Not an ideal world
by
Marcel Van Silfhout |
Democracy has been replaced by a mediacracy
It’s clear enough these days in The Netherlands and elsewhere: democracy has been replaced by a mediacracy. It’s difficult to say where it began. Some will say: since printing was invented. Others might be more precise: democracy faded away when television came, resulting in fact-free sound-bite politics. My explanation is that the ultimate mediacracy is amongst us now, due to social media, Internet and above that, the phenomenon of ‘infotainment’ - a toxic mixture of journalism and entertainment in which journalism is disappearing. It’s easily to recognise in the most sublimated form: the popular talk show or the brutal TV-reporter hunting down politicians.
I know, quite a premises I’m making here. Let’s start to say that it’s not an analysis I made recently. In 1993 I wrote an article at the School of Journalism with more or less the same conclusion. Back then I asked myself: “The media is becoming more and more powerful, as a matter of fact politics and governments sometimes are less powerful than a newspaper or TV-programme. The strange thing is, ‘the media’ is not chosen by voters. Journalists are here in order to control and counterpart the ones with political or economic power. But what to do when journalists themselves have become the ones with power? Nobody can vote them away.”
The article, a full page, resulted in a hilarious situation. The teacher didn’t know what to do. He decided not to recognise it, as if my essay didn’t exist. He said: “I just don’t know what to think about your story. It can only be two things: ridiculous or brilliant, there’s nothing in between.” Quite a remarkable opinion which puzzled me. Now, almost two decades later, I know I predicted it, ‘The media’ took over power even more since then. And, like I wrote in the same article, the painful question remains: “ Who will check the journalists, talk show hosts and other powerful guys like the anchor man or the TV-reporter with a snoring camera to attack?’
In the last weeks some ‘incidents’ - which of course are not incidents, but part of a pattern – occurred in The Netherlands that caused a storm of media criticism. The columnist Tahir Naema started the fire. In a TV-programme she said that the brutal indecent journalists should be banned from the Dutch Parliament. The only goal of these sorts of journalists, she said, is to hunt for a riot, to attack politicians on purpose in order to make a fool out of them. And, even worse, all these arrogant aggressive journalists are not interested in politics itself, they are not interested at all in the essence and difficult aspects of “how to govern a country.”
It was an open invitation to be attacked by the same brutal journalists. A few days later the most famous one of them, Rugter Castricum from ‘PowNews’, a right wing satirical news show, went after her by visiting her at home. Castricum began filming when her husband opened the door. In a split second, the world turned around. The husband of the pregnant Tahir Naema wasn’t pleased at all. He, Andreas Kinneging, a professor in the philosophy of law and a weightlifter (!), violently pushed Castricum and his camera crew away. This time Castricum was the hunted one, by a professor…..?
The day after it was one of the news topics, especially when the couple Tahir Naema and Andreas Kinneging defended his decision to turn around the situation. Kinneging said: “Our house is a private matter, they violated our privacy.” It was a perfect occasion to repeat their proposal to forbid brutal indecent riot-journalism in the political arena of The Hague. How to organise all this ? By forming a so called ‘decency police.’
Of course this proposal is utterly stupid. Who has to decide which form of journalism is brutal, indecent or whatsoever wrongfully? The police, the government or a sort of chosen or appointed censor? A free society can only exist when there is press freedom.
Having said this, the problem of a too powerful media is still something to worry about. When only popular talk shows are leading, the public will sooner or later be too uninformed to make the right decisions during elections. What to vote for? And who to vote for when there are only foolish or sound bite politicians out there? If it’s only a matter of the best one-liners, the whole world will be a popularity show, led by talk shows and brutal TV-reporters. Not my ideal world.
Oman Tribune
|
Other comment for Marcel Van Silfhout
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| NEWS UPDATES |
|
|
|
|
|
|
