Sammy Davis Jr. said that he interrupted whatever he was doing when he played Las Vegas to look at the evening network news for half an hour so as to get a sense of what was happening in the real world and found that sobering. He was a good person as well as a good citizen because he would keep up with the topics of the day that might not concern his own life and to be well enough informed so as to engage with a responsible vote. Friends told me, on the other hand, that it was pointless for me to criticize “Morning Joe” because the program was not designed to engage me in that I was overly educated about politics to gain much from his program. I needed more details and analysis than he could provide. So how are we to evaluate what is in fact on the nightly news so a citizen can judge what side to take on candidates and issues?, not to speak of our sense of what is happening to the world beyond politics? Here is an issue of the PBS NewsHour, probably the most reliable and depthful news presentations, for Jan. 23, 2023 to see how it fares in meeting these needs.
On that date, there was discussion of whether German Leopard tanks would be sent to Ukraine and whether American Abrams tanks would be sent to Ukraine at the same time even though the American tanks were much more difficult to maintain. It was possible the German ones were not being offered for political rather than technical reasons. Maybe Germany didn’t want to be out there alone and so earn Russian ire.Neither party is saying what is said behind the scenes. What the American spokesmen are saying is that we are giving aid to Ukraine as the changing battlefield require, which is to beg the questions of which tre needed. What American spokesmen are also saying is that we will continue to send resources to Ukraine for as long as it takes until Ukraine is in a good position to go to a peace settlement, whatever and whenever that might be. An indefinite agreement is required to satisfy the United States which believes in supporting the war so as to maintain the principle that no one should invade a sovereign power though that doesn’t seem to include Africa but only on the periphery of Russia. Noone objects to that other than Marjorie Taylor Greene who wants us to keep our tanks to ourselves. A Republican said we should not have a blank check on our funds for Ukraine but that is lame because no one is in favor of a blank check. So the takeaway is that the Biden position on Ukraine is largely unopposed even if Putin engages sometimes in nuclear saber rattling. That is what I can conclude from watching the news. All of these events attest to what it is like to be human and the mixed blessings are, as I say, sobering, far from Las Vegas but not so far, I liked to think, from teaching sociology to college students.
A second topic of the day was the unfolding of what happened in the mass shooting at Monterey Park. Commentators said it was a prosperous Asian American community. There was little concern with the fact that the perpetrator was an elderly Asian man and so probably ruled out a hate killing or that usual mass killings were done by young men. Maybe personal grievances were at work. Instead, the topic was immediately referred to the matter of gun control. When will Congress ban assault rifles? The obvious answer is not very likely because the NRA can ride out whatever atrocity there might be and voters do not make gun control a high priority issue. A Republican Congressman speaking that evening on the NewsHour said that Chicago had high murder rates despite strong gun control laws. The moderator, perhaps emboldened by the willingness of television news anchors to speak out relevant facts in the wake of Trumpian lies, said that guns were shipped across state lines because of easier gun purchases in, let us say, Indiana. Never mind. The Congressman didn’t have to answer back with his lame answer because he had to answer to his donors rather than to his voters. The inference to me as a viewer was that the policy issue was settled but the political event wasn’t even if public opinion polls were on the side of extensive gun control.
Time moves past quickly. Since the 23rd, the issue of tanks and mass killings has been displaced by the issue of police violence in Memphis “in the American state of Tennessee”, as the BBC from London puts it. The story that is told rings familiar to social scientists who have investigated the relation of crime and poverty for over a hundred years now and are repeated in the twenty four hours since the appearance of the tapes showing the scorpion unit beating up Tyre Nichols by commentators and participants, Nothing is new, including outrage at the atrocity, except why the policemen involved were so bloodthirsty, some offering that even black officers can become infused with racist feelings about their own kind rather than because police aren’t either black or white but bleed blue. The story is this. There is a high crime rate in a high poverty area in Memphis and a special squad is appointed to cut down crime. That means making traffic stops often for dubious reasons because contraband or ,unexecuted warrants will be found by inspecting the car and tracing down his driver’s license, something illegal were it not a legal car stop. But the police went too far and as so far as why there are high crime rates in the area that people lose hope of finding work even though the national unemployment rate is at a long time low, which suggests that there are cultural and structural reasons, documented and elaborated by many scholars,rather than economic ones for why people in poverty don’t get jobs, and so one generation after another remains in poverty and so given to crime. So the news accurately conveys what the experts think and it makes sense for Sammy Davis Jr. to trust those reports.
I do wish that networks and cable were better off at follow up stories rather than just moving on to the next day’s story of an atrocity or a disaster r a war event. I would have liked to see an interview with the German Ambassador to the United States who asked if the delay on the Leopard tanks was political in that there was a reluctance to see German tanks move into Eastern Europe or only technical, the former more likely because the Leopards had been licensed to other nations. It would be informative to hear the Ambassador speak of a reticence to act because of Germany’s past or whether Germany had been rehabilitated into being a normal nation, that accomplished in the course of my own lifetime. But sometimes there is a sense of an ending that happens on its own right away. Jim Jordan, the new chairman of the House judiciary committee said yesterday on “Meet The Press” that laws can’t control such outrageous behavior as the killing of Tyre Nichols, even though the Civil Rights accounts of the Sixties did change the hearts and minds of the nation and Jordan also said that action on the police should be a local and state matter rather than a federal one because the feds always mess things up, which is an old conservative slogan, however untrue it may be. So nothing will be done to revive the George Floyd Act against choke holds, no no knock warrants or a national registry of policemen fired from their local departments but able to get appointed in a different department just across the state line, much less allow policemen to be sued for misbehavior, all of which were included in the George Floyd Bill. That is over until the Democrats have substantial advantages in both Houses.
Sammy Davis, Jr. did not need the nightly news to inform his voting, nor do I. Davis was a sophisticated voter. He supported Nixon, famously having hugged him at an event, because he knew that Nixon was not a racist, whatever his other shortcomings. Rather, what is sobering for Davis and myself and many other viewers of the nightly news is its portrayal of the human condition. There are implacable wars and political blowhards who are hardly credible but have positions of power. There are storms and diseases that people since ancient times claim to be the result of malicious human motives, whether by failing to vaccinate or the weather caused by carbon emissions, all cured if we would only be better. There are mass shootings by deranged and by people with grievances or principles, and all that is left is to grieve unless political action takes place. We find familiar Times Square or the Golden Gate Bridge even if you have never visited the site, or a small town thriving or nearly abandoned. All of these attest to what it is like to be human and the mixed blessings are, as I say, sobering, far from Las Vegas but not so far, I liked to think, from teaching sociology to college students
Also, network and cable news channels also have literary values. Marjorie Taylor Greene had always been a comic type, ditsy and ignorant, even down to her always referred to with her middle name included. Only Marjorie might believe that Kevin McCarthy might believe it when he says that he will always be loyal to her and demonstrated a smooch to prove it was true. George Santos is also of seemingly still unending amusement, certainly not to late night comedians, his thing to act as if his audience had not caught up to his act of lies, he as if he were still credible. And Jim Jordan, despite his bluster and articulateness, is just, deep down, just a bunch of cliches, and that isn’t at all funny.
Sometimes art illuminates life. Sammy Davis, Jr., playing himself, appeared on “All In The Family” so as to reclaim his bag from Archie Bunker’s cab. Archie was so overwhelmed by the star entertainer that he tried to be on his best behavior and even let Davis sit on Archie’s favorite chair. The two were cordial but by the end it was clear that Davis had contempt for Archie, Davis’ remarks just the thing the audience was poised to hear, and so a kind of justice was accomplished. Real life, on the other hand, may not accomplish justice, whatever that means, in that George Floyd is still dead, but the devices of drama can highlight what is at stake in real events, and so those who design their news programs have to pick out the right tones and not just the relevant facts. The coverage of Tyne Nicols is addressed with a hushed tone solemnity that might be associated with a martyr or a major politician rather than what he was, which is a victim. There is no need to embellish his life achievements in that he liked to. watch sunsets and engage in skateboarding. He was a twenty nine year old man who lived with his mother and had a marginal job and did not see his four year old son. But he was a human being and did not demand execution. That is the point and that is what Congress should address. Fictional devices can make you closer to real life.