On News, Stupidity, and American Democracy
...[T]he media's all-consuming interest in the "how" and "who's ahead" of politics, and "oh God this is boring" disdain for the "what" and "why" of public issues, has all sorts of ugly consequences. It makes the public think that politics is not for them unless they love the insider game; it makes the "what" and "why" of public issues indeed boring and unapproachable; and as a consequence of the latter, it makes the public stupider than it needs to be about the what and why. James Fallows wrote that, in a blog post about Al Gore's recent Rolling Stone essay, the news story it became, and why we hate the media. Having lived in China, and especially now that I've started preparing to (yikes) write about China, conversations about "communism" and "freedom" and "democracy" are impossible for me to avoid. And, while the CCP its wasteful paranoia frustrate me, I think it's important to for Americans to take note of observations like Fallows's and remember just how imperfect (and thus understandably unappealing overseas) our democracy is.
