Moore facts

The Internet’s been all a-titter lately over the Michael Moore-CNN feud. The fight began after Moore objected on live television to a report by dreamy CNN neurosurgery correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta about his film “SiCKO,” which directly preceded Moore’s interview by Wolf Blitzer. Though Gupta ultimately agreed the American health care system is in need of an overhaul, his report pointed to inconsistencies in Moore’s facts. The dispute continued online, where both CNN and Moore listed their sources and defended their respective points.\nWhat Moore is guilty of in his movies is editorializing – displaying the facts in such a way as to favor one side. It’s not inherently unethical, because he’s a filmmaker trying to make a point. His use of statistics from two studies of different years, however, is hardly defensible, and the highlighting of select soundbites and statistics borders on propaganda. \nBut CNN itself is no stranger to editorializing. Five years ago every American mainstream media outlet feared its patriotism would be revoked if it published or broadcast any hint of dissent over the Iraq war. The media preferred to broadcast the “shock and awe” over Baghdad rather than spend time questioning the existence of weapons of mass destruction. Never mind thoughtful analysis of the motivations of the war after the 9/11 patriotic fervor.\nMainstream media failed, and with that failure we turned to Comedy Central for the truly astounding soundbites. We waited for the “real” outlets to rediscover their testicles and broadcast an indictment (with a fraction of the coverage of the Lewinsky humidor scandal) of the gross deceit of the Bush administration, an administration that has coasted through unfettered with the exception of reports that hint at Dick Cheney’s body being inhabited by demon spawn. The mainstream media doubled as the administration’s propaganda arm, failing to approach even the level of reporting conducted by Gupta regarding Moore’s questionable facts.\nThere are several reasons for the kind of complacency found in the media before Bush’s ratings began to decline. For one, the media thrives off entertainment stories, making Watergate-depth reporting less economically appealing than two months of Anna Nicole Smith. Beyond profit, the media outlets themselves are backed by large corporations that cloud the interests of the alleged government watchdog, a watchdog whose owners are the same ones lobbying Congress. The media’s inclination to question, then, is only piqued when the market is ready for it. The market value of reporting reflects the apparent ideology in the media to appeal to centrist thought, a kind of self-censorship evidenced by decency standards and fear of the “liberal media” stigma. \nWhile Moore’s misuse of information has palpable entertainment value, there’s significant conflict in a self-identified news outlets resorting to the same distortion or absence of reporting in the name of the bottom line. It’s one of the massive failures of an increasingly conglomerated society and is much more nuanced than the Moore-CNN dispute.