Palin the media professional manipulator

Say what you will about Sarah Palin’s vice presidential credentials, she provides an excellent example of the dreadful state of media literacy in 2008 America.

Palin is a media literate, one of only about 1.5 million in America. Those 1.5 million acquired their media literacy through education. Palin has a degree in journalism from the University of Idaho, and in 1988 she worked in television as a sports reporter. Take if from an old sports writer, it doesn’t get any more MSM than that. She knows all the definitions, principles, values and rules that media professionals use every day in their work. It’s not all that complicated; the study of journalism, and all the other media forms, is as black-and-white as learning English. The media uses definitions, rules and values that are as clear-cut as the conjugation of verbs.

The other 99 percent of Americans have zero education in media. It simply is not a required subject in American schools, which is turning into more and more of a drastic educational oversight as we move deeper into the digital age, where anybody with a computer can be a “journalist.” Those people really, really do need to understand how the mainstream media works.

This literacy gap has become, and ominously provides, a wedge between the media and the public. In their illiteracy, Americans accuse the media of bias, irresponsibility, moral decay, Hannah Montana. And many of those accusations are true, because media professionals, in a media-illiterate world, know they can get away with it. The result is a growing American crisis, creating fear and mistrust, even loathing, of a media institution that is the life blood of democracy, vital to our society’s constant and reasonable demand for information and entertainment, and a hub of the economy.

Palin the media professional has been providing a highly visible example, manipulating naturally media-illiterate campaign crowds in Florida with remarks blaming Katie Couric’s line of questioning for her “less-than-successful interviews with kinda mainstream media.”

“At that,” reported Dana Milbank of The Washington Post, “”Palin supporters turned on reporters in the press area, waving thunder sticks and shouting abuse. Others hurled obscenities at a camera crew. One Palin supporter shouted a racial epithet at an African American sound man for a network and told him, ‘Sit down, boy’.”

MSM professionals understand that Palin’s manipulations are only for short-term political effect, but still it is always an aggravation to witness such abuse by one of its own. Much of the aggravation rises from our feeling of helplessness to do anything constructive for the manipulated masses. Palin has all the power here. When Palin tells a crowd she “doesn’t have a very high opinion of the mainstream media,” she says it with the understanding that, without the MSM, her message, and their response, won’t be heard beyond the arena lobby. The GOP anger language has reached a point where observers wonder if McCain and Palin shouldn’t face down offenders on the spot. I wonder if Palin shouldn’t look into a mirror and have a few words with herself.

I always wish the people being manipulated had some idea of what was going on, even when it is seven-year-old girls watching “Hannah Montana.” These are the little girls who will convince their moms to spend $4,000 for a couple of tickets to a Hannah Montana concert. Shouldn’t the parents at least know how it is done?

About Palin’s manipulations, my wishing becomes extreme. She essentially is inviting revolt against an institution that is the literal oxygen of democracy. What will the long-term effects be? Universal media education, I hope.