Recent commentary from National Journal:
Political Pulse: What About a Bush-McCain Ticket?, by William Schneider (May 3, 2000)
The downside for the senator if he runs with the governor: they might win.
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Gloom has brought environmentalism to a dead end. The movement must swallow its pride and concede victory.
Legal Affairs: Victims' Rights: Leave the Constitution Alone, by Stuart Taylor Jr. (April 28, 2000)
Amending the Constitution for popular causes is rarely a good idea. And victims' rights is no exception.
Media: Random Harvest, by William Powers (April 27, 2000)
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Political Pulse: The Big Dig and the Shovel Brigade, by William Schneider (April 26, 2000)
It's the costliest public works project in American history and a triumph of old politics.
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Media:All for the Boy
May 4, 2000
Here in the information industry, we care about Elián González. We went into this business to help people like him -- small, defenseless, highly newsworthy people. We want to protect little Elián from the pain, and we want everyone to know how much we want that. It has come to our attention, however, that this is unfortunately one of those stories that the public loves. Why? 1) Because it has everything that really matters -- life and death, childhood and parenthood, love and freedom -- and it's all densely layered and chewy. 2) Because it has terrific details, like the dolphins that supposedly saved Elián from drowning before the fishermen showed up. Dolphins and fishermen! And one of the fishermen is called Donato Dalrymple, a name that no Seuss or Dickens could improve. 3) Because Elián and everyone around him -- even Donato Dalrymple -- is incredibly handsome, and the public always likes stories about fine physical specimens. (The ancient gods weren't gorgeous for nothing.)
The public's tastes are rather -- How to say this? -- gauche. But when people want a story this much, we have no choice but to give it to them, because we are selfless public servants. So we give them all the Elián we can get. Whenever and wherever the boy appears, we aim and shoot (though it pains us to do so). We plead and wheedle with the family and lawyers for access. We make nice with the boy on camera, smiling our sincerest anchorperson smile, cooing, standing on our head.
At the same time, we feel Elián must be protected from all the simpletons who enjoy his tale. Because we care so much about the boy. So we make a point, whenever possible, of trashing our own story. "Figures show that we've already, television collectively, given more coverage to this story than the tragic death of Princess Diana or JFK Jr.," said CNN's Howard Kurtz the other day, speaking to several other journalists on a special TV program entirely devoted to the Elián González story. "So do you think that folks sense that maybe we're kind of milking and exploiting the situation?"
New York Times pundit Frank Rich declared, "Elián is the latest pawn in our culture's increasingly pornographic exploitation of children," and compared Elián to the dead beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey. The public loves little JonBenet's story too, because it's also a morality tale on eternal themes -- vanity, ambition, lost innocence, thwarted justice -- and because it also features a beautiful child. The public's love for such stories is "disturbing" to Frank Rich, and to all of us information industrialists. So three cheers to The New York Times for devoting a gigantic section of its op-ed page -- complete with a huge drawing of Elián -- to the argument that it's wrong to play Elián as a gigantic story.
All this self-loathing is our way of letting Elián know we actually have his best interests in mind. It's like we're speaking to him in code. If the public, those sleazes, weren't making us milk this thing, we'd take him in our arms and run off to some faraway island and raise him ourselves. Frank Rich could be the nanny.
To prevent further exploitation of our little friend, we are now instituting certain industrywide measures. 1) Though Elián's story is rich and complicated, and not an easy one to judge, we will say over and over that it's all very simple, thereby bleeding the story of its life and rendering it boring. Elián will be reduced to pure black and white, to Teams A and B. In all public appearances, the industry's Team A will always say that a boy should be with his father. Team B will always say that because Cuba is evil, Elián must stay in the United States.
Those who mix these opinions (e.g., that troublemaker William Safire, who says Cuba is evil but a boy should be with his father, thereby confusing everything) will be harshly punished. Adding nuance and complexity to this story might increase the public's dangerous fascination. Fortunately, most of us -- Peggy Noonan, George Stephanopoulos, Robert Novak, Charles Krauthammer, Al Hunt, et al. -- are playing their assigned roles. The public almost believes it's a simple choice.
2) Whenever possible, we will wince about our own work. Dan Rather has led the way here. After CBS had shown endless video footage and stills of the scary gun-toting, goggles-wearing INS SWAT team that removed Elián from the house, Rather did a flawless wince: "Little children, particularly ones in this country, even for a short time, you know, from television, toys, are at least vaguely familiar with guns, and -- and at least boys are. But in my experience, people in masks or goggles are very scary to little children." Gold star for Dan.
3) We will take every opportunity to remind the world that it's the boy who matters here. So what if the public loves his cheesy little story? So what if people find it even more interesting than movies and sitcoms, because it's not about actors but real people trying to resolve an extraordinary human problem? As Larry King said the other night, it's the boy who matters here. From now on, we will say that over and over, repeat it like a mantra, and maybe the public will listen to us and turn away from its shameful addiction to this story.
We hope Elián feels better, thanks to our efforts in his behalf. We sure do.
What do you think? Discuss this article in the Politics & Society conference of Post & Riposte.
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William Powers is media columnist for National Journal. He recently spent three months in Japan as a Japan Society Fellow, studying the role of reading in Japanese life. This column appears every week in National Journal, a weekly magazine covering politics and government published in Washington, D.C.
For information on National Journal Group publications, see NationalJournal.com.
All material copyright © 2000 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.
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