Eyes Have It
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| KILL THE BATMAN - The writer explains where his is coming from in this RADIO INTERVIEW of the column - turn on the volume if you're angry or just want to listen to some good entertainment! |
EYES HAVE IT
By Daren Foster
**TV, polling and democracy under the glare of television cameras**
The legend lives on that for those who watched the very first televised presidential debate, an ailing, poorly shaven and ill-chosen suit-wearing Richard Nixon was bested by the much more photogenic JFK. The radio audience heard it differently, believing Nixon to be the victor over Kennedy. Exhibit A, if you will, of the adverse effects of television on politics, promoting style over substance. An argument could be made that this seismic shift so spooked the political establishment that presidential candidates avoided engaging each other in front of the cameras for the next 16 years until 1976 after which, TV debates became an integral, at times even decisive, part of the campaign.
If the second televised presidential debate of 2008 has any lasting influence on the election’s outcome, then I would posit that we can stick a fork into John McCain `cause he’s done. While the town hall format was supposed to play to McCain’s strengths, what I witnessed was someone’s drunk uncle at a family gathering, uncomfortably encroaching on everybody’s personal space and repeating the same thing over and over again. “OK. Who gave Uncle John a drink?” “Sorry. It was just a glass of wine. He seemed fine a minute ago.” Even when he wasn’t fielding a question, he could be seen pacing aimlessly in the background or leaning on his chair like he was having trouble maintaining his balance.
Now, I know we aren’t supposed to be swayed by purely visual stimulus. As rational beings, we should process and analyze information in order to reach reasonable, well thought out decisions. But seriously? If John McCain can’t be bothered to do that in his bid to become the President of the United States, why should I? “Oh, Uncle John’s fine. He just needs a couple nips when he’s nervous. To calm himself down. He’ll be OK.”
His performance was off-putting enough that I, (full disclosure here) who had no predisposition to like the man, began to feel sorry for him. It got so uncomfortable that I was forced to finally switch from PBS to another channel in hopes of finding one that was busier and might be hiding the candidate’s zombie-like wanderings. After a couple flips here and there (what’s with Fox News? They’re looking almost stately in their presentation of the debate!?), CNN offered safe harbour behind a wall of banners, charts and diagrams, eye-candy if you will. When he wasn’t speaking, McCain was safely tucked away, out of sight, save a few reaction shots of his tightly grinning mug.
Settling back in, once more able to concentrate on the issues at hand, I soon found myself distracted by one of the visual gewgaws on screen. Like some orange and green ECG readout, it fluctuated up and down in rhythm to the voices emanating from the television. Leaning in for a closer look, I discovered that the uncommitted voters of Ohio were expressing their real time opinions on the issues being discussed. What was that Obama just said? I don’t know but the uncommitted men and women (politically, I’m assuming, rather than personally or emotionally although there might be much overlap in that category) of the Buckeye state liked what they heard.
Having not watched from the outset, I wasn’t exactly sure how this instant polling worked and since mere speculation is a lot more fun and easier than looking somewhere to find out.. you know, researching.. I could only imagine a group of people gathered together to watch the proceedings in some nondescript room in Canton with electrodes stuck on strategic places of their bodies, monitoring every little twitch and skipped heartbeat as the candidates spoke. Or the undecided denizens of Dennison (a stone’s throw southeast of Uhrichsville, dontcha know, as McCain’s running mate might put it), strapped onto gurneys, anal probes inserted to record the slightest nanofraction of internal temperature movement in response to questions asked and answers answered about the Iraq war, the subprime fiasco and the Wall Street bailout.
The spirit of democracy is strong in Ohio, my friends, just as the country’s Founding Fathers envisioned it, I’m sure. A citizen’s group, hand-picked by a private news gathering organization to give immediate, ill-thought out, purely reactive feedback to the candidates’ rehearsed responses to questions sent in by viewers and vetted by an anchorman from a second private news gathering organization. The results scrolled across the bottom of our television sets like the urgent seeming ticker tape information that pollutes the 24 hour news channels, assisting viewers in deciding if what they’re hearing from the candidates is good, bad or indifferent. (The night’s moderator, Tom Brokaw, generated an eerily horizontal level of reaction from the Ohio uncommitted. A virtual flat line, if you will, supposedly denoting no particular feelings either way rather than the medical interpretation of such a read-out.) 
To what purpose such instantaneous polling serves is head-scratching at best, dubious at worst. It can only gauge the most visceral of responses or those that are already firmly embedded. I like that. I like that. I don’t like that. I like that. I really, really don’t like that. Emerging untouched from the most basic recesses of our hearts and minds, from the alligator brain, little more informative than the discourse over a trading card transaction. Got it. Got it. Don’t got it. Got it. Don’t got it. Don’t got it. Got it. Opinions going directly to mouths. Do not pass the cerebral cortex. Do not collect your thoughts for assessment or scrutiny. Who benefits from this kind of information?
The same can be (and should be) asked of any sort of poll taking. For policy makers and other product purveyors trying to see if their ideas will survive wider scrutiny, some random samplings might assist them in fine tuning their approach. But, this obsession with all things poll related in the media and general public smacks of laziness and, more worrisome, a manufacturing of consent. It is democracy delivered under marketing principles. 54% of Americans (or, at least, Americans who have decided one way or the other or, those who we could get to answer our questions) are thinking of voting Democratic. You don’t want to be left out, do you?
Suspect methodology and inherent bias aside, the increased media reliance on poll tracking for storylines is symptomatic of a deeper malaise within the industry. I’m not sure of the technical term for it but for the layman, it’s something like Can’t-Get-Off-Their-Fat-Assespiritis. Why go out and dig into the details of issues when you can simply commission a poll to ask a few pointed questions of a select group of people, tenuously extrapolate those responses to a rock solid trend (give or take a couple percentage points, 19 times out of 20) and, presto magico, you got yourself an above-the-fold headline?
So, turn away from the TV set when it starts telling you what everyone else is thinking, even if such claims are being made with fancy on-screen graphics and the latest computerized bells and whistles. It’s only a brief mirage, a fleeting moment in time, an alluring chimera. It can only become true if you allow yourself to believe it.
READ MORE COLUMNS BY DAREN FOSTER
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October 6 2008 - BVLGARI VVLGARIS - Celebrity overseas whoring.
September 29 2008 - COMEDY TODAY
September 22 2008 - FALLEN SEASON EXPECTATIONS
September 15 2008 - CONVENTIONAL WISDOM
September 8 2008 - KILL THE BATMAN - Seriously. Put him out of his misery.
September 1 2008 - MY SUMMER VACATION
August 25 2008 - PHONING IT IN
August 18 2008 - GUNGA GULUNGA
August 11 2008 - EMMY DAZE - Where is The Wire
August 4 2008 - ME TALK GOOD
July 28 2008 - TAKE THE CANNOLI
July 21 2008 - TECHNO BEAT 2
July 14 2008 - TECHNO BEAT 1
July 7 2008 - THE INDIGESTIBLE HULK
June 30 2008 - KING GEORGE
June 23 2008 - PLAYING ONE ON TV
June 16 2008 - NEW MONDAY MORNING COLUMN - LIFE IS TOO SHORT - Finally, I saw the last episode of The Wire.
June 4 2008 - FLIP THIS CHANNEL - Buying first house leads to having many things on the mind.
May 29 2008 - BE AFRAID VERY AFRAID - The Canadian military is no longer some namby-pamby, truce-brokering, do-gooding, adventure-seeking, peacekeeping bunch of pacifiers
May 22 2008 - STONE COLD BORING ANGEL - All about The Stone Angel
May 15 2008 - HARD TO SWALLOW CANDY - Madonna is back!
May 8 2008 - THE DUMBEST GUYS IN THE ROOM
May 1 2008 - AN ARRESTING DEVELOPMENT
April 24 2008 - Just TWEEN you and me
April 17 2008 - A Day at the Movies
April 10 2008 - Stop the (March) Madness!
April 3 2008 - Heaven's Gate Revisited
