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 Recent commentary from National Journal: Social Studies: To Fight AIDS, Lift the Ban on Immigrants With HIV (January 14, 2004) It's time for the federal government to rescind the ban on HIV-positive foreigners from entering or staying in the United States. By Jonathan Rauch. Political Pulse: The Surging Front-Runner (January 14, 2004) The more the establishment turns on Howard Dean, the more his supporters are energized. By William Schneider. Legal Affairs: The Supreme Court Needs to Rule on 'Enemy Combatants' (January 14, 2004) The Bush administration's handling of "enemy-combatant" cases has been so lawless as to smack of tyranny. The Supreme Court needs to step in. By Stuart Taylor Jr. Media: Subtracting Ads (December 31, 2003) Some media outlets see the public's ad fatigue as an opportunity, and are offering ad-free content. By William Powers. Legal Affairs: Asbestos Litigation: Evidence Of Massive Corruption? (December 31, 2003) An upcoming law-review article suggests that most of the thousands of asbestos-related injury claims being filed each year are bogus. By Stuart Taylor Jr. Political Pulse: Adjusting the Focus (December 31, 2003) Iraq may not be the best issue for the Democrats, but they may not be able to avoid it. By William Schneider. Wealth of Nations: American Diplomacy and the New Shape of the World (December 31, 2003) Critics who accuse the United States of a strident new unilateralism often have an agenda of their own: to keep America's power in check. By Clive Crook. More from National Journal. |
Media 
Good Rover!
The Mars story had all the goods to dispel the jitters and gloom of recent months. by William Powers ..... In ancient America, back in the '60s and '70s, it was easy to reduce the media to quivering, blithering mush. All it took was a successful space mission. Remember old Cronkite swooning at the men on the moon? In these days of media cynicism and jadedness, don't you sometimes wish we could have those simple times back again? And, um, did you wake up a few days ago and notice they were back? "A Triumphant Landing on Mars," announced the front page of The Washington Post, in an above-the-fold story topped by a huge picture of the martian landscape, shot from inside NASA's Spirit rover. The picture wasn't very good, just a faint gray foretaste of the full-color, panoramic, high-definition, 3-D, George Lucasesque shots that would come later in the week. But it was Mars and we were on it, and that was what mattered at the moment. Beneath the headline, near the center of the page, was a color shot of a middle-aged man wearing a huge mustache-fringed grin and clapping his hands, just beneath a large NASA logo. It was a wonderful photo choice, in that this giddy fellow—Pete Theisinger, the mission's project manager—personified the culture's mood as this story broke. After a year full of war debate, war itself, and the messy aftermath of war, after a holiday season full of terrorist warnings and mad cows, and with the presidential campaign already seeming brutish and long, you could feel the country yearning for something hopeful. Sure, there's the soaring stock market, and it's gotten decent play in the past few weeks. But news people have learned their lessons about pumping Wall Street and are now careful to hedge every frothy market headline with reminders of the dark possibilities. The Mars story was different: It had all the goods to dispel the jitters and the gloom, with less downside. Like the economic story, this was partly about a stunning comeback—just a year ago, the shuttle Columbia burned up on re-entry. But unlike Wall Street gains, this feat can't be erased tomorrow. Once you've notched a perfect landing (or hit the "scientific sweet spot," as one scientist put it, giving the Los Angeles Times its own above-the-fold headline) and sent back images of never-before-seen clarity, you're not just talking news, but discovery, progress, the march of history. We can have endless debates about how we're doing in Iraq. But for a few days this week, there was no arguing about how we were doing on Mars. Thus, much of the news establishment gave the story the same first-class treatment it got in The Post. The New York Times also played it at center top, though with a "mosaic image" (whatever that is) of the rover shot from above—much less compelling than the landscape image that The Post and others chose. The next day, The Times' editorial page was uncharacteristically beside itself: "Hats off to NASA for breaking the jinx that has doomed so many space missions to Mars.... What a welcome change after a number of discouraging failures over the past several decades!" The Wall Street Journal's front-page "What's News" digest, normally a terse, buttoned-up column, let itself go a tiny bit wild: "NASA exulted as the Spirit landed on Mars in an apparent dry lake bed propitious for exploration. Photos are already streaming home, and weeks of mesmerizing images are promised if good fortune holds." At one point on CNN, a space expert advised Soledad O'Brien that this was "one of the most exciting times to be alive in the history of humanity." And O'Brien seemed, in her Delphic way, to enjoy his giddiness. But it was USA Today that captured, with signature artlessness, the spirit that animated this story. "We're back. We're on Mars," said the front-page headline, quoting NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe. It was up to the reader to decide who "we" were, but given the news outlet delivering the line, you could assume it included you. And isn't that a swell feeling, to know you're back? Sometimes, the media are better than any psychotherapist, and you can't beat the price. Even radio, bereft of the killer images, got in on the act. Charles Osgood, who delivers those emphatically folksy mini-commentaries on CBS Radio's The Osgood File, saw in the red planet a balm for these troubled times: "On too many issues, you have no idea who's right and who's wrong. I don't know which candidate has the best health care plan or the best tax reform or the best excuse for some embarrassing vote he cast, but, by golly, I know who can get a space probe to Mars; it's those high-fiving NASA scientists. And consider this, consider how it was done: No floor debates on the laws of physics, no concerns that the scientists' views on gravity might not appeal to Southern voters, because NASA wasn't dealing with anything as complex as Washington. It was merely dealing with the eternal cosmos, and the eternal cosmos is unimpressed by pandering, doesn't even care what religion you are. You either follow its rules, or it spits you out." And that was the real point of the Mars hooha, wasn't it? That sweet little "rover" (great word, full of doglike innocence) snapping those nice "postcards" didn't pull any of the nasty, confusing moves most news stories, and some people, pull every day. It just aimed to please. And so it did.
What do you think? Discuss this article in the Politics & Society conference of Post & Riposte. More from National Journal. More on politics and society in Atlantic Unbound and The Atlantic Monthly. William Powers is media columnist for National Journal. 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. Copyright © 2004 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved. | [an error occurred while processing this directive] | ||
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