Comparison Culture-- from last night’s debate to this morning’s news

I couldn’t bear to watch the debate last night. It wasn’t just an avoidance of watching a group of highly educated men with substantive achievements toss out any semblance of ethics and aim for the lowest common denominator because they want to be elected so badly. More than that, I couldn’t bear to watch because of the awful example it showed to my daughter of what it means to be a leader. But it got worse.

This morning, I clicked on my favorite morning show and found Matt Lauer and Savannah Guthrie (TODAY show) indignantly recapping the entire fiasco. Isn’t it just so awful how these candidates focus on such nonsense? Why aren’t they focusing on the issues? I agree. Except I would replace “candidates” with “YOU”. Isn’t it just so awful how you, the media, focuses on these nonsense issues? Why aren’t you, the media, focusing on the issues?

There isn’t a candidate out there that would continue with these ridiculous antics if the media weren’t covering them every step of the way.

It is not news.

Stop covering it.

Stop telling me about Megan’s outfit and Trump’s hand size. Stop telling me about Romney’s feelings about Trump. Stop telling me about their latest commercial. Stop telling me who is up or down in the polls. Start telling me about their specific plans for healthcare, for education, for the environment. Worried that I’ll be bored and go to another channel or website? Then find a way to make it interesting. I have a lot of faith in the creativity of the TODAY show. If the show wanted to find a way to make a news story about education policy interesting, it could. And if, in the middle of a candidate talking about one of those issues, a snipe at another candidate comes out, let it go. It’s not the point of the story.

It is utterly frustrating to know that my daughter is focusing on news and politics for the first time in her young life, and this is what she sees. What is she learning about politics? About civic engagement? About how to accomplish a value-based goal? About resolving disagreements? About leadership?

I understand the value of showing a candidate’s human side: the notion that we elect the whole person, not just the politician. But the nonstop focus on the tit-for-tat statements isn’t giving me a deep insight into anything.

Even before this election, I’ve noticed (along with many others) how comparison (the racehorse analogy) is taking the place of analysis in many places where analysis used to rule. This is an important difference. Some things are good (or bad) simply because they are better (or worse) than something else. Comparing thing A to thing B. But sometimes that thing is good (or bad) because it upholds a standard of what is generally agreed upon as such (or not). Analysis calls upon us to examine something deeply, to identify its value, and to aim for insight.

We focus on comparison every time we add a “like” to a social media post or some other emoticon. We “like” this post, but not this one. By using the “comment” section, we have the option to add analysis. But it’s a lot easier to just click an emoticon and “rate” the post with a quick comparison.

I know the exact moment when I realized the pervasiveness of this shift. It was on September 16, 2013, the day the Orange Room debuted on the Today Show. As I said earlier, I’m a fan of TODAY. I’ve been watching it for decades. Literally. But on that day, the Orange Room shifted the news focus to one of comparison, under the guise of providing more timely reflection of social media trends. Within a year, Good Morning America unveiled its interactive social media studio called Social Square for the same purpose. The problem with keeping track of the horse race or reporting on social media trends is one of influence. When one reports on social media trends, one effects social media trends. A report on a trending video of a candidate leads viewers to find that video, thereby increasing the likelihood that it will continue trending, probably at a speedier rate. That’s the problem with comparison; it encourages and leads viewers to choose from the either/or of the comparison, not engage in deeper analysis of an issue.

Last weekend I saw the movie Spotlight-- this was the night before it won the Academy Award for Best Picture. I left the theater with a feeling of despair in the pit of my stomach. Spotlight is the story of a news team that aimed high, aimed deep, pushed hard, held back, and ultimately, published a story that changed the lives of thousands of people. Can any news organization afford to do that today? It certainly doesn’t look like the strategy of the major broadcast or online news outlets. I realize that each major news outlet can point to at least one hard-hitting, investigative news program or team, but that’s not where the bulk of the viewers are. That’s not what gets the attention. That’s not where our sound byte, social media, Comparison Culture is leading us.