New President, Same Babel

Arthur Solomon

The Electoral College casts ballots on December 19, assuredly electing President Donald Trump, although the vote will not become official until January 6, when the results are formalized during a session of Congress, ending the most divisive, factious and belligerent presidential election since the last most contentious, disputatious, cantankerous presidential election.

So what’s to follow in this era of no good feeling? Assumedly, the same babel that the Trump pundits and surrogates spouted before, during and after the November election. Hopefully not, but don’t bet a shekel on it.

It’s understandable why Trump surrogates promoted their version of facts: They had to make a living. That’s not to excuse the deliberately slanderous, crass, rude behavior and false accusations and outright lies some of them made, led by Trump and spokeswoman Katrina Pierson.

In a perfect world, those who deliberately told lies should be banned from appearing on future political TV shows. But that will not happen because the commentary, whether true or not, is the bloodline of the 24/7 cable political shows. Restricting spokespersons to only tell the truth or cutting them off when they don’t would turn the 24/7 political news programs into to 1/1 programs.

So the babel is certain to continue, and the worst offenders are not the political-for-hire gun slingers and cleaner-up Trump statements surrogates like Kellyanne Conway — we know what their job is — but the supposedly knowledgable, professional journalistic program hosts and beat reporters, whose job it is to ask tough, incisive questions seeking truth for viewers.

Don’t hold your breath waiting for incisive, tough questions to be asked, because the great majority of TV political reporters are generalists, and unlike print beat reporters, they don’t know the various facets of legislation necessary in order to ask a tough question.

Because of the lack of knowing facts, TV cable reporters are incapable of engaging in an intellectual political philosophical conversation with guests. Watching the political talk shows proves one thing: Guest are not subjected to unexpected questions or asked questions that require detailed replies. The questions are comparable to outlines that grade school students are asked to complete before filling in the blanks. And the answers often have unproven or false facts.

Now that we will have a President who says he is going to suggest many legislative changes, it’s more important than ever for the media that covers politics to be immersed in the nitty gritty of legislation so their reports are not just outlines without proven facts filled in.

Even a guest on the program who’s an expert in the legislation being discussed can’t fully explain how it will affect viewers, because the format of cable TV is to limit each segment to a few minutes. That’s why reading major newspapers and magazines are more important than ever for people who want to know how legislation changes will affect them. That’s still possible, at least for the time being.

Unfortunately, as the new President unveils his legislative plans, what viewers will get from most political TV reporters are the usual generalizations and soft ball questions to guests.

By now cable TV viewers should know — as I’ve been writing on this website for years — that asking questions in an assured tone and a sometime raised voice does not equate with asking penetrating questions or demanding factual answers to specific questions. Only reporters who are knowledgeable about the facts of the conversations can counter guests’ boiler plate answers. And that’s a problem.

But there is hope, at least for sports fans. In a few weeks, the football championship games, followed by the Super Bowl will be played. Baseball’s spring training is not too far way. The basketball and hockey playoffs are approaching.

Expert sports authorities — just like pundits and reporters who covered the election and are undeterred by their mistakes — are certain to provide analysis of who will win or why they lost or what the future holds for each team. That will suffice for a while until history will show the sports oracles accuracy will be proven as wrong as their political counterparts. (At least when the sports experts are wrong, the world might not come to an end, unless you bet and lose the farm, which is entirely possible if you take their predictions seriously.)

By then the political analysts will be handicapping the 2018 and 2020 elections. And the self-proclaimed sports and political experts will dismiss their wrong predictions and talk about the “if onlys.” And so on and so forth, as the talk radio and talk television babel continues.

With apologies to Voltaire, getting insightful information from political spokespeople and talk radio and television programs is definitely not part of the best of all possible worlds.

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Arthur Solomon was a senior VP at Burson-Marsteller. He now is a contributor to public relations and sports business publications, consults on PR projects and is on the Seoul Peace Prize nominating committee. He can be reached at [email protected].