The recent death of right-wing radio firebrand Rush Limbaugh should--but probably won't--provoke mainstream news media producers to reflect on at least two important questions:
(1) How did someone like Rush Limbaugh, who openly trafficked in (to put it charitably) straw (wo)man caricatures of "liberals" and other "undesirables," become so popular in the first place?
(2) What was it about the Limbaugh brand that made him, for millions of listeners, more trustworthy than the mainstream press?
A common response to question #1 is that Rush benefited from the Reagan Era (1987) repeal of the Fairness Doctrine. Proponents of this position argue that absent any legal pressure to give rebuttal time to the targets of his scorn, Rush was able to reinforce the views of millions of like-minded folks without ever having to worry about giving voice to the other side. As noted by Business Insider's Jake Lahut, "From that turning point in 1987, what were once considered fringe attitudes about the declining influence of the white working class in America and racial resentment became increasingly mainstream in the GOP as Limbaugh's show went nationwide . . . Limbaugh didn't just yell incendiary things into the microphone all day, but rather cultivated a sense of shared grievances among his audience."
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| The Fairness Doctrine's repeal in 1987 aided the rise of right wing media, as did a number of other factors |
Rush and other right wing talk radio raconteurs no doubt benefited from the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine, but realistically it took more than that to aid their AM band ascendancy. In a recent Washington Post op-ed, MIT Professor of Film and Media Heather Hendershot argues that while the Fairness Doctrine historically "did help to keep demagoguery at bay," what's more significant about Limbaugh is the manner in which he reconceived the right wing talk format. Right wing media figures of the Cold War era, like Dan Smoot, were information heavy and humorless. According to Hendershot, Rush did the opposite: "Limbaugh created a right-wing, national entertainment show that was indebted to the collapse of the Fairness Doctrine and that overlapped at points politically with earlier right-wing radio — in its racism, opposition to entitlement programs and support of deregulation — but he brought comedy into his act. This made right-wing politics fun, in theory, a move that was not just smart business but also, like the demise of the Fairness Doctrine, a response to the rise of a diversified media environment."
In an insightful late 2000s primer on "The Fairness Doctrine Distraction," media critics Josh Silver and Marvin Ammori surmised that the rise of conservative talk radio had much to do with the "explosion of mergers" that followed the relaxation of ownership caps in the 1996 Telecommunications Act. For Silver and Ammori, "The new radio giants spawned a market for nationally syndicated content. The conservative talkers were the first to enter this market and to capitalize on the desire for bundled content." To attribute conservative emergence solely to the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine made it easier for Rush and others to trot out the Doctrine as a bogeyman every time democracy activists and responsible politicians tried to address the REAL problems: ownership rules that create media monopolies unresponsive to the communities they allegedly serve, the failure of the FCC to enforce strict licensing requirements focused on localism and serving the public interest, and the continuing attacks on net neutrality (the principle at the heart of keeping the Internet open to diverse viewpoints.).
Theories analyzing the reasons for Limbaugh's popularity will no doubt be the topic of scores of academic and popular works for years to come. For me the more interesting question is how, for millions of people, he became more trustworthy than the mainstream press. I asked a similar question when Jon Stewart stepped down from the Daily Show, and concluded (following the lead of media scholars Rod Hart and Johanna Hartelius), that Stewart's brand of political cynicism made viewers feel engaged in civic action merely by adopting the host's style of mocking the political system mercilessly. (In that same piece I expressed hope that the post-Daily Show Stewart would become an activist comedian in the Dick Gregory mold. His work on behalf of 9/11 first responders shows that he has been moving in that direction.).
Limbaugh had an impact on Republican politics in a way that Stewart never did (and never wanted to) for the Democrats. Stewart's criticism of mainstream media, even that which he seemed most appalled by like Fox News, always at some level seemed designed--perhaps naively--to push them to be better. His well publicized debates with the hosts of Crossfire and with Bill O'Reilly, and his conversation with Rachel Maddow, had a tone of Socrates challenging Athenian ideology.
Video: Jon Stewart on Crossfire
Rush Limbaugh never had any interest in making mainstream media better. Indeed, his entire brand was centered on the idea that the "liberal media" could not be trusted to tell the truth. In the Watergate Era, when Gallup Poll first started surveying Americans' views on the topic, around 70 percent said they trusted the mass media. As of 2019, "13% have a great deal of trust, 28% a fair amount, 30% not very much and 28% none at all." As views of news media went south, Rush played the activist antagonist, almost every day finding some outrage to get his listeners worked up about.
Mainstream news media was and is not an innocent victim of Rush's and other right wing bashing. The problem never was, as right wingers continue to shriek to this very day, that mainstream news media are joined at the hip with Democrats and actively engaged in a liberal conspiracy to colonize our minds. If there is a bias in mainstream media, it is not toward red or blue as much as GREEN (as in the almighty dollar) and protecting established power. If anything, mainstream media share Rush Limbaugh's bias toward toward attention grabbing conflict, as that particular quality tends to generate the most clicks, views, and shares and is thus more easily monetized. The difference is that Rush overtly took sides in such conflicts and thus came off as a "truth teller" in comparison to the not credibly "objective" mainstream.
My thinking on these matters is in part inspired by a great recent Twitter thread by New York University journalism professor and media critic Jay Rosen. He tweeted about a number of useful distinctions he makes in his critical work, including one that stood out for me: Journalists as Truth Seeking v. Refuge Seeking.
According to Rosen, "truth seeking needs no definition. It is finding out what actually happened--and telling us." Refuge-seeking, on the other hand, "is telling the story in a way that protects against anticipated attacks." The refuge-seeking mentality of mainstream news media gives us such awful practices as "both sides do it," steering the story "down the middle," and framing every conflict as "dueling realities" in a hopelessly divided nation.
The refuge-seeking tendency of the press has had terrible impacts on coverage of critical issues, especially elections. In the name of "balance," mainstream journalists allow stories to be coopted by hacks, special interest pleaders, and overt liars. It cannot be a coincidence that while the mainstream media's tendency toward refuge-seeking increased, the perception of the media as a trustworthy source of information decreased. The most trusted journalists in history were those who, like the late Mike Royko, wrote and spoke with "unnerving clarity" about the issues impacting everyday people. That kind of journalism doesn't just "speak truth to power;" more importantly, it speaks truth to the powerless and in so doing empowers them to understand the forces working to keep them down. Today Royko, along with other heroic reporters like Ida Wells, I.F. Stone, Molly Ivins, William Evjue and many others, are looked at as products of a different era. (Today I would put Thomas Frank and Barbara Ehrenreich in that category.). In today's refuge-seeking mainstream media, such journalists are the exception. They should be the rule.
In a way that is as distressing as it is pathetic, Rush Limbaugh became the "truth seeker" for millions of Americans. One can imagine an old-time Mike Royko fan with a taste for news that unapologetically tells the truth and names names, starting to notice in the 1980s and 1990s a steady movement away from that kind of journalism. You can imagine that old-time Royko fan getting tuned in to Limbaugh and thinking "I don't agree with everything he says, but at least he stands for something." Royko himself wrote a satirical "endorsement" of Limbaugh in 1993, and not surprisingly some letters in response came from people who liked both of them.
Until the mainstream media finds out what it is for, and stops seeking refuge in bland mediocrity, the era of Limbaugh will continue. In a competition between blustery loudmouths and business as usual hacks seeking refuge in "safe" reporting, the blustery loudmouths will always be perceived by more people as the truth seekers. In fact the competition won't even be close--it will be a rout.That's not the only lesson of the Limbaugh years, but it's sure as hell one of the more depressing ones.
