TEXT JOIN TO 77022

The Battle for America’s Mind

Heralding the rise of the daily newspaper in 1831, French poet and politician Alphonse de Lamartine declared journalism would emerge as “the whole of human thought,” but that thought itself “will not have time to ripen, to accumulate into the form of a book.” The book, Lamartine proclaimed, “will arrive too late.”

“The only book possible from today is a newspaper,” he concluded.

Lamartine was prescient. Nowness—not depth, quality, or ethics—came to define the press. This has metastasized to obscenity in the digital age.  Indeed, media critic Tom Rosenstiel believes “the press has moved toward sensationalism, entertainment, and opinion.” That might be an understatement. Ripeness of thought has little refuge under mass media’s tyranny of immediacy.

Today, Americans are urged to perceive mass media as the palladium of our “democracy.” But America is hardly a democracy. “The 20th century—and with undoubted good reason—has had occasion to reiterate that view,” writes Kirkpatrick Sale, “in the face of mass parties, mass politics, and mass governments claiming to be democratic.”

In this context, “democracy” is substantially political expediency, and its most effective huckster is the press. Those concerned with how to pursue, seize, and maintain political power understand this all too well.

Read the rest at Chronicles.

Get the news corporate media won't tell you.

Get caught up on today's must read stores!

By submitting your information, you agree to receive exclusive AG+ content, including special promotions, and agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms. By providing your phone number and checking the box to opt in, you are consenting to receive recurring SMS/MMS messages, including automated texts, to that number from my short code. Msg & data rates may apply. Reply HELP for help, STOP to end. SMS opt-in will not be sold, rented, or shared.

About Pedro Gonzalez

Pedro Gonzalez is associate editor of Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture and an adjunct fellow of the Center for American Greatness. He publishes the weekly Contra newsletter. Follow him on Twitter @emeriticus.

Photo: WASHINGTON, DC - JULY 30: U.S. President Donald Trump participates in a news conference with Prime Minister of Italy Giuseppe Conte in the East Room of the White House after a meeting in the Oval Office on July 30, 1018 in Washington, DC. Among the topics discussed where immigration, trade and NATO. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)