ next to his victim's name. Today, all one needs to do is substitute the word ‘racist’ to achieve the same result, whether they have any credibility or not. But as morally bankrupt as Hunsecker was he dealt with politicians, entertainers and other powerful figures. In what can only be considered modern day McCarthyism, the tentacles of today’s cancel culture doesn’t just affect the rich and powerful but also teachers, firefighters, religious leaders and even senior citizens just because they’re getting in the way. Much like Hunsecker who could drum up any story he wanted to sell newspapers, today people do it to sell clicks for a minute fraction of a Bitcoin. Even worse than that, some just do it for the fun of ruining people.
The times have changed but the ethical standards of journalism have regressed because the idea that progress can be achieved by building and improving on what has already been established has been abandoned. It is simply easier and more lucrative to cater to the lowest common denominator by destroying instead of building. By dividing rather than uniting. By making shit up on the fly instead of learning the facts. At what point do we learn from the mistakes made by the Sidney Falcos and Charles Foster Kanes instead of repeating them?
Whether you are reading on a piece of paper or a sheet of glass, or whether you skip to the Arts section or Page Six, or are a Trotskyist or Randian Anarcho-Capitalist, the dissolution of truth for the instant satisfaction of settling personal vendettas that become viral, will lead us down the same lonely path suffered by J.J. Hunsecker.