REMEMBER Japan Inc? If you were a semi-sentient consumer of news in the 1980s, it was hard to avoid the impression that Japan would soon overtake the US in global economic clout, if its corporations didn't just purchase the country outright.
...
The cliche is that journalism is the first draft of history. Yet a historian searching for clues about the origins of many of the great stories of recent decades – the collapse of the Soviet empire; the rise of Osama bin Laden; the declining US crime rate; the economic eclipse of Japan and Germany – would find most contemporary journalism useless.
I'd add another story to that list. Remember the endless stories on the dire state of the economy left to us by Bush 41? I seem to recall that the NYT was running stories on white collar workers fearful of being downsized while Clinton was running for election to a second term. But just before the dot com dam burst the economy was going up, up, up with no end in sight.
In most all the instances there were other voices but, as Stephens points out they were explained away. They were the exceptions that proved the rules. The odd quote inserted into the story to give it "balance." Nothing was allowed to interfere with the conventional wisdom.
Stephens offers a prescription for those suffering from the effects of the meta-narrative:
Look for the countervailing data. Broaden your list of sources. Beware of exoticising your subject. If you think that Israelis and Palestinians operate from no higher motive than revenge, you're on the wrong track. Above all, never forget the obvious: that the law of supply and demand operates in Japan, too; that the Soviet Union was a state governed by fear; that Iraqis aren't barracking for their killers; that, if given the chance, people will choose to be free.
No comments:
Post a Comment