Tuning Out

...by the vast and growing gap between the rich and most of the rest of the population...

...With a few exceptions, corporate chieftains worried about their weak bottom lines tore down the wall that had traditionally kept them out of news operations—to the great dismay of editors and reporters...

...At the outset of the republic, what press there was clarified for its readers the relevant issues facing local and national administrations as well as the major political parties...

...Inevitably, this sometimes reflects the aims and interests of the particular agency producing it to the point where it can fairly be described as "slanted," or worse, "mere propaganda...

...A scholar as well as a former editorin-chief of the distinguished Boston Globe...

...Janeway further observes that today government agencies from the local to the national level provide a steady flow of information about their activities to their constituencies...

...Although in places I find Janeway's troubled picture of postwar United States grossly disproportional, what he has to say is almost always exciting...

...But the tube talks...

...No one seemed to realize, the author suggests, that formulions who had felt "part of the news" from the '30s through the '60s, "denial of the news had become a form of existential logic...

...Not until the close of World War II, though, with its psychological spur of victory and the immense increase in the money supply, did a substantial number of Americans begin to believe that the end of the wartime economy would not necessarily trigger another Great Depression, and that new programs benefiting individuals in need were appropriate...

...In the 1960s and '70s, while newsrooms wrestled with ways to prevent inroads by television's real-time coverage, the business side beamed...

...Despite acknowledged positive events, it sees this country as severely troubled since the 1960s by disappointments in international affairs, meaning essentially the Vietnam involvement...

...Reviewed by Roger Starr Former member, New York "Times" editorial board This compact and eminently readable book by Michael Janeway concerns a central aspect of democratic government, whose citizens are collectively its sovereign...

...by racial tensions...

...A primary interest then, for instance, was the development of the country's infrastructure...

...The stock market crash of 1929, and the seemingly endless Great Depression that ensued, brought about the first signs of change in the press' attitude toward governmental attention to the nation's social ills...

...If citizens are to successfully fulfill their mandate, they must be assisted in expanding their familiarity with the instruments of governance and the issues —economic, legal, diplomatic, and constitutional—on which their sovereignty requires them to take positions...

...by the "disintegration" of the Democratic and Republican parties...

...Little, if any, thought was devoted in those days to encouraging a national tax (no universal tax existed) in order to aid fledgling entrepreneurs...

...What newspapers can be expected to bring is primarily an accurate, in-depth account of events that have taken place in the recent past...

...It would be too easy to charge him, as a print journalist, with a special interest in deflating the formidable competition of the growing number of allnews cable stations, not to mention the expanded regular network and local television news shows and the proliferation of TV newsmagazines...

...A newspaper is printed in the early morning hours and remains unchanged all day long—the industry having learned that afternoon editions cannot begin to match evening TV news programs...

...Most newspapers continued to oppose Washington's intervention into the "business cycle," but some did endorse President Franklin D. Roosevelt's efforts to stimulate the economy and offer Federal aid to the unemployed...

...Economic downturns in the late 19th and early 20th century were deemed by the press to be cyclical events, like tornadoes and floods, that you couldn't blame on the government...

...In effect, he asks: What institution has the ability, and the responsibility, to prepare the American people to exercise their constitutional role...

...The real scene is not simply described, it is reproduced at an instant's call...

...These are important advantages for the television industry...

...Computerization had radically reduced overhead and sharply increased profits...

...The first reads: "The deployment of American power abroad begins to backfire...

...Even less did anyone think of giving the poor money or of helping to construct homes for them...

...He is especially good on the trajectory of the newspaper industry...

...But by the end of the '80s the economy dipped, circulation flattened and advertising revenues declined...

...Rather, it was something to be resolved between employer and employee, unless violence broke out...

...Newspapers have spent heavily to counter with such dubious technological advances as the use of color on newsprint...

...Beyond that, the printed newspaper can bring what might be called the open end of the picture: the untrammeled possibility, a detailed discussion of the probable development of activities under way...

...Indeed, he not only defines the downhill road of American fortune, he marks it with 17 milestones that have contributed to quickening the descent...

...Republic of Denial focuses on the relationship between journalism and politics "from the postwar era to the present...

...Going public" became popular, even at venerable family-held newspapers— sometimes to fend off an acquisition, sometimes to pursue one...

...They can all be summed up in the single observation that TV brings before your eyes a seemingly unchallengeable existent truth...

...Janeway's complaint that the vital connection between politics and journalism has been broken, largely as a result of television's approach, has merit—even if not quite to the extent he implies...

...The last reads: "Television begins to fill the vacuum in American politics" The war between print and television journalism receives much attention from Janeway...

...The Erie Canal, linking Albany and Buffalo, was an early example of a state-financed waterway improvement, and the land-grant railroads were a later, much larger Federal transportation initiative...

...In its present form, however, the author maintains, our journalism is so preoccupied with such matters as the personal behavior of incumbents and candidates for public office that it no longer does what it once did—namely, educate readers about current affairs and thereby help them make intelligent judgments when election time comes around...

...Antagonism between the growing industries of the second half of the 19th century and their workers was similarly not considered a governmental concern...

...In general, Janeway regards the American experience since 1960 as a more or less constant diminution of the American dream...

...Janeway answers, ultimately, that the institution is American print journalism —the newspaper business, in short—but technological progress, a new bottomline mentality and a cultural shift have blurred, or possibly distorted, its priorities...

...But it is a factor to be considered, at least, when one seeks to understand why our political parties appear so confused and our presidential hopefuls seem to be self-generated...

...It is the particular advantage of print journalism that it can discuss the future on terms equal to those with which it covers the present and the past...