The Personality Driven News Media

I want to start with Glenn Greenwald hammering the mainstream media again about their "petty personality-driven" reporting on presidential candidates.

Most certainly, the press will pretend to be above it all ("this is not something that we, the sophisticated political journalists, care about, of course"). But they yammer about Drudge-promoted gossip endlessly, and then insist that their own chattering is proof that it is an important story that people care about. And because they conclude that "people" (i.e., them) are concerned with the story, they keep chirping about it, which in turn fuels their belief that the story is important. It is an endless loop of self-referential narcissism—whatever they endlessly sputter is what "the people" care about, and therefore they must keep harping on it, because their chatter is proof of its importance.

Greenwald's right about the media and he's also right to keep hammering the media. Here's a couple of additional points.

1. An Embargo on Substance. One has to wonder whether a focus on "petty, personality-driven issues is a "ticket to admission" to the major mainstream media as well as the dominant mode of reporting. Perhaps the best way a young up and coming reporter can get on the air is read Drudge, catch up on Rush Limbaugh, and try to make Republican talking points sound like news. The embargo on substance might not just be a product of vapid media personalities; it might be a whole system where only the vapid survive.

2. Personality Politics Without Personality. One of the things about the media being obsessed with personality is that the mainstream media itself doesn't have that much personality. There's television personalities on the right like Sean Hannity and some of the Fox people. But the mainstream network guys like Brian Williams, Charlie Gibson, George Stephanopolous aren't all that distinguishable and neither are their reporters. Katie Couric is still known more as a morning show personality than a news personality. Sure, Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann have personalities but they're also outside the loop.

No matter how it's sliced, television is a personality driven media. Perhaps the mainstream media focuses on political personalities as a way to make up for its own personality deficit.