A comment by W. Alton Jones, Professor of Philosophy, Vanderbilt University.
When’s the last time you saw a pundit pause?
When President Joe Biden pardoned his son Hunter, who was convicted of three felony charges, the pardon was startling because Biden repeatedly pledged before the election that he would respect the federal jury’s conviction.
As the news broke of the president’s decision, liberal political analyst Molly Jong-Fast was asked on live television for a “fast and furious” reaction to the pardon of Hunter Biden.
Jong-Fast paused for a moment, then said, “I just heard it. I have to process it. I don’t have a take. I’m sorry.”
That became a story. Several news outlets adopted the Fox News headline that a prominent liberal commentator was rendered “speechless,” “gobsmacked” by the pardon. The next day, conservative commentator Megyn Kelly featured the clip on her Sirius XM program as a “very fun example” of liberal hypocrisy.
But Jong-Fast wasn’t speechless. She said she hadn’t yet formulated a response and needed time to do so. This is a responsible position to take in the midst of breaking news.
Yet it was treated as a political failing.
The negative reaction to Jong-Fast’s caution reveals a troubling trend in American democracy. People are captivated by the “hot take,” the “call out,” the “clap back,” the immediate verdict. That makes for shallow analysis that largely repeats familiar ideas.
But responsible political judgment requires reflection, and reflection takes time.
There’s a lot to learn from Herman and Chomsky, even though the book has been written long time ago. One point I don’t agree with, though, is the notion of ‘manufactured consent’ as the book frames it, as just because individuals in a democracy can’t meaningfully influence ‘corporate mass media’ and their published content doesn’t mean that there is consensus. There is influence at various levels, but not necessarily consensus.
One lesson we can derive from the book is the importance of decentralization not just in media, but in the entire state, its economy, and society. Decentralization is key imo.
(The ironic bit is that the book is sometimes used by Chinese propagandists as a case of Western propaganda (there is a Chinese translation afaik). What they don’t mention is that the Chinese government follows a much harder propaganda playbook than what Herman and Chomsky analyse for the US, and -contrary to China’s media landscape- contrary opinions are allowed, citizen journalists exist, alternative independent media work. In China, all this is impossible.)