Propaganda is where you find it

[trinityvixen]

Something brilliant that my film professor said recently? "Don't be cynics. Be skeptics."

It's really simple: question everything, but don't assume anything is a lie automatically. He gave an example of this with the recent article The New York Times wrote up about John McCain and his possibly compromising relationship with a female lobbyist. What matters in that story? Who would have leaked it? Who benefitted from it? The story itself isn't the issue when you're fighting a war for popularity. What matters? The story seemed hasty, unfinished, making the NYT seem as though they were attacking McCain unfairly and rushing to judgment. It made them seem like the liberal-leaning paper most right-wing folks think they are. Suddenly, all those very hesitant extremists on the right were in it for McCain, the man they scoffed at as being too moderate (sin of sins!), or worse, a closet liberal (yeah, right; look at his track record on reproductive rights, and talk to me with that same bullshit again). Now there's more support for McCain and the Republican factions falling into line. So, who benefitted, really? And who would leak something like that? (If you need a clue, try to remember that McCain has snapped up Karl Rove, and he is a man of some genius when it comes to being an underhanded douchebag.)

I loved that. It was one of those lightbulb moments. And you can see it happening on both sides of the campaign. (Whoever thinks that Barack Obama didn't score similar points with his constituents after that "muslim dress" photograph surfaced isn't thinking.)

And now I see it everywhere. Supposedly, The Washington Post announced that it was trying to court female readership (can't find a direct link, so I won't say for sure they said anything like). Then they went and hosted this infuriating piece of anti-woman (forget feminists for a sec--this pieces JUST HATES WOMEN) garbage. Stupid play on their part!

Or is it really genius? This piece? IS EVERYWHERE. While it doesn't necessarily show them in the best light, perhaps--one would question the casual sexism of a place that thinks an article devoted solely to berating women is worthy of publishing--it did get their name out there. And I bet it's done them dynamite traffic over the past week. Almost every blog, including personal ones on LJ, has linked to it screaming for the heads of the editors who gave this bullshit a pass. When things got too hot, The WaPo said it was satire. More screaming. They hosted a chat session with the author, who proved herself to be a moron first class and a misogynist and a racist, hateful human being. (Highlights of that illuminating shit-session.).

And last but not least, they've invited a noted feminist author to come and rebut the article with one of her own. (For those who assume feminism is all about hating men, this article should be quite the shock. Because, surprise! She doesn't take the low road like the previous author and just go, "But men are stupid, too!" In fact, the author of the women-are-stupid-let's-throw-rocks-at-them original piece said in her session that very thing. It raises the question why she felt it necessary to single out women, or, if she didn't intend to, why she didn't inform us that her hatred manifesto was part of an on-going series.)

Do you still think The WaPo is full of idiots and misogynists? Maybe. Are you still going back to their paper? You bet your ass you are. That's pretty clever. (The fuckers.)

Comments

[kent-allard-jr.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, I've been reading about Charlotte Allen's piece all week.

One problem with Pollitt's piece, though, is her comment that "misogyny is the last acceptable prejudice." If you go to comments at the Washington Monthly, you'll see that atheists, homosexuals, black men, etc. are all pissed off about it, because it suggests the prejudice they face isn't "accepted." As I noted there, comparative remarks like these really ought to be avoided.

[anomilygrace.livejournal.com]

This has nothing to do with your post (though you are making some excellent points), but I was sent this interview with Tim Gunn last night and thought you might like to read it. Especially as it relates to VictorYA. :D

[anomilygrace.livejournal.com]

HAHAHAHAHA, and I scroll down on my flist, and you've obviously already read it. *facepalm*

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

Welcome to the twisted genius of Howard Stern and Ann Coulter.

[avram]

On the other hand, the approach you're describing leads to the kind of thinking used by conspiracy theorists, where every action taken by people in power is some sort of complicated chess move intended to have exactly the effects it turned out to have.

Large institutions like major newspapers are complicated places, filled with people pursuing their own agendas and advancing their own interests. I'm sure that both the NY Times and the Washington Post publish crazy shit on their opinion pages to drive up readership. (Why else would the Times give regular opinion columns to Maureen Dowd, David Brooks, and now Bill Kristol?) I'm much less convinced that their news articles are the result of clever leaks by candidates seeking to tarnish their own images for the sake of angering their supporters into coming out to the polls.

Consider the McCain article: What if the Times had dropped the adultery angle, and just gone with the influenced-by-lobbyists part? That would hardly have benefitted McCain. For the conspiracy theory to work, you have to assume that Rove knew the Times would write the article exactly the way they wrote it, which either requires an unrealistic amount of faith in Rove's predictive abilities, or assumes collusion between Rove and the story's writer and editors.

Consider the story the Times published a couple of years ago, implying that the Clintons's marriage is on the rocks, in which they interviewed 50 people to try and figure out how often Hill and Bill sleep together. A clever leak by Hillary's staff to outrage Democrats and drive up sympathy? Or just the NY Times sticking its nose into the Clintons's sex life?

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

::giggles:: ah-ha! Now I understand the other comment at my other post! Heeee

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Good point, although there's a different sensibility to shock-jocks like Stern or mouthy idiots with agendas like Coulter. They've established themselves as "People Who Do Those Things." A newspaper has many more expectations of it than just sensationalism. Someone, if this was as premeditated as it looks, weighed out the cost/benefit to this and thought it was worth the risk. (Whereas someone like Ann Coulter doesn't have to care about the risk at all because she's all about risk making her famous.)

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Sigh. As if infighting and trying to figure out who is most at a disadvantage gets you any brownie points. Those people should read the transcript of Allen's chat session, then they'd know that she's an equal opportunity hater of anything but white men.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

The thing about propaganda is that it is everywhere. Whether you put out a video for a campaign or you're just writing a story that has an impact on one, your efforts can be construed as propaganda and may be used as such. (This is due to our default setting of cynicism these days.)

I don't think you should denigrate such thinking as mere conspiracy theorizing. This is just deep consideration, not necessarily automatic assumption (remember! skeptic not cynic!). You're leaping to one conclusion, whereas I'm merely presenting another. My personal response to the Allen article was "Wow, what a piece of misogynist trash. Someone should be fired for this. How the hell did it get in the paper?"

So, I really asked myself: how could it have gotten in the paper. I had two answers: human prejudice or human avarice. The one means that no one at the WaPo thought this was a particularly awful thing, and that the people who let it through are as misogynistic as the author. The other suggests that the paper did it to stir up controversy and keep themselves at the center of attention. But who says it has to be one or the other? I'm sure that the people most beset by fears of being irrelevant are also those that fear the encroachment of women, minorities of color, et al. Perhaps this article skated through the nexus of both failings.

As for the McCain article: Karl Rove is a bloody genius when it comes to being sneaky. From now on, I am going to assume that anything particularly contentious coming from McCain's camp is his doing and is so much bullshit. Rove bugged his own offices to appear as though he were being spied upon to give his boss the appearance of being the underdog in the Texas gubernatorial race. (He also helped convince Texans that Ann Richards was a lesbian.) He smeared McCain in 2000 (and did such a good job they hired him). And I doubt we will ever forget the contribution to political discourse he contributed with "swift-boating."

Do I think he could have known how the story in the NYT would run? No, but could he have directed it and played upon noted prevalences in journalism (hey, sex sells!)? Abso-fucking-lutely.

The point I'm making is that the assumption that propaganda meant to hurt a candidate is unleashed by his enemies is still an assumption. And what happens when you assume? (I'm sure you've heard that before.)

[kent-allard-jr.livejournal.com]

She's an equal opportunity hater of anything but white men.

Damn good point.

[hslayer.livejournal.com]

First, I have to agree with agrumer. Never, ever underestimate people's stupidity. 9 times out of 10, when something assinine happens, it was someone being a goddamn idiot, not an evil genius. So that's the third way it could've gotten into the paper. Even the smartest people do dumb things on a semi-regular basis, so being the editor of a major world news source doesn't excuse that reason.

That said, I'd like to say that not seeing the editorial column as a "particularly awful thing" should fall into the stupidity column as well. You think someone would have to be a misogynist to let this by? Not just an idiot who figures the countless comics who mock their own ethnicity/religion/gender/orientation/lifestyle/species means it's always ok? It's "black people use the N-word" redux. (The N-word is, of course, naggers.)

And if they did intentionally do it to boost their own readership, based on the "no such thing as bad press" philosophy, so what? Isn't the whole point of an editorial page to spew whatever dumb opinions - not facts - you feel like, for whatever dumb reason you feel like? Did the column not bear a "does not reflect the opinions of" disclaimer? So they gave her a mouthpiece...so what? Like that's worth anything in 2008. Simply being in the Washington Post isn't automatic legitimacy; if you need proof look at all the responses to the column mocking her (personally, not as a woman) for being an idiot.

Once again, whatever the motive behind their decision to publish, I see a mountain being made of a molehill.

(Oh, and thanks for giving me a chance to use my new "I'm being an ass!" icon so soon after uploading it!)

[cbreakr.livejournal.com]

It's not the approach itself which leads to conspiracy theories, but the judgment made about information you gather as a result of taking the approach. For every story/event/whatever, there is intention involved on some level in all parties involved and skepticism is about unearthing as much of that as possible before coming to a conclusion. A bias towards one of the parties or a reflexive reaction to a particular aspect will lead to an imbalance in the amount of information gathered about one side versus another. That leads to conspiracy theories and really all forms of rigorous belief.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Brilliantly put. (Better than I managed, for sure.)

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

OK. I realize that judging someone on their appearance is a terribly superficial thing to do. And that women are judged by looks far more often than men, and it's an awful double standard. And that frequently, women are more catty to other women than men would ever be.

But I cannot repress the fact that the first thing that crossed my mind when I saw that picture was GOOD GOD WOMAN, DID SOMEONE HIT YOU WITH AN UGLY STICK UNTIL YOUR EYES CROSSED?!?! Really, if you're going to give a picture to be shown nationally, wouldn't you try to pick one that doesn't make you look like a crazy homeless person? Unless that's the best picture of her she has...

[avram]

OK, so what evidence is there that Rove masterminded the NY Times story about McCain?

[avram]

From now on, I am going to assume that anything particularly contentious coming from McCain's camp is his doing and is so much bullshit.

Isn't this cynical, rather than skeptical?

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Why is it mountain out of molehill? All I'm saying is that I applied myself to see this from every angle, not just the lazy/stupid editor one? I was just saying it was neat to consider these things and to see what was the fallout et al.

Also, there's no possible way anyone could find this funny and use "comedy" as an excuse since it wasn't at all funny. And was hard to read. And made no sense.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

None. But isn't it funny how something that was supposed to hurt McCain helped him? Because the Republicans hadn't fallen in line behind him until their only likely candidate was assaulted by the LIBRUL MEDIAR. It suggests really, really poor propaganda pushed by a leftist or really, really genius stuff from the right. Either is possible.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Oh, you're fully entitled to make comments about her appearance. Far as I'm concerned, she INVITED commentary when she wrote an article lamenting the fact that stewardesses have gotten ugly and no longer are nice because they hope to marry customers.

I'm not even kidding. (http://web.archive.org/web/20060112235301/www.iwf.org/inkwell/default.asp?archiveID=1384)

The second you make it your priority to criticize people's ability to do their jobs because they don't meet some sort of beauty standard, you open yourself to the same criticisms.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

No, absolutely, spread it around. Skepticism is not only healthier, it's overall a more intelligent approach to studying anything, especially things that are sometimes as subtly biased as history.

Because there is a difference. What kind of idea is it to raise kids to ask questions and then insist that they're being negative when they do? That's what right-wingers seem to expect.

[hslayer.livejournal.com]

Why is it mountain out of molehill?
I dunno, I was on a roll by the time I got that far down. :P Is evil not a mountain to stupidity's molehill? I guess I misunderstood, and thought you were advocating, not just analyzing, that angle. I probably made the error by being stupid and/or lazy. Just to prove my own point. :P

Hey, it was a little funny. Can't rotate objects in your head...hehehe.

[avram]

Or it suggests that a bunch of people on the right who'd been speaking out against McCain early in the primary season (when there still was a chance someone else would get the nomination) now needed an excuse to publicly change their minds, and were willing to grab whatever came along.

Or it suggests that sometimes, y'know, shit happens.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

The entire article was an insult to women. It was not funny unless you find insulting women funny. Well, I guess we know where you stand.

[(Anonymous)]

In this case, I think the "shit happens" category takes it. I'd bet on a nosy, overzealous NYT more than any planned action on this one. The ultimate response is more an indicator of party opportunism and spin than preparedness (though it's often hard to make that disconnection based on the speed of response). Most people just aren't clever enough for that.

[hslayer.livejournal.com]

Well, yes, actually, my stance is that prejudice is funny. The assertion that everyone in a group of millions or billions of people all bear a specific trait is too absurd NOT to be funny. I guess I'm a bigger fan of absurdist humor than most people....

Sure, there are real-world problems when prejudice is widespread, but for that to be relevant to the issue at hand, you kind of have to believe Allen changed any minds over to her point of view with that column. Instead, she made such a clown of herself that she probably ended up making as good a case against prejudice as the creators of South Park do with their depictions of it.

If you really, really want to believe that it wasn't just a boneheaded decision on the part of the editors, you can believe that that was their plan all along if you like. Along with selling papers, which is not at odds with either feminism or misogyny.