At about the same time, I was called a few times by newspaper
reporters in the city (I was articulate and quotable), and when
I protested being misquoted or distorted opposite to my well-
understood meaning, the reporters told me that it was their
editors who controlled what the story said; they only supplied
copy.
My response at the time was to cease supplying copy or advice,
or any grounds of pseudo-legitimacy, to their 'stories'. In every
single case throughout my life in which I have been able to
compare firsthand knowledge of a news event with media coverage
of it, I have found not just bias but deliberate political
distortion well beyond any innocent possibility of error or
variant perspective. I do not read ANY media as other than
propaganda for editorial agendas, not in political stories,
and today not really even in their choice of 'fluff'.
The media are a site of power. Their journalistic idealism
and battles with government or corporate censorship or the
influence of their advertisers are mirages, real only in
the internecine struggles of power elites. They are subject
to no democratic control or accountability. Their interest
in truth is instrumental at best. I am speaking here of
the institutions, and of their masters, not necessarily of
individual writers who may make efforts within compromised
positions, as to one extent or another we all do.
So I would have to agree with Ken that there is no forum
of open political discourse (except locally, here and there),
and that reasoned argument and evidence are not what is
mainly at stake here.
I also generally agree with Ken's recommended actions, and
I suspect Phil (who's away in Norway and out of touch right
now, I think) would too. But they are not enough if we are
serious about having political influence sufficient to
balance that of our present and potential adversaries.
This is not the time to develop further an analysis of how
to increase such influence, but I think people in higher
education, as well as in public education generally, should
be thinking about this.
We should also be trying to analyze what is happening
generally to the politics of education, at least in the
US, though in other places there seem to be similar
phenomena. My impression is that there is a present a
real bid to shift the balance of power in the control
of education away from professional educators and toward
either corporate managers or political interest groups.
There may also be a unique convergence of circumstances
now and in the near future when such a shift might actually
be effected. Many, many transient issues and debates, I
think, are just symptoms and venues for this much larger
and more important longer term struggle. JAY.
JAY LEMKE.
City University of New York.
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INTERNET: JLLBC who-is-at CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU