The Daily Clarity

Is the US media making Americans stupid?

It is a Sunday here and our reporters are tired after a long week packed with international incidents, so we have decided today, to run with a more whimsical op ed than our normal fare. We want to discuss the question of the alleged ‘dumbing down of America’. Firstly, let us state up front, we do not think Americans are a race of low intelligence or by nature intrinsically stupid. This is a common assertion from international critics of the US, but one that is easily countered by examining the history of technological innovation, medical research breakthroughs, and the alumni of America’s better universities. However, to outside observers, there are some oddities in modern day America that do indicate a less than stellar understanding of broader issues. The criticism of the ‘dumbing down’ of America is as common within the US as it is overseas.  However,the US is a country of contradictions that confuses foreign observers. It is nation of extremes, both for good and for the worse. It is a country that can produce at the ends of the spectrum an Obama and a Palin, and pit them as though they are intellectual equals. To the people of other Western developed nations, there is an image in the recent US Presidential campaigns that leaved them mystified and acts as marker of America uniqueness. A row of potential Republican Presidential candidates is asked the question. ‘raise your hand if you do not believe in evolution; and a field of hands reach for the sky. This makes many sophisticated international commentators shake their head in wonder, and quote the short hand phrase that signifies the confusion that surrounds international comprehension of the American psyche, ‘only in America’. This phrase, ‘only in America’, is a common-use, generic statement that signifies a bewilderment that this international powerhouse of a nation is capable of stupidity on such a staggering scale on occasion. On a recent trip to the Middle East, I was often asked the question, ‘how could America elect President Bush the second time?’ The questioners always said the ’second time’. They instantly forgave the first election, as though an error in jusdgement could be made by anyone, but what confused them was that with the evidence of the first Bush term, that the US people returned to the polls and gave Bush a second term regardless. So it made us wonder, if the American people are not stupid by nature,  but are prone to do stupid things with somewhat common frequency, what is making the US people on occasion act stupid?

It is a question with a complex set of answers. Some would point to the education system. It is true that the US public education system is beleaguered – under funded and under resourced. It is one of the world’s most expensive education systems but its results often do notcompare favorably with other countries. However, besides challenges in the public education system, the US has fine private schools and world ranked universities, so it cannot be the education system alone. Some blame the prevalence of religion in the US, its extreme influence on educational curriculum in the form of ‘intelligent design’ and religion’s sway over the US political agenda. Adherence to a fundamentalist religious agenda can have an influence of the analytical capacity of nations, we see this elsewhere in the world where everything is deemed pre-ordained and ruled by a set of unquestionable divine laws, but it is not a universal truth that this corresponds to an reduction in  intelligence. The US was created out of a desire for religious freedom, and while it is true that the separation of church and state has been missing of late in US politics, there is nothing unique to the modern generation of Americans in thus that could have caused a dumbing down of US culture. Others cite the low readership of books, allegedly the average American reads one book a year, and there is nub of truth in that. There is an odd reversed intellectual snobbery element to US society, where learning is not valued in and of itself. President Bush, not the most erudite of fellows, is deemed to be a ‘real’ American. There is a anti-intellectualism in the US, Palin and Bush, serving as modern paradigms of the syndrome, but again this does not explain it. If you ask the question why don’t Americans read many books’ you are getting much closer to the answer.

If you are looking for an answer to why Americans seem…well, frankly…ill-informed sometimes, it lies in the way information is presented to them. if you are looking for the key to this particular mystery, it can be found by examining the US media. Brevity and conciseness is highly valued in the US. The ‘give me the Reader’s Digest version’ is a common complaint. With brevity comes sacrifice. A news story citing what happened will have the commentary on the historical and social context removed. The average length of a header article in the US media is about 60% of that in international news. The result is that the US becomes a fact based nation, but without a broader contextual understanding of the issue. Saving time becomes a virtue of thrift, but it reveals itself in an absence of depth of understanding. Why are news reports bite sized as opposed to leisurely meals of information? For that, you need to look to advertising. TV media relies on the frequent advertising to fund its on air activities. There is no state run, advertisement free network such as the BBC in Britain and what Sarkozy is currently attempting to introduce on state run TV in France. Advertising requirements drive the cadence and timing of on air reporting – keep it brief and focused so as to not run over advertising  revenue requirements. The same is now true in print media. Written pieces need to fit in a page where certain key ‘real estate’ is required for advertisements. Keep the articles brief, you can pack more on the page and still leave space to be sold for advertisers. This constant procession of rapid-fire, concise, fact-based only reporting produces over time a generation of modern Americans who rely on volume of information consumption in bite-sized pieces. This is why books have  low readership in the US. It is too much of an investment in time. It is why precis of key books are big sellers, we can know what they are about without having to invest the time to read all the boring bits. It also, to a degree, explains why many Americans know little about the world. They only have a moment ot two to read the news, brief articles at best, and so stick to home news as the other stuff is too complex.

It is also the way mainstream media tricks US viewers into thinking that infotainment is news. it somehow assuages a common US guilt that they are not ‘up to speed’. Popular TV shows such as ‘Oprah’ and ’The View’ fool the US population that they are getting news insight while what they are really getting is entertainment. CNN and Fox, the ubiquitous channels you see in every air port lounge in the US, are increasingly less about news and more about pseudo-news, an attempt to keep people entertained with trivia and pretend it is informational. Many US pundits, like Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin (many of our readers will know we are not huge fans of them) and others, use emotionally charged rhetoric and call it news, though in these instances they even forgo the use of fact based reporting and are just vocal proponents of anything that will garner them media attention. The radio talk show hosts, all brief bite-sized segments, sometime factual, sometime not- are purveyors of rapid fire, news pieces with no social or historic context. New online developments support the theory that speed is more important than content. One of the latest news websites to gather heavy investors is a site called Breaking News. It gives brief news feeds in real-time and relies on advertising revenues. A click on a Breaking News item gives readers a two or three line summary of the story, probably enough for most readers, and a link to the full article. We suspect the number of readers who click-through is low – it is an instant gratification site, give me the news now that I want to read in a three line format. Quality journalism does exist in the US, in some newspapers, periodicals, and journals, but sadly its readership is declining and revenues relatively paltry by comparison. The US  media readership is over-stimulated but under-nourished. If you want to identify a cause of any dumbing down of the American people you can blame it on the media and their philosophy of news presentation predicated on the principle of ‘Keep it simple, stupid.’  We will close off this light-hearted op ed by citing another old adage – ‘we will reap what we sow.’