How Dare You, Matt Lauer
Michael Moore has done some things in previous documentaries that make a journalism prof do more than wince. I've had to temper some of my students' enthusiasm for his work by pointing to the sleights of hand and poetic license with some facts. Moore presents himself as a satirist, and he deserves to be taken that way to some degree, even though he does have a responsibility to facts.
Many in the mainstream media are trying to hold Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11, which opens this weekend, to a higher bar for journalistic responsibility and neutrality than they set for their own work and organizations. Some treatments of the upcoming film have been even-handed: David Denby's June 28 New Yorker review does a good job of putting Moore's role as polemicist into context, while Philip Shenon critical piece, "Michael Moore is Ready for his Close-up," in the June 20 The New York Times, provides some insight into why it makes sense for Moore to hire leading Democratic folks skilled in opposition research to help counter the barbs Republicans will throw at Moore and the film. Moore's hiring of a team of fact-checkers also indicates some sense of journalistic accountability. Shenon quotes Dev Chatillon, former general counsel for The New Yorker, a legendary bastion of fact-checking, as likening Moore's work to an op-ed column rather than a straight piece. "The facts have to be right, yes, but this is an individual's view of current events. And I'm a very firm believer that it is within everybody's right to examine the actions of their journalism."
One of the most blatantly hostile treatments of Moore, aside from the usual suspects in the conservative press, was Matt Lauer's Dateline interview with Moore. Throughout the questioning Lauer had a tone of "How dare you, Michael Moore!"
Lauer, whose work on the Today involves an inordinate amount of celebrity ass-kissing and fluff reports, though he has admittedly grown in his role as "journalist" over the years, made no room for the fact that Moore's film did not have to follow the rules of a mainstream newscast. Yet he also showed that he hasn't spent much time reflecting on the often- political nature of all news and knowledge in general. In determining what to report on, news operations make value (sometimes political) judgments all the time. But Matt, clearly indoctrinated by professional ideology in ways he apparently doesn't understand, as the following exchange, taken from the Dateline transcript of the interview, shows.
Lauer: "You accepted the Palm D'Or Award at the Cannes Film Festival. It's a huge honor, especially for a film like this. And you said, I think the quote was, ‘I did not set out to make a political film. The art of this, the cinema, comes before the politics.’"
Moore: "That's right. That's absolutely right."
Lauer: "I'm amazed you said it with a straight face."
Moore: "Why is that, why?"
Lauer: "Because I think there is politics in every single frame of this movie."
Moore: "Oh, of course there is. Don't misunderstand me. There's politics right now in this discussion. There's politics in all aspects of our daily lives."
Throughout the interview, Lauer takes a tone one would expect of Bush or members of his administration. This is not to say that Lauer should not press Moore on some of his representations. The problem is that the entire line of questioning ignores the fact that the rationale for war supported by Bush (and the leadership in both political parties) has been discredited. There is no link between 9/11 and Saddam Hussein, and there are still no weapons of mass destruction to be found. Scholars and leading journalists are criticizing the weak reporting in the news media played in the lead up to the war. The New York Times' May 26 Editor's Note is the most recent and notable example. Where were the press watchdogs? Where was Matt Lauer? Some of his professional righteousness could have been used to much better effect as the nation regrouped after 9/11 and contemplated courses of action. Better news coverage would have cut through some of the pro-war/weapons of mass destruction propaganda and provided a better sense of a right course --and, if war had really been necessary, a better exit plan. Moore, clearly a more astute observer of media mendacity than his interviewer, made a similar point.
Moore: "You know I've been sitting here for like the last 20 minutes thinking, man, if he would have only asked Bush administration officials these kind of hard questions in the weeks leading up to the war, and then when the war started, maybe there wouldn't be a war. Because the American people, once given the truth, you know the old saying from Abraham Lincoln, give the people the facts and the Republic will be safe."
Lauer's questioning is a textbook example of how mainstream media reproduce the status quo. At one point, Lauer chastizes Moore for not giving an early video he saw of possible prisoner abuse to the Defense department or mainstream media (the same media, it would seem, that did such a poor job of covering the rush to war ). Toward the end of the interview, Lauer says: "There is so much political animosity in this country right now, such a deep divide, black and white. And you know the expression, if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem? With a movie like this, do you see yourself as part of the solution?" How dare you, Matt Lauer. The interview is an example of the unreflective execution of professional routines, which invariably give the benefit of doubt to those in power. For scholars who study the news media, the issue is not really one of a right-wing or left-wing bias. As an institution of power, the news media tend to favor the status quo in ideas and position. These are the kinds of issues I will take up in this blog. I'll provide analysis, share some readers’ views, and give you a peek at some of the conversations about media I have with friends, colleagues, and students.
9:40:24 PM 
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