I was in college when the Watergate affair concluded with the resignation of President Richard Nixon. So, like some of the news people celebrating milestones from 30 to 50 years ago, I also have memories of the period. My memories don’t always seem to match theirs. Maybe its because I was trained as a historian, not a journalist. Still, it has been interesting to listen to the outpouring of anxiety and adulation (sometimes self-adulation) for the members of the Fourth Estate this summer. From the love lavished on Walter Cronkite to the memories of Dan Rather as hard charging newsman, to the recollections of Danial Schorr, the newspaper and broadcast media people have praised themselves almost ceaselessly as the defenders of a Free America. Some have gone so far as to suggest that the free government depends on the existence of newspapers, so government subsidies for newspapers would be a “Good Thing” TM. This past Sunday (August 9) Daniel Schorr discussed his feelings about the resignation of Richard M. Nixon.

Running throughout this past couple of years has been an undercurrent of media support for the media as cultural and political savior which, I suggest, has not been precisely matched by facts.

In the 1970s the US was involved in an unpopular war against an unconventional enemy, in Southeast Asia. Partisan wrangling unseen since the New Deal was becoming a feature of Washington D.C. An unpopular President was dividing an already divided country with his refusal to compromise or level with the public. Allegations of wrongdoing at high levels were rumored, and the media proceeded to investigate them vigorously. By 1978, the unpopular war had been ended with the US bringing its forces home, the unpopular President had resigned in disgrace, and his Vice President had decisively lost to a bright, clean political unknown who promised good government and a change from corrupt politics in Washington D.C.

Through all the turbulent times from the mid 1960s to the mid 1970s, the media prided itself on having worked tirelessly, and gradually more obviously, on the side of the Progressive Angels. Walter Cronkite had moved from reporting on the war in Viet Nam to editorializing on why it was lost. The Washington Post carefully followed the money and the information to break open the Watergate burglary and the cover up of the fact that it had been organized by the President’s re-election campaign. Along the way, President Nixon came to see himself as less a servant of the public than the leader entitled to unswerving loyalty and respect. His office developed an enemies list, a list of names of people in public office, the media, or in other ways public leadership roles who were believed to be enemies of the administration. The President’s men felt that one way to control the message was to look for dirt on these and other political opponents. Dirty tricks, the sort of thing that was unethical, if not illegal, but which damaged the target’s public persona, became a political tool. Opposition research, calculated leaking to the media, and police investigations were used as political tools.

So here we are, thirty five years on, and we have and unpopular President conducting an unpopular war, and the media become less and less reporters of the war and the political campaigns, and increasingly follow the Walter Cronkite role of editorializing instead of reporting. Dan Rather took it even further, reporting manufactured information to damage the campaign of the unpopular President George W. Bush. When that came out, did his media colleagues give him the cold shoulder? Not really. However, even though some of President Bush’s supporters carped about media favoritism for Democratic candidates, for the most part, the media reported on the 2004 campaign, and tried to leave the obvious cheer leading for the Democratic party on the editorial pages.

That changed with the 2008 campaign. Any media objectivity that was evident was, in itself, newsworthy because it was so seldom seen. As the year progressed, the print and broadcast media became increasingly one big editorial for “Vote for Obama and Change.” This became more brazen as the campaign ended, and the new President assembled his cabinet and began his new administration. When bloggers noted that there were apparent fund raising irregularities with the Obama campaign in the spring and summer of 2008, none of the mainstream broadcast or print media seemed interested in following them. A few bloggers tried testing the fake credit card scheme for fund raising reportedly being used by the Obama campaign, and noted that it was in fact possible to give unattributed contributions by credit card. This was apparently not newsworthy to most of the media. They were more intersted in proving that the Republican Vice Presidential candidate, Sarah Palin, was a deranged fool who barely graduated from a non-Ivy League small state university. Obama, the candidate of Hope and Change TM won easily.

After the election, Daniel Schorr opined that perhaps the three month lag between the election and the new administration taking office was too long, because the nation really needed change, quickly. The new President had promised to hit the ground running, to change the government culture, and bring clean, bi-partisan government to Washington. No one seemed interested in the questions about the credit card fund raising after the election, although in the 1970s the Washington Post had famously followed the advice of Mark Felt (aka ‘Deep Throat’) and “followed the money” to show that the Nixon administration was tied to illegal activity. The fumbling of the new administration resulted in appointing a Treasury Secretary who had tax problems, and appointments or failed appointments galore, all of which drew virtually no attention from the newspapers or the broadcast media. The appointment of a career Chicago politician with a warehouse of evidence of dubious behavior to fill the Senate seat held by President Obama got more attention – but the corrupt Senator form Illinois became just another guy who tried to buy his Senate seat. Deflation had set in, because Roland Burris probably paid less for his seat than some of his predecessors who bought their way into the U.S. Senate. No matter, the media had more important things to study, like Sarah Palin’s possible mis-use of funds as Governor of Alaska. Besides, Governor Palin is White, and Senator Burris is an African American – and it wouldn’t do for the media to appear racist by picking on poor Senator Burris.

Bipartisanship died swiftly, with the Democratic leadership of Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Leader Harry Reid busily forcing through legislation without offering any input to the Republican minority. As increasingly serious questions about the financial reality of these bills grew, and the public began to raise questions, the Democrats picked up their baseball bats to play a little old fashioned head-busting hard ball. the Health Care proposal, all 1000 pages of it, was rushed through before too many members of the public (that group our Congressmen and Senators supposedly work for) could read it and comment on it.

At this point, public frustration began to be more vocal, and the print and broadcast media began having to report the poll numbers showing the President losing support for his expensive programs.

The last few weeks have been interesting. Reports of Democratic support groups, funded by unions, and Democratic political action committees have surfaced. These folks, who were vocally supportive of disruptive tactics at public meetings, have suddenly become outraged by such bad manners when practiced by middle aged, middle class people at Democratic Congressmen’s press conferences and town hall meetings. Then there are the reports of Presidential on-line campaign committees working to develop support for the President’s legislative agenda. Does anyone else remember CREEP, the Committee to Re Elect the President? And a web site where concerned supporters of the Democratic administration can report their ‘unpatriotic’ fellow citizens who dare to question the wisdom of the administration’s policies. Way Cool – an Enemies List! Speaker Pelosi is calling the protesters opposing the President’s health care plan “Un-American,” and suggesting they are neo-Nazis. Channeling Mr. Agnew and the Nattering Nabobs of Negativity.

The cherry on top of it all was Daniel Schorr’s National Public Radio commentary on Sunday, August 9th. Remembering his relief at Richard Nixon’s resignation, Schorr proceeded to remind the public of why Nixon was an evil man who had to go, and went, only after severely damaging the political fabric of the republic. As a man who was on Nixon’s Enemies List, Schorr was understandably relieved when President Nixon resigned. He had a personal stake in the outcome, which, to his credit, he addressed in his radio commentary. Schorr remarked that after Watergate, Americans have never really trusted their President or their government. That may be true. Perhaps the American people are becoming less trusting of their mainstream media as well. If that is so, it is because the major broadcast and print media ceased even pretending to be honest reporters of the political scene, and by the summer of 2008, had become a full fledged public relations agency for the Democratic Party.

Thanks Mr. Orwell. You were prescient, but a quarter-century off in staging your novel. Nineteen-Eighty-Four could have been titled Two-Thousand-Nine.