Does Media Play a Role in our Government's Dysfunction

Media plays a crucial role in how we perceive the important issues of the day and therefore provides a basis through which our democracy and government institutions function.  So given the chronic dysfunction facing our government (fiscal cliffs standoffs, ignoring issues like global warming, no action on gun control) we might wonder what if any role the media plays in this.  

Let’s take a look at what’s going on in our nation’s capitol.  Currently, the Republicans (primarily in the House) are taking the unusual step of allocating necessary funds for the functioning of the government contingent on defunding or at least delaying funding for the Affordable HealthCare Act (i.e. ObamaCare).  And if they don't achieve their goal, the fallback is to make raising the debt limit contingent on defunding Obamacare.  I say unusual, because  since the Reagan administration, Congress has raised the debt ceiling 45 times.  Not until Obama became President have Republicans made raising the debt-ceiling contingent on some partisan goal (like defunding Obamacare, in this case).

Given this rather extreme obstructionism by historical standards, an important question is whether Republicans will pay a price politically.  That of course, remains to be seen.  Norm Orenstein and Thomas Mann identified the Republican party as primarily responsible for gridlock in Washington in their book It’s Even Worse Than it Looks: How the American Constitutional Systsem Collided with the New Politics of Extremism.  Recently, they added a preface to their book to bring us up to speed after the recent election.  As they note, Republicans have not changed their tactics in any sense after their defeat:

The deep dysfunction that has gripped our political system for the past several years has not disappeared. If anything, it is even more pronounced in the House of Representatives and in many states. Lizza noted in his March 2013 New Yorker profile of Cantor: “House Republicans as a group are farther to the right than they have ever been. The overwhelming majority still fear a primary challenge from a more conservative rival more than a general-election campaign against a Democrat. They may hope that the Party’s national brand improves enough to help win the White House in 2016, but there is little incentive for the average member of the House to moderate his image.

 What’s interesting is the role the media plays in all of this.  Rather than allocate blame to the obstructionists, the media is often content to report a “both sides are at fault” narrative.  Indeed, some reporters actually blame Obama.  Orenstein and Mann note that Bob Woodward, one of Washington Post’s most senior and influential journalists, “unlike his predecessors Lyndon Johnson, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton, ‘failed to work his will on Congress’ (whatever that means).”  Woodward thus ignores the overwhelming forces driving increased partisanship such as conservative media and redistricting and simply asserts that Obama should have simply somehow forced House Republicans to bend to his will.  Imagine what Mitch McConnell must think when he understands that no matter how obstructionist his tactics are, that important voices in the media will assign the blame to Obama.

Another example: Wednesday morning on "Morning Joe," Chuck Todd to complaints by Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell (D) that the media wasn’t doing much to clarify the misinformation by Republicans on Obamacare.  According to Todd, it’s not the media’s fault to correct the misinformation, “it’s the President of the United States’ fault for not selling it.”

So in other words, Todd argues that it’s the media’s job to report the positions of Obama and the Republicans, but not to clarify or push back against misinformation.  And indeed, this is the type of journalism performed by most of the mainstream press.  So between some members of the press who don't call out sources of misinformation and others who blame Obama for not getting results (no matter what unprecedented tactics are used) Republicans have perhaps relatively little  to fear bringing government to a standstill.  (Of course, if the situation regarding government funding or raising the debt ceiling gets more serious, some in the media might be willing to assign some blame.)  Time will tell.