I often reflect on my purpose as a writer and commentator. It's difficult to know exactly what the role of reporters and journalists are these days. On this campus, for example, the various debates focus primarily around stories broken by The Dartmouth. This news often evokes anger, frustration and outrage from professors, students and administrators alike.
I suppose in that respect the job of the media is to allow us to know what is going on in the world around us, be it on this campus or in the entire country. Recently, however, the media has taken on a new role, one that it has accepted reluctantly but honorably.
Numerous scandals have captivated our nation in the past few years, and it seems as if our law enforcement officials become more inept with every case, our politicians more slippery with every scandal. Time and time again the national news media has taken the initiative not only in steering but also in running these investigations.
The frenzy surrounding missing Washington, D.C. intern, Chandra Levy, is just the latest example of this phenomenon. Levy has been missing for over 80 days, but only in the past three or so weeks does it seems as if the D.C. police have stepped up their search for her.
Both the media coverage and the law enforcement are centering the case on California Congressman Gary Condit, who has admitted he was having an affair with the intern prior to her disappearance but has denied any involvement in her disappearance. Rightly or wrongly, the involvement of the congressman makes this woman more interesting to everyone, including the media, than the average missing person.
The fact of the matter is that, without the media, the police would have either been too scared or too incompetent to question Congressman Condit properly about his involvement in the case. The police interviewed him three times before they got him to admit he had been having a sexual affair with Chandra Levy. Cable news channels like CNN, MSNBC and Fox News, often accused of creating unnecessary media frenzies, have done more to dictate the direction of this investigation than the police and the public combined. It is not an easy thing to accuse a Congressman of a crime like kidnapping or murder, so it is not surprising that despite Condit's relationship with Ms. Levy the police did not focus on him immediately.
However, even after eight weeks with no developments and no solid leads, they needed media guidance to start pressuring Condit more heavily. The Congressman continues to behave suspiciously. Expect him to be compelled to take a police-administered lie detector test in the coming weeks.
There are some basic things about journalists that make them well suited to conducting investigations. Most reporters do not enjoy having their stories proven false after the fact, so they will seek out the truth and check to make sure what they are reporting is accurate. Additionally, they are hard on a public official once it becomes apparent that he or she has a problem telling the truth. We saw it with Bill Clinton and now we are seeing it with Gary Condit who, regardless of his involvement in Levy's disappearance, might be indicted for obstruction of justice for trying to convince another woman he had an affair with to lie about it.
Traditionally the only thing restraining the media has been its need to report on things that people care about. More and more we are seeing this limitation being stretched, to the point that the American public now gets its cues as to what is newsworthy from the media itself.
Despite the fact that most people did not want to know about former President Clinton's sex life, the media investigated his possible affair with Monica Lewinsky relentlessly. Originally, Clinton and his team lied about the affair and discredited Lewinsky, citing the lack of proof. Once the media broke the story about the stained dress, Clinton changed his tune.
If the media had listened to the American people and backed off the story about the dress, it would not have been reported and Clinton's lies would have worked. The former President looked at the polls and decided it was not necessary to admit to the affair because the American people would not care if he continued to lie about it. In making this assumption he underestimated the power of the media to shape stories and mold public opinion.
The role of the media is expanding in response to the growing indifference of the American people. It is almost as if journalists have to shout louder now that people aren't listening as carefully.
The media tries to speak for the public when the public doesn't care enough to speak for itself. Keeping government honest in the absence of a strong public opinion is a difficult task, one the media can perform only so well.
Though it is generally true that the national public is uninformed, this is not the case here at Dartmouth. News of major campus happenings spread through the student body like wildfire thanks in part to this publication.
Oftentimes, a major social change proposed by the administration is delayed or blocked because of student protests. In short, public opinion on this campus is strong enough to keep the administration in check, at least to some extent.
If our outrage over dishonesty in government equaled our outrage over the possible loss of our pong tables, just imagine how great this country could be.
