It's The Stupid, Stupid Part 2
The Death of Persuasion.
I once heard a story about legendary newsman, Mike Wallace. Wallace who was at CBS forever and a key-figure of its Sunday night newsmagazine, 60-Minutes, is said to have announced the “death of news.” When was it? Wallace pronounced the death of news, late in his career, when for the first time 60-Minutes made money.
His take? When the news can make money, making money will become the goal of the news. And, that friends, is what we have been living through for the past 30 years.
FOXNews1 recently settled set a lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems for lying about widespread voter fraud after the 2020 election. You can read about it HERE. Or watch about it HERE. The settlement was for $787.5 million. It’s the largest defamation settlement in American history, but did not include an apologize or acknowledgment of wrongdoing by FOX. Plus, while it will sting, FOXNews, with $4B in the bank will recover.
What fascinates me is FOX’s motivations for saying what they said about Dominion. The reason host like Tucker Carlson at FOX went along with the election lie is that they were afraid of losing the audience and descending stock prices. It was not about opinion or news or even belief. It was about the money. And to keep the money flowing, just say what the people who agree with you want you to say, whether it’s real, right, or true.
For certain, in the shadow of Micke Wallace, all news outlets have revenue generation motivations. Every person does. Heck, even this Substack has a paid and free version. But what’s even more fascinating to me is that our public discourse is about the money and not about what I believe public course should be about: Persuasion.
When I write, speak, or have conversations about important and contested topics, I want to persuade. Sometimes it feels as if I’m the last remaining persuader. I hear preachers bark orders, cable news shades or ignores inconvenient facts, and politicians know that yelling and screaming gains views and raises fund.
I found THIS VIDEO from North Carolina Representative, Jeff Jackson, particularly interesting. Jackson says what many of us have long thought, public political discourse is little more than theatre, and far less entertaining.
This kind of discourse is another way we stay stupid.
