Looking at international politics one often wonders what happened to the dream of “peace for our times”? We put our hopes to our organization The United Nations. And though it’s still the last best hope it seems that the UN even has problems keeping the peace in its own chambers. I’m referring to Mr Khaddafi’s appearance before the general assembly last month where he was allowed 15 minutes for his address but ended up claiming closer to 90 minutes causing the interpreter to faint twice. The organization has been weakened by the current nature of international politics and by the security council’s “veto” structure.

For further reading:  Honduras statskupp ej hot mot demokratin (Svd), Humor i media (IU), Oväntade källor till kunskap, Jon Stewart på CNNs Crossfire.

It seems that the United States has grown impatient with the UNs lack of agility and the UN is more often than not, the butt of the proverbial joke. I would therefore argue that the real power in international politics now lies with the media. What we need is a United Nations of the media. An arbiter that can claim credibility, objectivity and de-mask the veil of politics in the presentation of current events. Let me illuminate two issues that have inspired me to write this article.

Subjectivity

There is often a dominant view of an international incident presented to us by the media. It is the case in the Iraq war and recently we have been able to read about the recent coup in the Central American nation of Honduras. But has there been a coup? Or was there almost a coup? According to some outlets the actual coup would have been if deposed president Manuel Zelaya would have been able to, contrary to the Honduran constitution, extend the term of his presidency. The country’s Supreme Court and parliament constitutionally overturned the president’s attempts and following further unconstitutional actions of the president, the Supreme Court ordered the military to place the president under arrest.

Whether this constitutes a coup and what is best for Honduras I leave unanswered, but the media has in the wake of the coup almost consistently presented one viewpoint and that is that of the “Honduran coup”.

The media political complex

Turning from Honduras to the United States and more specifically to the 24-hour news networks, the picture is, if not as dark, then at least disturbing. A recent survey by Sacred Heart University showed that the most trusted cable news channel in America is Fox News. The survey also showed that the network is simultaneously the least trusted network. If one watches broadcasts from Fox News the explanation is readily apparent. The network has a consistent republican slant on their reporting and offers the same values as those of the Republican Party. Fox News is owned by the “News Corporation “owned by Rupert Murdoch, a staunch republican.

The channel gained much of its current influence following the 9/11 incident of 2001 after which the channel reinforced its image as the “patriotic channel”. Flowing backdrops of the star spangled banner and unifying all American messages became their trademark as they established themselves as the dominant player in network media.
It is this convergence of politics and the media in the United States that makes an interesting study and is a fact that affects the very governance of the nation. Eisenhower warned of the military industrial complex, maybe we should have been as concerned with the media political complex. The 24-hour news cycle creates a vacuum that needs to be filled and the need for ratings and political influence pushes the media further and further to the political and journalistic extremes.

The Fox News channel has been accused of taking the step from reporting the news to creating it. In the wake of President Obama’s stimulus package bill there were reports of spontaneous public outcry and grass root “TEA (Tax Enough Already) Parties” across the nation. This to protest the president’s alleged socialist and irresponsible spending. In the days leading up to the protests Fox News channel had aired 107 commercial promotions of their coverage of the events and many of their TV-personalities urged their viewers to get involved in these “historic events”. Fox News then repeatedly aired the demonstrations and gave them large amounts of airtime, and the phenomenon therefore grew greatly in political significance.

Another example of opinion forcing its way into the news is the misinformation that has flooded the American healthcare debate. Sarah Palin held a speech arguing inaccurately that “government death panels” would base medical decisions on the individuals’ worth to society. This was taken up by Fox News programs and repeatedly spun to enhance the effect. This in combination with the spin they gave a range of Town Hall outbursts has created an image that the population is against this health care reform. So instead of arguing the merits of the bill they enhance a fear based “factoid” in an attempt to influence the public opinion in favor of a particular political position.

The Ironic effect

At the other end of the political media spectrum we find the cable channel “comedy central”. They have with the two shows, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report a great influence on the open discussion. Both shows have hosted most of the major political players and almost all of the democratic elite, during key political times. The list includes Barack Obama, Johan McCain, both Clintons and former presidential candidate John Edwards who actually announced his candidature on The Daily Show. The Daily Show started out more than ten years ago as a fake news broadcast with a satirical edge. It has during these years evolved into an immensely popular source for political analysis.

The Colbert Report is a spinoff from the “The Daily Show” where the host Stephen Colbert plays a conservative talk show host who promises not to “report the news to you” but instead “feel the news at you”. He is also the creator of the word “truthiness” which is defined as “the quality of preferring concepts or facts one wishes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true”. This satirical parody of Fox’s Bill O’Reilly and more recently ultraconservative host Glenn Beck, illustrates the extreme nature of the medias usage of icons to form public opinion.
The Daily Show’s host Jon Stewart has always claimed that their purpose is to entertain their audience, but a study during the 2004 election campaign showed that about 21% of the group of “young Americans” (18 - 34) relied on comedy shows such as The Daily Show as their source for campaign news, almost the same figures as those who relied on network news. Another similarly striking study from The PEW research center (2007) revealed that the viewers of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report was the most knowledgeable on current affairs when compared with the audiences of other media, including major newspaper websites, CNN and other network evening news. Whether the shows educate their audience well or their audience is well educated is an appealing question, but the satirical presentation of news in these shows is most certainly more easily accessible than that of the more traditional outlets.
As I mentioned The Colbert Report and The Daily Show both have a liberal viewpoint and represents one of the cornerstones of the theory of the “liberal media bias”. There are parallels between these Comedy Central Shows and Fox News shows in that Fox News continuously tries to spin this democratic presidents every move as a mistake or blunder. This closely resembles what The Daily Show and The Colbert Report did during Bush’s tour of office.
There are differences though. Fox News’s slogan is “fair and balanced” and they present their reports as accurate balanced news instead of the one-sided pieces that they often are. While The Daily Show and The Colbert Report do the same thing, they have an “integrity shield” of being comedy shows and never having claimed not to be biased.

The comedic nature of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, actually lends itself well to the political arena. It is nearly impossible to counter the shows mixture of facts and satire. This is well illustrated in this clip of CNNs debate show “Crossfire” where Jon Stewart appears as guest and balances his role as a comedic and political figure expertly.
Though they have never claimed a non bias, the fact that both The Daily Show and The Colbert Report have such a tremendous impact in politics while maintaining that their main purpose is to entertain, creates an eerie parallel to FOXs denial of its biased nature.

Ratification

There is a difficulty in accessing honest arguments and fair arguments in the United States in the current media atmosphere. Or at least the straightforward media articles drown under the influence of equally respected partisan reports. There is no consensus on who represents “the truth” and therefore the politicized media often go unopposed as their voice is just one of many in the either. This creates a dichotomy in the population of which half listens to the conservative media and the other half to the liberal media both of which might be said to misrepresent the actual issues as to win over the “median voter”.

I would argue that there is a need for a strong, unassailable and totally objective instance, which could act as an umpire in the debate and could say: This claim has its merits but is skewed in its representation of the issue. This is the way it actually is. The United Nations of the media needs to be without the obvious bureaucracy and Security Council. It needs to be a free organization that can rise above and disclose the nature of the world.
It would be an interesting experiment… Maybe this is where Sweden, with its supposed journalistic integrity, can find its next national identity much as the Norwegians have their diplomacy. Maybe we should start in Lund?
And while we’re waiting for this to happen, let’s make sure to take in multiple and contrary sources of news and create our own picture.

AXEL CARSTAM

The author would appreciate it if the comments to this article were made in English