The People's President, Al Gore, delivered a stirring and thoughtful speech to the "We Media" conference in New York on October 5, 2005. The conference is a gathering of Media industry figures, and focuses on innovative methods of presenting information. Gore's speech was a stunning idictment of the current state of the media in the United States, and he pulled no punches when talking about the Bush Administration's manipulation of the media. This is a different Al Gore than we saw in 2000 -- I think he's building up for an '08 Presidential run. Like Churchill, he's had his "wilderness years," and like Churchill, he could be the very leader we need in our time of crisis.
Gore began his speech by asking the audience, "I wonder, have heard a friend or a family member in the last few years remark that it's almost as if America has entered 'an alternate universe'," and to me, that sums up the past five years quite nicely. Gore then talks about a subject that I think is one of the most vital in our public discourse today: the blurring of news and entertainment. This blurring has led to many Americans believing in things that just aren't true.
From Gore's speech:
I thought maybe it was an aberration when three-quarters of Americans said they believed that Saddam Hussein was responsible for attacking us on September 11, 2001. But more than four years later, between a third and a half still believe Saddam was personally responsible for planning and supporting the attack.
At first I thought the exhaustive, non-stop coverage of the O.J. trial was just an unfortunate excess that marked an unwelcome departure from the normal good sense and judgment of our television news media. But now we know that it was merely an early example of a new pattern of serial obsessions that periodically take over the airwaves for weeks at a time.
Instead of these celebrity obsessions, Gore asks why there wasn't more of a national discussion on such things as the prison torture scandals and indeed the Iraq war as a whole. "Why is apathy and lethargy increasing" Gore asks, and it's a question we should be pondering daily.
Gore argues that since television is a one-way discussion, owned by only a few corporate interests, that freedom of speech and the press is being repressed. He quotes a study that calls the US press only the 27th most free in the world. This is a frightening fact for this country, a place which prides itself on its freedoms.
Gore calls for a better national discussion and a move away from 30-second commercials and sound bite sloganeering. He lauds the internet as a vital and growing new medium, but cautions that television is and will remain the number one information source for most people around the world.
Gore is a man who saw the media turn on him in 2000, with insane amounts of air time being wasted on inane stories about what kind of clothes he was wearing, asinine out-of-context quotes like the "invented the internet" story, and superficial observations such as how many times he sighed in a debate. In a country where many Americans pick their President based on who they'd rather sit down and have a beer with, a vision like Gore's is very important.
Gore concludes by saying that he is worried about the state of our democracy. Given the Bush administration's media tactics -- buying reporters, producing fake news stories, giving White House press passes to guys like Gannon -- I'm inclined to agree with him. The transcript is well worth a read, but I recommend listening to the speech as well. It will be well worth your time.
Cheers.
