Dangers of Deception in ‘Newstainment’ and Politics
Subramaniam Vincent is the Director of the Media and Journalism Ethics program at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University.
“I mean, I lie if I’m really cornered or something. I lie.”
“I really try not to. I try never to lie on TV. I just don’t…I don’t like lying; I certainly do it, you know, out of weakness or whatever.”
Tucker Carlson
Those statements were freely made recently on video. To some amazement, Carlson didn’t seem much bothered by his admission. Watch his facial expression and listen to his tone. Maybe that’s equally unnerving.
How someone gets to that point of being unaffected by behavior that might be considered problematic is worthy of discussion.
“Sometimes we lie when the opposite — i.e. the truth — causes some kind of psychological friction, especially over values,” says Subramaniam Vincent, Director of the Media and Journalism Ethics program at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University. “We lie to smooth over the friction. So lying is part of human behavior.”
That’s one explanation as to why Carlson will lie at times on national television to between 3.8 and 4.3 million viewers nightly. It means he has a greater responsibility with how he chooses to communicate, according to Vincent.
“When you are a public figure, the standards ought to be higher,” he says, adding why the problem exists at all “Carlson lies because he can get away with it.”
Could it be that Carlson’s employer, enjoying the fruits of his devoted following, doesn’t believe his behavior and admission is problematic to society or the Fox News brand?
“‘Newstainment’ exists because it is a thriving business. Ethics usually requires that the employer really has to go back to their mission and values and start from there, and seek ethical alignment,” Vincent says. “For Fox News, the commentary shows seem to have a mission and values antithetical to even those held by serious journalists on their news reporting team. It's like two Foxes, and the management is having their cake and eating it.”
His forecast might not be as encouraging as people might hope.
“It isn't clear to me that a media business like Fox News, that intentionally allows the level of contradiction between commentary and news to even stand, will ever do anything in reaction to one of their hosts admitting she or he lied,” Vincent says.
This means only a scandal could prove to be catalyst for change.
“Some people will say that it will take a public relations disaster or advertisers pulling ads en masse from Carlson's show for any movement.”
It’s important to learn exactly how such communication is encouraged and valued.
“Chris Stirewalt, the analyst in the Fox News team that called Arizona for Biden on Nov 8th said this in his La Times op-ed: ‘Whatever the platform, the competitive advantage belongs to those who can best habituate consumers, which in the stunted, data-obsessed thinking of our time, means avoiding at almost any cost impinging on the reality so painstakingly built around them,” Vincent says, adding what else Stirewalt wrote “As outlets have increasingly prioritized habituation over information, consumers have unsurprisingly become ever more sensitive to any interruption of their daily diet."
A very real problem with certain individuals, Vincent says, is that attempts to managing one’s self-serving impulses is not alone sufficient for controlling behavior for many people who become conditioned to being given passes for their way of conducting themselves.
“Self-regulation is never enough to bring responsibility into the behavior of powerful people — celebrities and stars. TV anchors, especially commentary show stars are public figures and culture leaders. Powerful people, including celebrity show hosts, do get addicted to their power. So they don't want to lose it. The force to keep and experience this power is already pulling them one way,” he says, before shifting to the types of media shows in which many media hosts work.
"Commentary shows are a part of the culture. Journalism itself is a cultural occupation. So when TV stars lie, it's the power elite lying because the system has placed no constraints on them. Power without constraints will corrupt itself,” he says.
Carlson excuses some of his lying by saying he does it when cornered. It implies it’s a natural defensive and protective reaction, something about which Vincent disagrees and contests.
“That shows no value system, his or the left's, has a monopoly on the truth,” Vincent says. “So if we want to justify a position no matter what, sooner or later we will have to use lies as the bridge.”
This presents threats of course.
“One danger is the level of tribal hatred of ‘the other,’ that senior Republican politicians are projecting to the national press, because it serves their agenda of trying to cling to traditional power in democratizing society. The sense of upheaval some conservatives feel with social change — progress in racial power assertion, gender power, non-binary gender identities, abortion rights — is so steep they need to make liberal-mind people the enemy,” Vincent states. “And the lack of humility and condescending anti-working class attitudes in the liberal elite only make it easier for populist hate development.”
The dissension is fed by those gifted with a voice, authority and opportunity and then widely disseminating that communication.
“From how leaders communicate at and about each other on TV, people see and feel that hating Republicans or hating Democrats is a norm now,” Vincent says. “Being critical of different world view is one thing. But hating people holding a view is another. That alone makes it psychologically easier to savor, enjoy and digest lies about ‘the other’ or ‘the other's motives.’”
Yet this very real and damaging realities are not the only ones.
“There are other dangers that increase the likelihood. Social media technology. It took an insurrection for Facebook and Twitter to de-platform (former President Donald) Trump. But other politicians such as Jim Jordan have stoked the same ‘Big Lie’ narrative, documented at justsecurity.org. Social media technology has made it very easy for politicians and people to live in feedback loops on lies and a value-affirming sense of belonging,” Vincent says.
He knows why societies are vulnerable to this type of behavior and emotion, blaming and taking sides.
“People want to belong. It's human. Social media tech makes it easy without regard to truth and reason,” Vincent says. “Platforms keep making efforts, no doubt, but it is still an arms race between the disinformation campaigners and the content moderators. That's the second, clear and present danger that increases the likelihood that lies will be a bridge.”
The type of programming in which Carlson participates has its place and value, at least as an ideal, yet media companies have mucked it up by losing their way with loose ethics and failure to make prompt and effective corrective measures.
“Commentary shows are supposed to be opinion journalism in TV format, with the zeal and zest of human conversation and where the guardrails are truth, and robust argument. But we've veered so far off course that commentary is simply a values-reaffirming performance show with the power of money backing it,” Vincent says. “So lying is inevitable. It may even be a means to that end.”
As to why those guardrails are missing or not solid and why society has veered off course, the reasons are many.
“These are questions on which entire books have been written. I myself have just submitted a chapter for a book on ‘Journalism and Democracy’ on this related question. Much of the research says that we've gotten here for multiple reasons,” Vincent says. “So the ‘how’ is not a short answer.
“First off, the guardrails of truth is ideal for news media-led discourse that can help public judgment form in a democracy. I do not mean that 'there was a time' when it existed and that we're only now veering off course,” he says, elaborating “Disinformation about Black people was spread by Confederate leaders even before and during the Civil War. Calling the war ‘an act of Northern Aggression’ in school textbooks is classic disinformation taught to children. Entire generations of children have grown up in America not knowing the massacres of Black people. Erasure is a kind of disinformation. Cultures thrive, grow and nourish themselves on memories passed down from generation to generation. Memories reiterate values. They keep things visible that society must not forget. When memories are erased, those cultures and the leaders who had the power to take or reverse those decisions are sanctioning lies.
“Sections of the conservative movement and their leaders reconvened after the civil rights and voting rights legislation of the 1960s. By the 1970s the long journey to upend liberal democracy setup had begun. This is all documented. Abortion was not as much a gridlocked issue as it is now. It was turned into one. Guns, likewise. For some leaders of the conservative movement, the only way they could maintain power was to band together divisive cultural issues - race, gender, sexual identity, guns, immigration - and turn them into such seemingly hard divisions that they can win elections using them.
“Many other political facts - the first past the post-election system dovetails with primaries and gerrymandering all together to allow certain types of rhetoric to bring the ‘worser angels’ out in us,” Vincent says.
The difference now is clear and alarming to him.
“What's different now is that the veering off democratic course for the GOP, in particular, is literally becoming a cultural norm, in the name of hating the left and keeping power. It is happening on-demand, campaign to campaign, election to election, professionally, with powerful people earning money of it through media, merchandising and whatnot,” Vincent says.
Then is lying “inevitable” moving forward as he claims or is there hope and possibility for a reversal of course through clarity, improved thinking and corrective measures? Vincent is not certain.
“It's hard to predict. Too many ifs. One guess is that gradual improvement is more likely if voters find new inspiration from a crop of leaders who can beat the odds at elections — conservative but pro-truth and pro-democracy Republicans and Democrats,” he says.
There has been and will remain a high intellectual, societal price to be paid for the lying as acceptable practice.
Vincent quotes Hannah Arendt (1906-1975), a political philosopher, saying “Consistent lying has already deprived entire segments of the population of the capacity to judge.”
He explains why he brings up Arendt’s observation and analysis.
“Context: For the human mind, the reasoning, deliberating, evaluation part of the brain is the slow thinking one. The fast-thinking brain is emotive, loaded with biases, descends to tribal attitudes quickly and moves instinctively,” he says.
“Neuroscientists have documented the human brain and Robert Sapolsky, at Stanford (University) documents how the brain can rapidly classify and categorize from tribal to humanistic very quickly. Leaders can help us transcend differences to see our common humanity or make us descend into clan versus clan. Democracy's evolution is recent relative to the brain evolution.
“Answer — Sowing doubt and confusion in our brains is easier,” Vincent says. “Especially for leaders who hold a high place in the hearts of their supporters. Sowing fear and hatred of the other is not hard as well, since the brain has these faculties, necessary evolved from a time when we would have to fight, flee or freeze to survive. Confusion is a feeling. Feelings are different from reasoned thought. Judgment is a capacity.
“Once you sow confusion, fear, and hate, lies become easier to sell. Judgment is needed even to identify we're being lied to or manipulated and that helps us sense the truth,” he says. “On public affairs especially, judgment is a slow and collective process that usually needs deliberation and care amongst people and groups with different lived experiences and perspectives.
He describes the advantages that online platforms have to achieve their goals for engagement, emotion and habit, regardless of the behavior and societal problems it often creates.
“Propaganda dials down our minds' ability to care.”
“In fast thinking mode, which is what social media news consumption is like, with lies aimed at triggering feelings and manipulating our behavior even before we know it, we cannot judge quickly, and especially make judgments aligned with democratic values. David Eagleman, a neuroscientist, says propaganda dials down our minds' ability to care.”
Vincent goes back to another Arendt comment to dive deeper.
“If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer.”
“Even without access to the latest findings of psychology and neuroscience, Hannah Arendt said this: ‘If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer.’ This is,” he says “because lies, by their very nature, have to be changed, and a lying government has to constantly rewrite its own history. On the receiving end you get not only one lie but you get a great number of lies, depending on how the political wind blows.”
The result is that a significant negative is not often considered and dangerous.
"And a people that no longer can believe anything cannot make up its mind,” Vincent plainly states. “It is deprived not only of its capacity to act but also of its capacity to think and to judge. And with such a people you can then do what you please.”*
Higher standards for ourselves could prove helpful. Improved self policing too. We can move away from Tucker Carlson and ourselves being less unaffected by admittances of our comments.
“I see the word ‘standard’ as a narrower concept and a very important one,” Vincent says. “It comes later, after there is consensus about a minimum set of democratic values. There needs to be a re-assertion of what values will a) help America apologize and atone for the harm done to Black and Native Americans and pay reparations. That resets the pain of the past with the truth that will help the culture grow. There is much international law in support of that, for example as Americans we did that for the Japanese too and b) bring back focus on the fortunes of working-class people -- across racial groups.
“The economic system has near abandoned them today. America is highly unequal system and trillions creamed off at the top. It is easy to stoke different types of populism based on historical fault lines and that populism does not care for standards,” he says. “It will blow them out of the water anyway.”
Vincent doesn’t just lament the reality. He brings a recommendation to the table and discussion.
“So really, an ethical economy is another democratic value that needs to be reaffirmed. Standards will then be easier to draw as part of the values consensus that emerges.”
*New York Review of Books: Hannah Arendt on Lying and Politics
