It's a Tab, Tab World

Marvin Kalb, the eminent critic of journalism and director of the Shorenstein Center on the Press, asked the best question of the night at yesterday's panel on tabloid journalism in the ARCO Forum: "Fred, why are we here?" Fred Schauer, the academic dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government, came up with a fine answer about the limits of the public sphere and the quality of debate in our democratic republic--essentially, questioning the worthiness of celebrity journalism in America.

The featured speaker was the editor of the National Enquirer, Steve Coz '79 (that's right, a Harvard alum). His compatriots were a celebrity lawyer, Marty Singer, who represents the likes of Demi and Arnold, and a paparazzo, Russell Turiak, who was there to plead innocent to the death of Diana. And their collective function was to argue about Russell's rights of access, Steve's salubriousness in print and Marty's malignancy in the courts--essentially, questioning the worthiness of celebrity journalism in America.

The purpose of the two sides, the one theoretical, the other practical, seem on the surface to align perfectly. But in fact, Schauer's rationale for the debate applied to a different set of panelists, namely the mainstream media. What the K-School crowd wanted to know was why it is that tabloid journalism has become legitimate--legitimate enough to hold a forum on it at the Kennedy School of Government. And the answers from the tabloidists present was that tabloidism is legitimate because it has been absorbed into the mainstream, and Steve Coz was sitting there to prove it.

For the past two or so years, since he was put in charge of editorial content for the Enquirer, Coz has been out to prove the worthiness of tabloid journalism to American democracy. He has declared that his magazine will no longer publish stories or photos of manufactured events, though he admits the concept of an event's construction is itself open to interpretation as a matter of degree. (A post-modern editor!) He has written an op-ed piece for The New York Times which, he told me, was solicited from him by The Times, though the paper has a policy of not owning up to that publicly. And he has come to the K-School to show the world that the National Enquirer is significant.

Some might say that Coz has an inferiority complex. He did, after all, go to Harvard. And he did, he says, write for the Independent here. He has worked for the Enquirer since 1981, just two years after his graduation--a whole career. So it is possible that he feels the need to justify his choice of "profession." Luckily for him, historical circumstance has made his job a great deal easier: the tabloid doesn't have to reach very far for legitimacy because the standards of legitimacy have deteriorated to the level of the tabloids. Coz was quick to make the point with headlines from ABC News ("More Americans get their news from ABC News than from any other source"), including "Michael Jackson Reveals All to Diane Sawyer," and, from Barbara Walters: "Garth Brooks Reveals His Sister's Gay."

Coz is right: the media's gone tabloid. And it's not just ABC. Think of Dateline NBC's faked car crash-ups. But it's not just TV news magazines. Consider all the local broadcasts featuring child sodomies and Kennedy delinquencies. Nor is it just television. How about Newsweek's cover story this week: "Galaxies: How the Universe Began; How it Might End." But not just weeklies. Even The Times has become fixated on Marv Albert's trial. Coz was correct in remarking, "Marv Albert's toupee falls off during sex, and the country goes crazy." But tabloidism isn't even limited to the sleaze factor. In that very same Newsweek, the story on Jiang features a half-page photo of the opening of Brad Pitt's new movie about Tibet, and includes the following in its two-page spread: "Beyond the atmospherics, the two sides [the U.S. and China] have serious business to do," and finishes the thought in a single following sentence.

The fact is that the media which serve the general public have failed in their journalistic responsibilities. No amount of journalism school graduates will cure the trend. No amount of academic moralizing will affect the press. Why? The media--large and small outlets alike, and in all forms--are increasingly being concentrated in the hands of a few corporations who have as their bottom line the bottom line. Profits, baby, are the name of the game. And as Steve Coz, Russell Turiak and even Marty Singer know, sex, drugs, money and all other prurient interests sell. (That's why the seven sins--or was it 364--are sins, because they are attractive.) Journalism students are trained professionals--trained, that is, to serve their master. And what corporation cares about what Harvard has to say other than which building or chair it gets to name after itself?

The point is this: the general media have become host to tabloid content. Steve Coz knows this, and he's getting a bang out of moralizing from a position of weakness. The mainstream media have failed to do their job, namely to speak up for their reader by explaining the events of the big world to him or her by highlighting what is important, not what is entertaining. That's a job for the tabloids. What's important, like state budgets, the spread of disease and urban planning, can be made interesting because these are the issues that matter to real people on an everyday basis. Not Bill Clinton's sexual exploits. Not the Kennedy's babysitter. Coz has won. America has lost. It's a tabloid world.

Joshua A. Kaufman's column appears on alternate Thursdays.