Excellent piece. What I don't understand is Licht's business rationale. His job is not to assure that the news is reported fairly and accurately. It's to maximize viewership and ad dollars. Why does he think pandering to Trump and MAGA is going to increase eyeballs? MAGA won't watch CNN--they won't even watch Fox News if it strays from strict fascism. This makes a rightist CNN a right-wing spoiler, drawing a (relatively) few viewers to itself so that no one--not Fox; not Newsmax; not ONAN (sic); not CNN--gets enough. This is what Keith Olbermann mocks--"Increase ad revenue by decreasing viewership."
Missing from this piece (although implicitly haunting it) is the crucial, one could even say existential, distinction between truth and lies. Whenever Licht, Anderson Cooper, or anyone else chides liberals for not "listening to both sides," they should be sharply smacked and sent to their room without dessert, because Trump's "side"--an endless cloud of lies--is not a side at all.
With regard to any argument, falsehoods do not embody an alternate political position. In this regard, at least, Trump makes it easy on everyone. Everything he says pubicly (and, for all I know, privately), is a lie. Literally everything. Which means the proper response to whatever he says is not to *evaluate* it, but to swat it aside. If that means he should not be interviewed at all, that's a defensible position. If you must interview him, then to each of his answers you must say, "No, that's false. The truth is, X. Now, next question..." CNN's problem is not that they don't know this. It's that they know this but don't care.
When people make decisions that appear to harm their self interest (here maximizing viewership and ad dollars) they're rarely being illogical or acting against their interests. Instead, we just don't understand what their preferences actually are. I think we should be working to understand what CNN's actual goals are rather than evaluating how their actions contradict their stated goals.
Maybe--although it's certainly possible in this case. The dangers of giving Trump an hour of free infomercial time seem so obvious, they can't NOT have occurred to Licht. Maybe he thnks Trump is destined to win next year (which is itself an insane assumption), and wants to curry favor. It is a mystery.
Coincidentally I saw this right after reading this description of how Erdogan manipulates the media, as well as the courts etc, to win elections in Turkey. Scary. https://wapo.st/3BJCfVk
BUT, I got hung up when you wrote that: " a more pressing question than whether or not the institutions tasked with upholding democracy possess the strength and/or will to mount an effective defense against an authoritarian movement that could not be clearer about its ideology and goals."
All this is happening is happenning precisely BECAUSE our institutions ARE NOT working to "uphold democracracy." because none one want the job. As you note, most deny or rationalize the harsh reality right in front of them. There is no concerted effort to resist.
I think you're right Daniel, the current form of our capitalist system has encouraged companies/CEOs/media outlets & other power brokers to put short term profitability at the center and heavily weighted as their driving focus. In doing so, they have completely disregarded having concerns about things like long term viability, economic and social impact, whether we're actually going to solve climate change (or just prop up the fossil fuel status quo as long as possible while turning the planet into a dry cinder), whether it's actually *good* for their business in the long run for America to devolve into autocratic fascism.
One thing has certainly become clear to me... These people are not geniuses, they aren't in positions of power out of true merit or wisdom. They are intentionally sleepwalking us all to the edge of destruction, simply because Reagan era financial "reforms" gave them plausible deniability to put money ahead of and over everything else.
They will sell our democracy one headline at a time, as long as it looks good on this quarter's balance sheet. The sooner most Americans realize this, the sooner we can opt out of contributing to their profitability at our own collective expense.
The notion of a tipping point makes some kind of sense conceptually, but none at all empirically. At least not looking in a forward direction. And yet, the dilemma of describing the slide into fascism and absurdity is that too many absolutely refuse to accept it even conceptually until they have seen its effects in hindsight. Meanwhile, as you say, we'll have any number of talking heads explain to us that the system is working because the lights are still on... until they're not any more.
Finally, a valuable and realistic opinion piece. Thanks for this.
Superb analysis
Excellent piece. What I don't understand is Licht's business rationale. His job is not to assure that the news is reported fairly and accurately. It's to maximize viewership and ad dollars. Why does he think pandering to Trump and MAGA is going to increase eyeballs? MAGA won't watch CNN--they won't even watch Fox News if it strays from strict fascism. This makes a rightist CNN a right-wing spoiler, drawing a (relatively) few viewers to itself so that no one--not Fox; not Newsmax; not ONAN (sic); not CNN--gets enough. This is what Keith Olbermann mocks--"Increase ad revenue by decreasing viewership."
Missing from this piece (although implicitly haunting it) is the crucial, one could even say existential, distinction between truth and lies. Whenever Licht, Anderson Cooper, or anyone else chides liberals for not "listening to both sides," they should be sharply smacked and sent to their room without dessert, because Trump's "side"--an endless cloud of lies--is not a side at all.
With regard to any argument, falsehoods do not embody an alternate political position. In this regard, at least, Trump makes it easy on everyone. Everything he says pubicly (and, for all I know, privately), is a lie. Literally everything. Which means the proper response to whatever he says is not to *evaluate* it, but to swat it aside. If that means he should not be interviewed at all, that's a defensible position. If you must interview him, then to each of his answers you must say, "No, that's false. The truth is, X. Now, next question..." CNN's problem is not that they don't know this. It's that they know this but don't care.
When people make decisions that appear to harm their self interest (here maximizing viewership and ad dollars) they're rarely being illogical or acting against their interests. Instead, we just don't understand what their preferences actually are. I think we should be working to understand what CNN's actual goals are rather than evaluating how their actions contradict their stated goals.
Maybe--although it's certainly possible in this case. The dangers of giving Trump an hour of free infomercial time seem so obvious, they can't NOT have occurred to Licht. Maybe he thnks Trump is destined to win next year (which is itself an insane assumption), and wants to curry favor. It is a mystery.
One possibility is that a lot of CEO's just aren't that smart.
Coincidentally I saw this right after reading this description of how Erdogan manipulates the media, as well as the courts etc, to win elections in Turkey. Scary. https://wapo.st/3BJCfVk
Brilliant.
BUT, I got hung up when you wrote that: " a more pressing question than whether or not the institutions tasked with upholding democracy possess the strength and/or will to mount an effective defense against an authoritarian movement that could not be clearer about its ideology and goals."
All this is happening is happenning precisely BECAUSE our institutions ARE NOT working to "uphold democracracy." because none one want the job. As you note, most deny or rationalize the harsh reality right in front of them. There is no concerted effort to resist.
I think you're right Daniel, the current form of our capitalist system has encouraged companies/CEOs/media outlets & other power brokers to put short term profitability at the center and heavily weighted as their driving focus. In doing so, they have completely disregarded having concerns about things like long term viability, economic and social impact, whether we're actually going to solve climate change (or just prop up the fossil fuel status quo as long as possible while turning the planet into a dry cinder), whether it's actually *good* for their business in the long run for America to devolve into autocratic fascism.
One thing has certainly become clear to me... These people are not geniuses, they aren't in positions of power out of true merit or wisdom. They are intentionally sleepwalking us all to the edge of destruction, simply because Reagan era financial "reforms" gave them plausible deniability to put money ahead of and over everything else.
They will sell our democracy one headline at a time, as long as it looks good on this quarter's balance sheet. The sooner most Americans realize this, the sooner we can opt out of contributing to their profitability at our own collective expense.
The notion of a tipping point makes some kind of sense conceptually, but none at all empirically. At least not looking in a forward direction. And yet, the dilemma of describing the slide into fascism and absurdity is that too many absolutely refuse to accept it even conceptually until they have seen its effects in hindsight. Meanwhile, as you say, we'll have any number of talking heads explain to us that the system is working because the lights are still on... until they're not any more.
Outstanding analysis