The Corsair Talks To William Brandon Shanley Of "The Made For TV Election"
Who is watching the watchers? The Made For TV Election is a documentary starring Emmy Award-winning actor and activist Martin Sheen, that is written and produced by media critic William Brandon Shanley and Gerald J. Keane, is available now on DVD and will be exhibits in movie theaters beginning October 9th. According to the press release, the documentary " presents examples from both the 2008 primaries and the 1980 election when Ronald Reagan defeated Jimmy Carter to demonstrate how TV networks use polls, stereotypes, gaffes, and flip flops to turn elections into political theater to boost ratings, and in so doing, create an uneven playing field and dumb-down civic discourse." The Corsair emailed William Brandon Shanley some questions about the current election and the media coverage:
The Corsair: Clearly the election has been a boon to the cable news channels. I'm curious if you think that the present melodrama surrounding the closeness of this race is somewhat overplayed this go around.
William Brandon Shanley: Yes, the closeness of the race is overblown and manipulated to a certain degree. In 1992, three weeks before the election Bush-Clinton election, CNN changed the way it counted "likely voters" in order to show a tightening race. In every election, it seems, the race is tied up until the last minute, which defies credulity, although the TV events in the drama are timed packaged with the intent of creating a better horse race and raising viewer excitement about the election. Also, according to author Webster Tarpley, national security agencies (like CIA) get involved in manipulating polls, although I have no personal evidence of that. The other point to be aware of is that the CIA has employees on news staffs from The New York Times to the networks and wire services.
The Corsair: Few people understand national political theater more than Martin Sheen. How did he come on board?
William Brandon Shanley: TV producer and founder of People for the American Way, Norman Lear, famous for his socially-conscious sitcoms in the 1970's, like "All in the Family," helped with some early financing and also helped us make contact with Martin Sheen. Martin's fee was paid to support pacifist nuns in prison for pouring blood on a nuclear submarine. Martin is a wonderful human being, very generous, hard working and committed to social justice.
The Corsair: How do you think the blogs -- left and right -- are doing as a counterweight to the TV coverage of the election.
William Brandon Shanley: The blogs provide some counterweight to TV-based events, and sometimes the blogs set information afire that is picked up by the networks, like the claims in 2004 that CBS documents showing George Bush was AWOL from the Texas National Guard were forged. There was no evidence that they were, a scanner changed a font, but everyone jumped on that story and bled CBS to death until I had to apologize. Ultimately, Dan Rather's career was snuffed by the events. But the overwhelming, day-to-day campaign altering events still happen mainly on TV. The amplification of TV-based, pseudo-events is so intense that it ripples through the campaigns, through other media and across America.
The Made For TV Election is available here.
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