the 27th freest press in the
world

  The Threat to American Democracy
     Remarks by Al Gore | The Media Center

     Wednesday 05 October 2005

Remarks delivered by Al Gore to a conference organized by "We Media" in 
New
York.
     I came here today because I believe that American democracy is in 
grave
danger. It is no longer possible to ignore the strangeness of our public
discourse ... I know that I am not the only one who feels that something
has gone basically and badly wrong in the way America's fabled 
"marketplace
of ideas" now functions.

     How many of you, I wonder, have heard a friend or a family member in
the last few years remark that it's almost as if America has entered "an
alternate universe?"

     I thought maybe it was an aberration when three-quarters of 
Americans
said they believed that Saddam Hussein was responsible for attacking us 
on
September 11, 2001. But more than four years later, between a third and 
a
half still believe Saddam was personally responsible for planning and
supporting the attack.

     At first I thought the exhaustive, non-stop coverage of the O.J. 
trial
was just an unfortunate excess that marked an unwelcome departure from 
the
normal good sense and judgment of our television news media. But now we
know that it was merely an early example of a new pattern of serial
obsessions that periodically take over the airwaves for weeks at a time.

     Are we still routinely torturing helpless prisoners, and if so, 
does it
feel right that we as American citizens are not outraged by the 
practice?
And does it feel right to have no ongoing discussion of whether or not 
this
abhorrent, medieval behavior is being carried out in the name of the
American people? If the gap between rich and poor is widening steadily 
and
economic stress is mounting for low-income families, why do we seem
increasingly apathetic and lethargic in our role as citizens?

     On the eve of the nation's decision to invade Iraq, our longest 
serving
senator, Robert Byrd of West Virginia, stood on the Senate floor asked:
"Why is this chamber empty? Why are these halls silent?"

     The decision that was then being considered by the Senate with
virtually no meaningful debate turned out to be a fateful one. A few 
days
ago, the former head of the National Security Agency, Retired Lt. 
General
William Odom, said, "The invasion of Iraq, I believe, will turn out to 
be
the greatest strategic disaster in US history."

     But whether you agree with his assessment or not, Senator Byrd's
question is like the others that I have just posed here: he was saying, 
in
effect, this is strange, isn't it? Aren't we supposed to have full and
vigorous debates about questions as important as the choice between war 
and
peace?

     Those of us who have served in the Senate and watched it change over
time, could volunteer an answer to Senator Byrd's two questions: the 
Senate
was silent on the eve of war because Senators don't feel that what they 
say
on the floor of the Senate really matters that much any more. And the
chamber was empty because the Senators were somewhere else: they were in
fundraisers collecting money from special interests in order to buy
30-second TV commercials for their next re-election campaign.

     In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, there was - at least for a 
short
time - a quality of vividness and clarity of focus in our public 
discourse
that reminded some Americans - including some journalists - that 
vividness
and clarity used to be more common in the way we talk with one another
about the problems and choices that we face. But then, like a passing
summer storm, the moment faded.

     In fact there was a time when America's public discourse was
consistently much more vivid, focused and clear. Our Founders, probably 
the
most literate generation in all of history, used words with astonishing
precision and believed in the Rule of Reason.

     Their faith in the viability of Representative Democracy rested on
their trust in the wisdom of a well-informed citizenry. But they placed
particular emphasis on insuring that the public could be well-informed. 
And
they took great care to protect the openness of the marketplace of 
ideas in
order to ensure the free-flow of knowledge.

     The values that Americans had brought from Europe to the New World 
had
grown out of the sudden explosion of literacy and knowledge after
Gutenberg's disruptive invention broke up the stagnant medieval 
information
monopoly and triggered the Reformation, Humanism, and the Enlightenment 
and
enshrined a new sovereign: the "Rule of Reason."

     Indeed, the self-governing republic they had the audacity to 
establish
was later named by the historian Henry Steele Commager as "the Empire of
Reason."

     Our founders knew all about the Roman Forum and the Agora in ancient
Athens. They also understood quite well that in America, our public 
forum
would be an ongoing conversation about democracy in which individual
citizens would participate not only by speaking directly in the 
presence of
others - but more commonly by communicating with their fellow citizens 
over
great distances by means of the printed word. Thus they not only 
protected
Freedom of Assembly as a basic right, they made a special point - in the
First Amendment - of protecting the freedom of the printing press.

     Their world was dominated by the printed word. Just as the 
proverbial
fish doesn't know it lives in water, the United States in its first half
century knew nothing but the world of print: the Bible, Thomas Paine's
fiery call to revolution, the Declaration of Independence, our
Constitution, our laws, the Congressional Record, newspapers and books.

     Though they feared that a government might try to censor the 
printing
press - as King George had done - they could not imagine that America's
public discourse would ever consist mainly of something other than 
words in
print.

     And yet, as we meet here this morning, more than 40 years have 
passed
since the majority of Americans received their news and information from
the printed word. Newspapers are hemorrhaging readers and, for the most
part, resisting the temptation to inflate their circulation numbers.
Reading itself is in sharp decline, not only in our country but in most 
of
the world. The Republic of Letters has been invaded and occupied by
television.

     Radio, the internet, movies, telephones, and other media all now vie
for our attention - but it is television that still completely dominates
the flow of information in modern America. In fact, according to an
authoritative global study, Americans now watch television an average of
four hours and 28 minutes every day - 90 minutes more than the world
average.

     When you assume eight hours of work a day, six to eight hours of 
sleep
and a couple of hours to bathe, dress, eat and commute, that is almost
three-quarters of all the discretionary time that the average American 
has.
And for younger Americans, the average is even higher.

     The internet is a formidable new medium of communication, but it is
important to note that it still doesn't hold a candle to television.
Indeed, studies show that the majority of Internet users are actually
simultaneously watching television while they are online. There is an
important reason why television maintains such a hold on its viewers in 
a
way that the internet does not, but I'll get to that in a few minutes.

     Television first overtook newsprint to become the dominant source of
information in America in 1963. But for the next two decades, the
television networks mimicked the nation's leading newspapers by 
faithfully
following the standards of the journalism profession. Indeed, men like
Edward R. Murrow led the profession in raising the bar.

     But all the while, television's share of the total audience for news
and information continued to grow - and its lead over newsprint 
continued
to expand. And then one day, a smart young political consultant turned 
to
an older elected official and succinctly described a new reality in
America's public discourse: "If it's not on television, it doesn't 
exist."

     But some extremely important elements of American Democracy have 
been
pushed to the sidelines ... And the most prominent casualty has been the
"marketplace of ideas" that was so beloved and so carefully protected by
our Founders. It effectively no longer exists.

     It is not that we no longer share ideas with one another about 
public
matters; of course we do. But the "Public Forum" in which our Founders
searched for general agreement and applied the Rule of Reason has been
grossly distorted and "restructured" beyond all recognition.

     And here is my point: it is the destruction of that marketplace of
ideas that accounts for the "strangeness" that now continually haunts 
our
efforts to reason together about the choices we must make as a nation.

     Whether it is called a Public Forum, or a "Public Sphere," or a
marketplace of ideas, the reality of open and free public discussion and
debate was considered central to the operation of our democracy in
America's earliest decades.

     In fact, our first self-expression as a nation - "We the People" - 
made
it clear where the ultimate source of authority lay. It was universally
understood that the ultimate check and balance for American government 
was
its accountability to the people. And the public forum was the place 
where
the people held the government accountable. That is why it was so 
important
that the marketplace of ideas operated independent from and beyond the
authority of government.

     The three most important characteristics of this marketplace of 
ideas
were:

1) It was open to every individual, with no barriers to entry, save the
necessity of literacy. This access, it is crucial to add, applied not 
only
to the receipt of information but also to the ability to contribute
information directly into the flow of ideas that was available to all.


2) The fate of ideas contributed by individuals depended, for the most
part, on an emergent Meritocracy of Ideas. Those judged by the market 
to be
good rose to the top, regardless of the wealth or class of the 
individual
responsible for them.


3) The accepted rules of discourse presumed that the participants were 
all
governed by an unspoken duty to search for general agreement. That is 
what
a "Conversation of Democracy" is all about.
     What resulted from this shared democratic enterprise was a startling
new development in human history: for the first time, knowledge 
regularly
mediated between wealth and power.

     The liberating force of this new American reality was thrilling to 
all
humankind. Thomas Jefferson declared, "I have sworn upon the alter of 
God
eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."

     It ennobled the individual and unleashed the creativity of the human
spirit. It inspired people everywhere to dream of what they could yet
become. And it emboldened Americans to bravely explore the farther
frontiers of freedom - for African Americans, for women, and 
eventually, we
still dream, for all.

     And just as knowledge now mediated between wealth and power,
self-government was understood to be the instrument with which the 
people
embodied their reasoned judgments into law. The Rule of Reason 
under-girded
and strengthened the rule of law.

     But to an extent seldom appreciated, all of this - including 
especially
the ability of the American people to exercise the reasoned collective
judgments presumed in our Founders' design - depended on the particular
characteristics of the marketplace of ideas as it operated during the 
Age
of Print.

     Consider the rules by which our present "public forum" now operates,
and how different they are from the forum our Founders knew. Instead of 
the
easy and free access individuals had to participate in the national
conversation by means of the printed word, the world of television 
makes it
virtually impossible for individuals to take part in what passes for a
national conversation today.

     Inexpensive metal printing presses were almost everywhere in 
America.
They were easily accessible and operated by printers eager to typeset
essays, pamphlets, books or flyers.

     Television stations and networks, by contrast, are almost completely
inaccessible to individual citizens and almost always uninterested in 
ideas
contributed by individual citizens.

     Ironically, television programming is actually more accessible to 
more
people than any source of information has ever been in all of history. 
But
here is the crucial distinction: it is accessible in only one direction;
there is no true interactivity, and certainly no conversation.

     The number of cables connecting to homes is limited in each 
community
and usually forms a natural monopoly. The broadcast and satellite 
spectrum
is likewise a scarce and limited resource controlled by a few. The
production of programming has been centralized and has usually required 
a
massive capital investment. So for these and other reasons, an 
ever-smaller
number of large corporations control virtually all of the television
programming in America.

     Soon after television established its dominance over print, young
people who realized they were being shut out of the dialogue of 
democracy
came up with a new form of expression in an effort to join the national
conversation: the "demonstration." This new form of expression, which 
began
in the 1960s, was essentially a poor quality theatrical production 
designed
to capture the attention of the television cameras long enough to hold 
up a
sign with a few printed words to convey, however plaintively, a message 
to
the American people. Even this outlet is now rarely an avenue for
expression on national television.

     So, unlike the marketplace of ideas that emerged in the wake of the
printing press, there is virtually no exchange of ideas at all in
television's domain. My partner Joel Hyatt and I are trying to change 
that
- at least where Current TV is concerned. Perhaps not coincidentally, we
are the only independently owned news and information network in all of
American television.

     It is important to note that the absence of a two-way conversation 
in
American television also means that there is no "meritocracy of ideas" 
on
television. To the extent that there is a "marketplace" of any kind for
ideas on television, it is a rigged market, an oligopoly, with imposing
barriers to entry that exclude the average citizen.

     The German philosopher, Jurgen Habermas, describes what has 
happened as
"the refeudalization of the public sphere." That may sound like
gobbledygook, but it's a phrase that packs a lot of meaning. The feudal
system which thrived before the printing press democratized knowledge 
and
made the idea of America thinkable, was a system in which wealth and 
power
were intimately intertwined, and where knowledge played no mediating 
role
whatsoever. The great mass of the people were ignorant. And their
powerlessness was born of their ignorance.

     It did not come as a surprise that the concentration of control over
this powerful one-way medium carries with it the potential for damaging 
the
operations of our democracy. As early as the 1920s, when the 
predecessor of
television, radio, first debuted in the United States, there was 
immediate
apprehension about its potential impact on democracy. One early American
student of the medium wrote that if control of radio were concentrated 
in
the hands of a few, "no nation can be free."

     As a result of these fears, safeguards were enacted in the US -
including the Public Interest Standard, the Equal Time Provision, and 
the
Fairness Doctrine - though a half century later, in 1987, they were
effectively repealed. And then immediately afterwards, Rush Limbaugh and
other hate-mongers began to fill the airwaves.

     And radio is not the only place where big changes have taken place.
Television news has undergone a series of dramatic changes. The movie
"Network," which won the Best Picture Oscar in 1976, was presented as a
farce but was actually a prophecy. The journalism profession morphed 
into
the news business, which became the media industry and is now completely
owned by conglomerates.

     The news divisions - which used to be seen as serving a public 
interest
and were subsidized by the rest of the network - are now seen as profit
centers designed to generate revenue and, more importantly, to advance 
the
larger agenda of the corporation of which they are a small part. They 
have
fewer reporters, fewer stories, smaller budgets, less travel, fewer
bureaus, less independent judgment, more vulnerability to influence by
management, and more dependence on government sources and canned public
relations hand-outs. This tragedy is compounded by the ironic fact that
this generation of journalists is the best trained and most highly 
skilled
in the history of their profession. But they are usually not allowed to 
do
the job they have been trained to do.

     The present executive branch has made it a practice to try and 
control
and intimidate news organizations: from PBS to CBS to Newsweek. They 
placed
a former male escort in the White House press pool to pose as a 
reporter -
and then called upon him to give the president a hand at crucial 
moments.
They paid actors to make make phony video press releases and paid cash 
to
some reporters who were willing to take it in return for positive 
stories.
And every day they unleash squadrons of digital brownshirts to harass 
and
hector any journalist who is critical of the President.

     For these and other reasons, The US Press was recently found in a
comprehensive international study to be only the 27th freest press in 
the
world. And that too seems strange to me.

     Among the other factors damaging our public discourse in the media, 
the
imposition by management of entertainment values on the journalism
profession has resulted in scandals, fabricated sources, fictional 
events
and the tabloidization of mainstream news. As recently stated by Dan 
Rather
- who was, of course, forced out of his anchor job after angering the 
White
House - television news has been "dumbed down and tarted up."

     The coverage of political campaigns focuses on the "horse race" and
little else. And the well-known axiom that guides most local television
news is "if it bleeds, it leads." (To which some disheartened 
journalists
add, "If it thinks, it stinks.")

     In fact, one of the few things that Red state and Blue state America
agree on is that they don't trust the news media anymore.

     Clearly, the purpose of television news is no longer to inform the
American people or serve the public interest. It is to "glue eyeballs to
the screen" in order to build ratings and sell advertising. If you have 
any
doubt, just look at what's on: The Robert Blake trial. The Laci Peterson
tragedy. The Michael Jackson trial. The Runaway Bride. The search in 
Aruba.
The latest twist in various celebrity couplings, and on and on and on.

     And more importantly, notice what is not on: the global climate 
crisis,
the nation's fiscal catastrophe, the hollowing out of America's 
industrial
base, and a long list of other serious public questions that need to be
addressed by the American people.

     One morning not long ago, I flipped on one of the news programs in
hopes of seeing information about an important world event that had
happened earlier that day. But the lead story was about a young man who 
had
been hiccupping for three years. And I must say, it was interesting; he 
had
trouble getting dates. But what I didn't see was news.

     This was the point made by Jon Stewart, the brilliant host of "The
Daily Show," when he visited CNN's "Crossfire": there should be a
distinction between news and entertainment.

     And it really matters because the subjugation of news by 
entertainment
seriously harms our democracy: it leads to dysfunctional journalism that
fails to inform the people. And when the people are not informed, they
cannot hold government accountable when it is incompetent, corrupt, or
both.

     One of the only avenues left for the expression of public or 
political
ideas on television is through the purchase of advertising, usually in
30-second chunks. These short commercials are now the principal form of
communication between candidates and voters. As a result, our elected
officials now spend all of their time raising money to purchase these 
ads.

     That is why the House and Senate campaign committees now search for
candidates who are multi-millionaires and can buy the ads with their own
personal resources. As one consequence, the halls of Congress are now
filling up with the wealthy.

     Campaign finance reform, however well it is drafted, often misses 
the
main point: so long as the only means of engaging in political dialogue 
is
through purchasing expensive television advertising, money will 
continue by
one means or another to dominate American politic s. And ideas will no
longer mediate between wealth and power.

     And what if an individual citizen, or a group of citizens wants to
enter the public debate by expressing their views on television? Since 
they
cannot simply join the conversation, some of them have resorted to 
raising
money in order to buy 30 seconds in which to express their opinion. But
they are not even allowed to do that.

     MoveOn.org tried to buy ads last year to express opposition to 
Bush's
Medicare proposal which was then being debated by Congress. They were 
told
"issue advocacy" was not permissible. Then, one of the networks that had
refused the MoveOn ad began running advertisements by the White House in
favor of the President's Medicare proposal. So MoveOn complained and the
White House ad was temporarily removed. By temporary, I mean it was 
removed
until the White House complained and the network immediately put the ad
back on, yet still refused to present the MoveOn ad.

     The advertising of products, of course, is the real purpose of
television. And it is difficult to overstate the extent to which modern
pervasive electronic advertising has reshaped our society. In the 1950s,
John Kenneth Galbraith first described the way in which advertising has
altered the classical relationship by which supply and demand are 
balanced
over time by the invisible hand of the marketplace. According to 
Galbraith,
modern advertising campaigns were beginning to create high levels of 
demand
for products that consumers never knew they wanted, much less needed.

     The same phenomenon Galbraith noticed in the commercial marketplace 
is
now the dominant fact of life in what used to be America's marketplace 
for
ideas. The inherent value or validity of political propositions put 
forward
by candidates for office is now largely irrelevant compared to the
advertising campaigns that shape the perceptions of voters.

     Our democracy has been hallowed out. The opinions of the voters 
are, in
effect, purchased, just as demand for new products is artificially 
created.
Decades ago Walter Lippman wrote, "the manufacture of consent ... was
supposed to have died out with the appearance of democracy ... but it 
has
not died out. It has, in fact, improved enormously in technique ... 
under
the impact of propaganda, it is no longer plausible to believe in the
original dogma of democracy."

     Like you, I recoil at Lippman's cynical dismissal of America's gift 
to
human history. But in order to reclaim our birthright, we Americans must
resolve to repair the systemic decay of the public forum and create new
ways to engage in a genuine and not manipulative conversation about our
future. Americans in both parties should insist on the re-establishment 
of
respect for the Rule of Reason. We must, for example, stop tolerating 
the
rejection and distortion of science. We must insist on an end to the
cynical use of pseudo studies known to be false for the purpose of
intentionally clouding the public's ability to discern the truth.

     I don't know all the answers, but along with my partner, Joel 
Hyatt, I
am trying to work within the medium of television to recreate a 
multi-way
conversation that includes individuals and operates according to a
meritocracy of ideas. If you would like to know more, we are having a 
press
conference on Friday morning at the Regency Hotel.

     We are learning some fascinating lessons about the way decisions are
made in the television industry, and it may well be that the public 
would
be well served by some changes in law and policy to stimulate more
diversity of viewpoints and a higher regard for the public interest. 
But we
are succeeding within the marketplace by reaching out to individuals and
asking them to co-create our network.

     The greatest source of hope for reestablishing a vigorous and
accessible marketplace for ideas is the Internet. Indeed, Current TV 
relies
on video streaming over the Internet as the means by which individuals 
send
us what we call viewer-created content or VC squared. We also rely on 
the
Internet for the two-way conversation that we have every day with our
viewers enabling them to participate in the decisions on programming our
network.

     I know that many of you attending this conference are also working 
on
creative ways to use the Internet as a means fo
r bringing more voices into America's ongoing conversation. I salute 
you as
kindred spirits and wish you every success.

     I want to close with the two things I've learned about the Internet
that are most directly relevant to the conference that you are having 
here
today.

     First, as exciting as the Internet is, it still lacks the single 
most
powerful characteristic of the television medium; because of its
packet-switching architecture, and its continued reliance on a wide 
variety
of bandwidth connections (including the so-called "last mile" to the 
home),
it does not support the real-time mass distribution of full-motion 
video.

     Make no mistake, full-motion video is what makes television such a
powerful medium. Our brains - like the brains of all vertebrates - are
hard-wired to immediately notice sudden movement in our field of 
vision. We
not only notice, we are compelled to look. When our evolutionary
predecessors gathered on the African savanna a million years ago and the
leaves next to them moved, the ones who didn't look are not our 
ancestors.
The ones who did look passed on to us the genetic trait that
neuroscientists call "the establishing reflex." And that is the brain
syndrome activated by television continuously - sometimes as frequently 
as
once per second. That is the reason why the industry phrase, "glue 
eyeballs
to the screen," is actually more than a glib and idle boast. It is also 
a
major part of the reason why Americans watch the TV screen an average of
four and a half hours a day.

     It is true that video streaming is becoming more common over the
Internet, and true as well that cheap storage of streamed video is 
making
it possible for many young television viewers to engage in what the
industry calls "time shifting" and personalize their television watching
habits. Moreover, as higher bandwidth connections continue to replace
smaller information pipelines, the Internet's capacity for carrying
television will continue to dramatically improve. But in spite of these
developments, it is television delivered over cable and satellite that 
will
continue for the remainder of this decade and probably the next to be 
the
dominant medium of communication in America's democracy. And so long as
that is the case, I truly believe that America's democracy is at grave
risk.

     The final point I want to make is this: We must ensure that the
Internet remains open and accessible to all citizens without any 
limitation
on the ability of individuals to choose the content they wish 
regardless of
the Internet service provider they use to connect to the Worldwide Web. 
We
cannot take this future for granted. We must be prepared to fight for it
because some of the same forces of corporate consolidation and control 
that
have distorted the television marketplace have an interest in 
controlling
the Internet marketplace as well. Far too much is at stake to ever allow
that to happen.

     We must ensure by all means possible that this medium of democracy's
future develops in the mold of the open and free marketplace of ideas 
that
our Founders knew was essential to the health and survival of freedom.

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