Building a Record

In a post that I think every blogger should read, Glenn Greenwald pushes back against the understandable tendency to throw your hands up and declare defeat when confronted everyday by a seemingly endless onslaught of journalistic malpractice and wrong-headed conventional wisdom. In particular, he responds to an exasperated Susie Madrak, who--in response to a previous post debunking a media report--had commented:

While Glenn Greenwald, as always, writes beautifully and constructs a compelling case, I’m starting to have the same response to what almost everyone writes, no matter how well.

I mean, it's no longer news. Those of you who are "logical" and "reality-based" and legal-minded are constructing a case for the record, but why?

I think Glenn does an excellent job explaining why it's important to build a record, so I'm going to quote him at length:

Given how systemic and deeply rooted all of these political and media failures are, what is the point of writing about them day after day, and complaining on a case-by-case basis about them? The corruption and dysfunction is, by now, obvious to those who are able and willing to see it. Why beat the same drum every day?

As frustrating as it can be, this sort of day-to-day pressure on individual journalists and political figures is the most effective weapon possessed by blogs, websites and other organizations devoted to forcing into our public discourse various perspectives and narratives which are otherwise excluded. Given how energized, engaged and active blog readers are, virtually all journalists, editors, pundits and political figures now hear the criticisms launched at them, and usually hear them quite loudly.

Through this process, many became aware of objections to what they do that they otherwise would not have realized. At the very least, they are conscious, when they go to write the next article or give the next interview, that they can trigger very vocal and negative reactions by repeating their errors.

Even for those who are not driven by rationality and who are not operating in good faith, this process can still affect how they behave. Everyone is potentially affected, to some degree, even if subconsciously, by substantial amounts of anger directed at them. Journalists in general have thin skins for criticism and when they are subjected to it, they remember it.

The point here is that changing our public discourse is a slow, grinding, difficult process. Any changes that occur, any progress that is made, will be made only incrementally, one day after the next. Each individual change is usually so slight as to be imperceptible, but aggregated, those changes can be substantial. The real success of blogs comes not from single, easily identifiable spectacular achievements ("we defeated this bill/candidate" or "we uncovered this fact"), but rather, by the gradual re-shaping of the dominant political narratives, by changing how political and cultural issues are discussed, by influencing (either through pressure or competition) how the media conducts itself in covering our political process.

This is exactly right, and it's imperative that bloggers understand this. Though it's hard to tell sometimes, this process has already altered conventional and prevailing narratives in noticeable ways. In an email exchange with Glenn earlier, I noted the following:

I think the best example out there of this slow incremental change is the way Bob Somerby's tireless work at the Daily Howler has slowly shifted the conventional wisdom about what happened in campaign 2000, and by extension, the conventional wisdom about the biases of the media generally. For years he has documented the dysfunction of the mainstream media, particularly in its coverage of presidential candidates. For a long time the conventional wisdom was that Al Gore ran a terrible race in 2000 and it cost him the election. I think it's fair say that, seven years later, the new emerging conventional wisdom (even among most journalists) is that Al Gore was treated incredibly unfairly by the media in 2000. And I don't think that would be the case but for Bob's work, all of which can be readily accessed online. It took him a long time, but he eventually developed a record of journalistic malpractice that, cumulatively, is impossible to ignore. And I think his example shows that even one dedicated individual, when the facts are on his side, can eventually alter conventional wisdom. It just takes some patience.

There are plenty of other examples like this, but the point is that conventional wisdom can be changed. Bertrand Russell once said:

If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence.

This human tendency is what you're up against when you're trying to make a point that cuts against the conventional wisdom or prevailing media narrative. It's an uphill battle. And the only way to make the case and change minds is to tirelessly document the evidence day after day. This is particularly true when it comes to issues like media bias, where isolated examples that contradict the prevailing view are easy to explain away as aberrations. The only way to change this sort of conventional wisdom is to keep piling up the evidence until its aggregate weight becomes impossible to ignore. You have to build a record. There's no other way to do this.

Though it's easy to lose sight of the big picture, I think left-leaning blogs have already had an enormous effect on conventional wisdom within the mainstream media across a whole host of issues. There's still a long way to go, but progress has been made.