Pointedly Questioning Talking Points or How The Honest Politician Went Extinct

By Phil Erwin

Those of us who are old enough to actually remember the Cold War can also recall a time when it was possible to distinguish between honest politicians and liars.

That is to say: There actually were some honest politicians.

Nowadays, it seems as though there’s not much point in listening to what any politician has to say. Because whatever the party, whatever the topic, what comes out of the mouths of politicians will likely be the polar opposite of what they will say in another month or three; or what they said last year. Same topic. Same people. Same party.

Opposite result.

Perhaps the difference really is in how much access we have to what politicians say. Back in the pre-TV era, the only contact people had with their politicians was through the newspapers and radio, or in town halls during actual debates (as opposed to the staged advertisements we get now,) or otherwise on the campaign “stump.” Places where you could look into a politician’s eyes while you shook his hand, you could get a sense of him as a man. (Not many women in the “game” back then.) And it’s worth noting that the newspapers were actually expected to be truthful sources of news. You were paying for truth, and you expected to get what you paid for.

Where can you find truth these days?

Certainly not in newspapers. Nor on the “stump.” Matter of fact, if you can ever get to meet a politician in person, to shake his/her hand, the chances are now pretty paltry that you will be looking truth in the eye.

Today’s politicians are primarily salesmen. They have a story to sell: That they can fix your (and your nation’s or state’s) problems. They have to be good at selling; otherwise, they won’t get your vote, or your donor’s dollars.

And we all know just how far we can trust a salesman.

Aiding in their efforts to sell you their pigs-in-pokes are the news media: The so-called “news” papers, what’s left of the once-great news magazines, and all the modern digital “equivalents,” including television, talk-radio and the myriad Web sites that blast out opinion and subterfuge and call it “news.”

But today’s newspapers are not your Grandfather’s newspapers; today’s news broadcasts are not modern incarnations of Walter Cronkite’s Nightly News. And the “news” Web sites – To quote Billy Crystal, “Don’t get me staaahhhr-ted!!” Many of these so-called “news” outlets are nothing more than propaganda mills, having more in common with the old Russian revolutionary rag, Pravda, than with a Cronkite broadcast. They march in near-lockstep to deliver the same talking points, often using the same verbiage.

Which begs the question:   From whence come those talking points?

Who, exactly, is it that decides what “news” stories are worth our attention… and just what slant (newsie lingo for “prejudicial perspective”) delivers the “approved” view?

FOX news occasionally produces video-clip montages of the reporters and anchors on other networks, all using precisely the same verbiage in covering a particular story. These are not simply common phrases they all just happen to use. Rather, they are lines carefully crafted to create a particular impression.*

That’s what “talking points” are: Words carefully chosen by politically-adept wordsmiths to engender specific reactions in your mind and heart.

But who writes those catch-phrases and distributes them to the day’s pundits? Who comes up with those pointedly prejudicial pronouncements that serve to deflect your attention away from the truth?

Doesn’t it seem suspicious to you when ten, fifteen, even twenty supposedly unrelated news organizations in every state use the same carefully-constructed phrases to deliver the same slanted viewpoint, all virtually simultaneous with one another?

You gotta wonder: Who’s paying the speechwriter? And does he get paid by the word, or by the number of different broadcasts that repeat his words on air across the nation?

Who’s getting royalties for the nightly lies on the nightly news teleprompters?

Consider the Ferguson debacle. How many broadcasts, newspapers and on-line stories repeated the “Hands-Up-Don’t-Shoot” lie without ever questioning it? And did they ever admit, in the aftermath of the Justice Department’s eventual no-fault decision, that they had got it wrong?

And how readily the public lapped up the Rolling Stone’s story of gang rape in a UVA fraternity. Turns out the whole thing was made up, just as was the earlier Duke case. Yet, the “journalist” wasn’t fired, and the fraternity received narry an “Ooops… Our bad!”   Is the Rolling Stone a bastion of great journalism? Or is it just another source of lies carefully crafted to make Progressives feel good about their own secular sense of “morality?”

How about Fareed Zakaria, a journalist who’s been nailed and reprimanded repeatedly for plagiarism. Doesn’t seem to bother CNN, he still anchors their Sunday news program, GPS. I’ll admit he’s got decent on-screen presence; but should they still be presenting him as a paragon of independent thought?

And, really now: Doesn’t it seem even remotely suspicious to you when every news organization (save FOX) willingly parrots Obama’s (and Kerry’s) insistence that they are working to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear capability when by Obama’s own admission he can do nothing more than delay that very inevitability? Shouldn’t at least one news agency (besides FOX) be pointing out the obvious conflict in these inherently opposing statements?

I strongly recommend you question whether your habitual news sources question enough. That is, after all, the job of the journalist. If they’re not asking the hard questions, they’re not serving you, the public. And if they repeat precisely the same stories, with precisely the same slant and in precisely the same words as nearly every other news mouthpiece, you better start looking around for a source that’s a bit more independent-minded. We can’t afford to have critical public policy debates decided by one, or a very few, individuals.

We have to be more sensible, more reasonable, more carefully selective than that. The nation’s future – it’s very existence – depends on it. On us.

When you think about it, picking journalists is perhaps a bit like picking a real estate agent: You can go with the most “popular” agent (the one with the most sales,) but that assumes they are “popular” for good reason. Unless you do your own homework, you won’t have a clue whether they are valuing your home properly, or deliberately talking your price down in order to generate yet another quick commission.

You get, to modify an old maxim, what you pay attention for.

So if you want the time you spend absorbing “news” to be actually informing you, rather than deliberately and subliminally indoctrinating you, you really need to pay attention.

*     Apologies, I haven’t found any of those choice clips archived on-line. A pity – they’re not only very revealing of the nature of the “news” today, they’re also pretty amusing to watch.

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Phil Erwin is an author, IT administrator and registered Independent living in Newbury Park. He sometimes wishes he could support Democrat ideals, but he has a visceral hatred for Lies and Damn Lies, and is none too fond of Statistics. If his writing depresses you, he recommends you visit Chip Bok’s site for a more lighthearted perspective.

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