As I read Watchdogs of Democracy? written by Helen Thomas, at times I felt the greatest crime of President Bush was his failure to charm her. The way she writes of state dinners as if it were her senior prom, describing her “long, black velvet skirt, with a matching jacket, and a fancy satin or silk blouse.” Bush did not hold enough of these events because he “liked to go to bed early and also because he was a total teetotaler.”
The lack of state dinners aside, Thomas believes President Bush was committed to going to war, willing to lie to bring it about. She saves some of her harshest criticism for the journalist who covered the events leading up to the conflict—from Colin Powell’s speech at the U.N. and George Bush familiarizing the American public with yellowcake. Knowing the power the media has by deciding what constitutes news and thereby defining the debate, Watchdogs of Democracy? was about the media conceding that power to play the offense to the White House.
As the title of her book suggests, Thomas considers journalists to be the “watchdogs of democracy.” Thomas writes, “Without an informed people, there can be no democracy. It is the job of reporters and editors to ask the tough questions of those in power and to act on the answers with trust, integrity, and honest guiding their judgment.” The romantic portrait of the journalist Thomas paints in the opening of her book does not mirror reality as we know too few journalists are actually up to the task.
To her credit, Thomas admits the industry is not above reproach. The scandals plaguing the news industry in the past couple of years are highlighted. From the lies of Jayson Blair, the Bush National Guard Memo, and the “yellow” journalists of the past, these episodes of plagiarism have not done much to restore the public’s trust in the media in the midst of accusations of bias. Thomas misses the opportunity to explore why journalists decide to lie. She only briefly blames it on “money, ego, and laziness.” (She couldn’t even explain why Jayson Blair spells his name like a porn star.)
The biggest failure of the American media lately has been their treatment of the Iraq War. She felt the media “…lapped up everything the Pentagon and the White House could dish out—no questions asked.” Reporters refrained from asking the serious, tough questions because they feared being labeled unpatriotic.
Reminding the public she was always skeptical of the connection between Iraq and terrorism by publishing excerpts of press conferences, Thomas cannot be relegated to being characterized a Monday-morning quarterback. The only problem is that the same individual appear almost hypocritical being so condemnatory of the New York Times and Washington Post when she admits she wish she were more “vigilant and skeptical” of the Nixon administration. Reporters make mistakes and are human also. It seems silly now the media trusted President Bush, a man whose biggest sin was mispronouncing nuclear, over Sadaam Hussein, who gassed the Kurds.
Thomas does emphasize the lack of “reporters who has some historical perspective on government deception and folly.” If Bush deliberately lied about the intelligence justifying the Iraq War (and being wrong is not the same as deliberate deception), the danger is apparent if we live in a world where the press and the public does not subject their leaders to more scrutiny. By allowing ourselves to trust the government when it promises to get rid of a myriad bogeymen, it is not surprising we have become so comfortable with the insatiable behemoth in D.C., we no longer question why it exists. If Thomas admonishes the media for not being critical of that creature, whether its controlled by Bush or anyone else, I applaud her.
In addition to discussing the “flagrant episodes of plagiarism, fabrication of stories, and relying on dubious documents without checking facts” and the journalistic response to the Iraq War, Thomas touches upon other changes in the industry at the beginning of the 21st century. She predictably attacks the corporations who own daily newspapers and news stations and their concern for making a profit as if could have survived without a paycheck. She fears “the consolidation of media ownership has meant less diversification of viewpoints.” Thomas apparently has not fully absorbed the fact that through the Internet an individual has access to a variety of foreign and domestic news sources that rival the thoroughness and number of viewpoints offered by The New York Times and Washington Post.
What Thomas and I both find troubling is what is being passed as news. In an era where Anderson Cooper interviews Angelina Jolie with the same reverence as one would Tony Blair, I fear entertainment is being mistaken for news. Americans would rather hear about what celebrity couple adopted a baby from Africa than the continent itself. Katie Couric’s appointment as anchor of the CBS Evening News, is not a coup for the women’s movement as it is proof that the American public finds Couric’s cheerleader-like enthusiasm more entertaining than the dour dispositions of the old white men who normally inhabit these positions.
Watchdogs of Democracy? solidified Helen Thomas’s place as the grandmother of the White House press corps. Armed with experience of covering President Kennedy through George Bush, she had the ability to regale the reader with details of being so close to the perceived source of power in our government. Like most stories and complaints heard from an disgruntled, aging relative the complaints Thomas has are no different than what we hear daily—technology changing the media, the fear of big corporations, and the lament of the passing of the golden age of media in the 20th century. Reading this book was similar to chatting with a crotchety old relative, masking our boredom at their ranting while picking apart their comments for a piece of wisdom.
