Why politicians and journalists are the same

If a journalist were to suggest to a politician that they’re very much alike, the politician’s reaction would probably be similar to that of the lovely Elizabeth Swann when Capt. Jack Sparrow told her the same thing.

“We are very much alike, you and I. I and you. Us,” said Sparrow, played by Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean.

“Except,” replied Swann (Keira Knightley in real life), “for a sense of honor, and decency, and a moral center. And personal hygiene.”

I used those quotes to illustrate for a group of 200 mayors and councillors last Friday the gulf in perception between two seemingly very different groups of people.

Politicians and journalists are often in conflict, yet they have a great deal in common. Indeed, there’s an uncanny resemblance between them.

For one thing, I said, both are wildly unpopular. We are both regarded as rather untrustworthy. Public opinion surveys that ask which professions people trust unerringly put firefighters at the top of the list, and politicians at the bottom, just ahead of telemarketers. Print journalists are a few rungs above that, but not by much. Those who answer such surveys say they base trustworthiness on perceptions of integrity, commitment to promises, and reliability. Apparently, politicians and journalists score pretty low on all three counts — people don’t trust politicians to do what they say, and they don’t trust the media to accurately tell them about it.

I figure the reason for this is that both politicians and journalists do their work under a glare of public scrutiny like no other two vocations. Everybody makes mistakes, but the whole world seldom knows about it. If a politician blows it, or a journalist, everybody knows.

As Warren Kinsella (a longtime adviser to the federal Liberals) put it, “We (politicians and the media) are bound together in perpetuity in a marriage from hell.” Kinsella doesn’t think much of reporters, regarding them as intrinsically evil, duplicitous, lazy, unethical, unscrupulous con men.” That’s a quote directly from my own notes taken from one of his speeches at a Federation of Canadian Municipalities conference a few years ago.

If Kinsella is right, then all politicians are likewise intrinsicallly evil, duplicitous, lazy, unethical and unscrupulous. I don’t believe that’s inherently true of either.

Here’s the thing. We in the media have long believed we can do a better job than those who govern. Ergo, we’re politicians at heart.

This isn’t new. A famous British journalist, William Thomas Stead (who died on the Titanic by the way), wrote that “newspapers are the greatest force in politics” and believed in “the natural and inevitable emergence of the journalist as the ultimate depository of power in modern democracy.” 

William Randolph Hearst, the famous American newspaper owner, took it a step further and put words into action. He’s often credited with starting the Spanish-American War of 1898, and sometimes blamed for the assassination of President William McKinley based on the stands taken by his papers. “The force of the newspaper is the greatest force in civilization,” he said, echoing Stead. “Newspapers form and express opinion. They suggest and control legislation… . The newspapers control the nation because they represent the people.”

Probably a few modern journalists wish that were so, but eventually Hearst gave up trying to rule the world from his office in the New York Journal and ran for election himself, with mixed results.

No doubt, if the media were in charge (I call it a Mediacracy, clever if I do say so myself), there would be no crime, no drug abuse, no prostitution, no poverty, no pot holes, no pollution, and no barking dogs.  Maybe even no water meters. Of course, the country would also be flat broke, but we in the media tend not to bother with such details.

While they say politicians should never argue with someone who buys ink by the barrel, there’s one thing the media can never do, and that’s legislate. They can criticize, they can advise, they can persuade, but ultimately the only authority for making decisions in a democracy is with those we elect. That’s a heavy responsibility, and a huge attraction for anyone who has as a goal the betterment of his/her community or country.

That’s why so many media people run for politics. Because politicians and journalists have the same agenda. All that differs is the tools they use to achieve it.