How much influence on the world can the media actually have?

As Nietzsche once said, "There are no facts, only interpretations." Unfortunately for us, most of the press don't believe this, and present their interpretations to us as objective fact. Maybe sometimes it is, but how do we really know?

February 15, 1898. The USS Maine was in Cuba during the country's struggle for independence from Spain when it mysteriously exploded, killing 266 US sailors. To this day no one knows for sure what caused the explosion, though today it's thought that it was likely caused by an oil leak.

At the time, William Randolph Hearst, with his New York Journal, was itching for a story to beat his competitors. What better story than sabotage and unprovoked violence against innocent American sailors? What better way to get the United States behind a war with Spain, a long-term source of unbeatable stories for the press?

Correspondents for the newspaper, Stephen Crane and [artist] Frederick Remington, were reporting from Cuba, but found nothing really to report on.

"There is no war. Request to be recalled," was what Remington wrote to Hearst.

"Please remain. You furnish the pictures, I'll furnish the war," was what Hearst wrote back.

For several weeks after the destruction of the Maine, the Journal devoted at least eight pages a day or more to the story, attributing the explosion to Spanish saboteurs and coining the war-cry "Remember the Maine and to hell with Spain!"

Editorials were written demanding vengeance. Soon the American citizens were behind a war with Spain, wanting to get revenge for something that had not even really happened. Shortly thereafter, the Spanish-American War began.

Never underestimate the power of the press. And just because a reputable newspaper publishes something, doesn't make it true.

The New York Times' William Safire has written an Op-Ed piece titled The Depressed Press, on why mainstream media is going to be okay, which includes this questionable point:

On the challenge from bloggers: The "platform" - print, TV, Internet, telepathy, whatever - will change, but the public hunger for reliable information will grow. Blogs will compete with op-ed columns for "views you can use," and the best will morph out of the pajama game to deliver serious analysis and fresh information, someday prospering with ads and subscriptions. The prospect of profit will bring bloggers in from the meanstream to the mainstream center of comment and local news coverage.

On national or global events, however, the news consumer needs trained reporters on the scene to transmit facts and trustworthy editors to judge significance. In crises, large media gathering-places are needed to respond to a need for national community.

However, this only works if the news consumer actually believes that those trained reporters are indeed transmitting facts, and since more and more information is coming out showing just how untrustworthy the mainstream media has proven themselves to be, will news consumers be able to just forgive and forget? Or will they increasingly turn to bloggers, who seem more able to watch the watchdogs, out the mainstream media for their failings and provide legitimate, usable information based in fact and the public's desire for full disclosure of the truth? I believe that by the next election bloggers will have only grown in their appeal and respect to the general public.

Safire also maintains that the media bias (and there definitely is one), is mostly slanted liberal in reponse to a conservative government. But believing this is to assume that most mainstream media is actually keeping a close, critical eye on the government, willing to ask the tough questions that Americans deserve to have asked of their leaders, willing to second guess even the President of the United States. One only has to tune in to Fox News to see that this is largely not the case, or any of the major networks really. Even CNN, the news network that "more Americans trust," on election night was not exactly toeing the line of objective journalism.

The New York Times itself is what we have for the liberal mainstream ... Either mainstream media will have to completely reform and go back to doing the job it was created to do, or it will perish under the weight of its own journalistic failings. Eventually people will demand to know the truth, and there will be more and more outside the mainstream, including bloggers, who are willing to give it to them.

Over at Common Dreams, David Orr gives progressives everywhere a reason to hope. Kind of.

If he's right, and the Republican Party is not much longer for this world, what will that mean for liberals and Democrats, not to mention the country as a whole?

"Having made the United States a large bulls' eye for terrorists and malcontents, it may implode catastrophically taking much else with it. It may come undone more gradually, but no less catastrophically, as the economy sinks under the weight of war debt and foolish tax cuts. It may be overthrown if and when thoughtful conservatives disturbed by fiscal recklessness and imperial pretensions, all honest persons offended by mendacity, bombast, criminality, conniving, and diversion, and all Christians sufficiently alert to notice the discrepancy between the words and life of the "Prince of Peace" and our foreign and domestic policies finally shift alignments."

While the demise of the Republican Party would bring with it some great changes in American politics, it could also cause a great deal of problems. I don't think that the "imminent demise" of the Republican Party means that Dems should just play the waiting game though. Even an imminent demise may not happen for decades upon decades. But even if it happens relatively soon, the Dems need to fight to maintain their own party. Fight against the more dangerous items on Bush's second term agenda, to start. Action is key, so that if and when the republicans collapse under the weight of their own ideology and blind refutation of true American values, they don't end up taking the rest of the country with them.