I just stumbled upon a little post on Pandagon by Jesse Taylor about a topic I love to complain about; the corporate media’s concept of “debate.” Here is a big chunk of the post:

I’m currently watching a Bill Schneider piece on creationism/ID, and even as he covers polling on the issue, I’m made well aware why most people don’t think it’s a problem.

Schneider’s continual reference to the debate is “teaching both sides” and/or “teaching different viewpoints”. Never is the validity of the idea brought up, or any educational background about what the purpose of science is. Daryn Kagan just asked the anti-dumbass guy what the problem was with presenting “other ideas” in schools, and it’s obvious she has about as much background on the question as I do on Bolivian economics.

It’s emblematic of just how ridiculously poorly equipped the media is to host any real debate on controversial issues, particularly when one side is being patently dishonest.

Atrios agrees in this post:

Kudos to our wonderful media for treating this as a he said/she said issue, where one side is the entire legitimate scientific community and the other side consists of a bunch of good Christian liars trying to dress their religion up as science. They tried once before with “Creation Science” and now they’re trying again with “Intelligent Design.”

I wrote a long comment with a similar sentiment under Melissa’s excellent post on No Child Left Behind from back in the infancy (a few months ago) of this blog. I dig on Jeff Greenfield (in a hypothetical manner) instead of Bill Schneider, but either will do. I also point out how such reporting tends to support PR-driven, contrived, and empty policy, as well as PR-driven, contrived, empty politicians. Here’s what I wrote in full (though not very well written… hey, it was just a comment):

I know little about the details and intricacies of NCLB. But I suspect the entire legislation is nothing more than a ruse. For what purpose? So Bush/Republicans/Etc. can claim that they passed legislation to help our educational system (with a soft and fuzzy Orwellian name they can repeat over and over again). It is an accomplishment they can read off on 30 second ads and campaign stops devoid of criticism. Thus, no need to actually fund the program and raise taxes.

Once we get into the lack of funding and the need to raise governmental revenues (or reappropriate them) to support NCLB, the conversation gets too long and complex for corporate media to discuss. There are too many issues. First, NCLB itself has serious problems (as raised by this article), but I’m sure a talking head can blabber good things about it for several minutes on CNN. Accountability? Good. We shouldn’t waste money on failing schools, we owe it to the children, etc etc. Then the Democrat can either raise excellent (and fairly obvious) criticisms or, in many cases, agree. Secondly, the Democrat or journalist will ask about funding NCLB. That opens the door to finger pointing between Democrats and Republicans. The Republican will say it is possible to cut more taxes and still fund education. Democrats will say we can’t cut anymore taxes, but won’t dare say that we need to raise them (and will instead criticise tax cuts already made), and then say that NCLB is an unfunded mandate. And since the corporate media prefers to report on politics as strategic battles rather than as debates on policies, this finger-pointing will be encouraged. Then Jeff Greenfield will talk about how interesting it is that the Republicans take X strategy and the Democrats take Y strategy. He’ll then speculate about how the American people will react to parties’s stances on the issue, rather than provide meaningful analysis of the policies and facts behind the debate.

Jeff Greenfield and his ilk are simply sports commentators, treating political parties like teams. There could be a role for this commentary, if success in politics was an accurate reflection of a party’s ability to apprise and address the real needs and desires of the people. But when success in politics is the result of PR (propaganda) and ignorance, then we cannot treat politics like a sporting event, as parties may be successful because of their ability to dupe people or make them apathetic.

But in the end, the Republicans get to say they passed legislation to reform and save our educational system. Kids may learn less because of it, but knowing why takes analysis. I [hope] we figure it out before the consequences on our society make it clear.

All it would take is a little analysis from the corporate media to discredit idiotic policy positions. Then we can focus debates appropriately between mutually credible policy positions. A debate between Intelligent Design Theory vs. evolution, for example, could be replaced by one of the following:
-evolution theorists debating the merits of the completeness of the theory (or perhaps serious alternative theories, if they exist)
-deep criticism of the Intelligent Design Theory (and other superstitions), as a public service
-sociological study of proponents and advocates of intelligent design theory, and of other folks who struggle so ferociously against overwhelming evidence… what makes them tick?

This is not to say people can’t continue to believe in creationism. Lets just not pretend that it has anything to do with science. Atrios says it nicely in the same entry linked above… it made me go back and capitalize “intelligent design” in this post:

Obviously most people who believe in some form of supreme deity are lowercase intelligent design believers of some kind, but that’s entirely different from being believers in the “science” of uppercase Intelligent Design. People are free to believe, if they wish, that aspects of the universe including life suggest to them the presence of some form of divine hand. But that’s spirituality and faith, not science. There is no genuine science of Intelligent Design and it has no place in science classrooms.

And isn’t faith most pure where proof is most lacking? Let’s not forget this passage from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy about the Babel Fish:

Now it is such a bizarrely impossible coincidence that anything so mind-bogglingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as a final and clinching proof of the nonexistence of God. The argument goes something like this:

“I refuse to prove that I exist,” says God, “for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.”

“But,” says Man, “the Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn’t it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don’t. QED.”

“Oh dear,” says God, “I hadn’t though of that” and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.

UPDATE, 8/4/05:

I just love to link to other bloggers who are thinking similarly and at the same time, as you can see. The Babel Fish problem of proof and faith is a perfect segway into this post from the Big Brass Blog:

But what lies as the root cause of religious extremism? Lack of faith.

That’s right, lack of faith. The zealots in this country, and throughout the world, who must wear their religion on their sleeves, have every aspect of their lives dosed with religion and feel the need to not only believe for themselves, but to take everyone along with them or else, clearly are suffering from a serious lack of faith.

What else can explain the need to constantly shove their religion into everyone else’s lives? They have such a fragile system of faith that they must constantly say “look at me, I believe in God, I am pious and you are a sinner, and either you will observe my way or you are going to hell!”

Of course, one might argue that these extremists are trying to save us from damnation. But naaah…

Those who try to push religion into other people’s lives probably often suffer from a lack of faith, as BBB suggests. I think part it may also be a misconception about faith, that is, they mistakenly think they need to see earthly manifestations of “God’s will.” If this is their conception, then their faith is certainly lacking.

But insecurity plays a big roll. Those who try so forcefully to mold and indoctrinate our society may be subconsciously aiming to satisfy their own religious and personal insecurities by their efforts. They may satisfy their religious insecurities by seeing that more and more people have similar beliefs. And they may satisfy their personal insecurities with feelings of empowerment, achieved by turning themselves into activists, leaders, recruiters, martyrs, etc… the more extreme, the better.

We may all be a bit guilty of this when it comes to politics, debate, and activism, even when we have truth and logic on our side. Perhaps that’s part of the reason why we write this blog. But we differ in that we have faith in the strength of our positions; we have faith that our ideas will emerge victorious from the marketplace of ideas when given their fair hearing.

Most religious people know that their religions do get a fair hearing in our society; in churches, communities, traditions, and culture. They know that their religions cannot stand up to evolution in scientific validity, and they know that science alone cannot satisfy their deep feelings of spirituality. So they recognize that both science and religion will benefit most by discussing them separately in different physical and intellectual venues.

Damn, this post was supposed to be about corporate media and debate.

UPDATE, 8/5/05:

The post that never ends!

Shakespeare’s Sister now takes the reigns, bringing mindless supporters of the President into the fold.

John Kerry said he believes in God (and attends church more frequently than the president), and didn’t seem afraid to say it; so what’s the difference? Every friggin’ president we’ve ever had has been a Christian believer in God (and not afraid to say it). So what makes this guy so different? Isn’t it really that he’s willing to push a very particular Christian agenda down the nation’s collective throat? Isn’t it that he espouses (if not overtly, then through his policy endorsements) a superiority of that particular Christian doctrine over other Christian beliefs, other religions, agnosticism, and atheism? Isn’t it his willingness to subjugate science, reason, the rule of law, fairness, justice, and equality to give ever greater rights to your existing majority, while indulging your screeching assertions of victimhood?

I wrote about how the insecure-religious need to see that other people share their religiosity. I called this their “religious” insecurity, that is, their lack of faith. But Shakespeare’s Sister points out how John Kerry and just about every other candidate display their religiosity as overtly as Bush. So why don’t they support Kerry, et. al.? Maybe Shakespeare’s Sister is partially wrong… Bush may simply go further than other candidates; “Jesus Christ” as his favorite philosopher is one example. But Shakespeare’s Sister hits a more important reason why the extremists support Bush: his attempts to push and promote religion, and arguably religious ideals, through public policy. This is how Bush appeals to the other insecurity I wrote about: “personal” insecurity. It is not enough for the extremists to think Bush agrees with their religion. They want Bush to answer to them. By trying to “push a very particular Christian agenda down the nation’s collective throat,” Bush reinforces the extremists’ false feelings of personal superiority. And the more he “subjugate[s] science, reason, the rule of law, fairness, justice, and equality,” the more he validates the extremists’ feelings and satiates their insecurities.

I know, the horse is dead, I shall refrain from beating.