Raise the Hammer

Excerpt from a Paul Wellstone speech at Inver hills Community College, 3/9/1992:

"The media. Let me make a couple of points at the beginning. First of all, let me just simply make what is not such an obvious point, but should be an obvious point. All of us that are here today at this gathering have kind of a limited capacity to sample the world. We can't see everything and see everybody all around the world. We can't do it. And therefore, the media becomes very important to us because the media tends to define reality. I mean, much of what we think we know about the world that we live in is mediated by what we see on TV or listen to on radio or what we read in the paper because we cannot directly experience it. So therefore, the media has awesome responsibility and also awesome power. That's the first point.

Second point, the media broadly defined is the only institution, the only institution privately enterprise in the United States of America, with first amendment protection. That's a real important point. One more time, the media is the only private enterprise in the United States with first amendment protection. Freedom of speech, freedom of press and there is a reason for that. We knew from the very beginning that the media was key to an informed public and an informed public was to a functioning, successful democracy. So, again, an awesome responsibility. Do I think the media has lived up to that responsibility? No. Do I think that there is a lot of room for improvement? Yes, of course. Do I think that everybody in the media does a terrible job? Of course not. There are some people who do a very good job and some people that don't do as good a job, but I'm trying to represent a more institutional analysis.

Barry Commoner. Anybody know that name? How many of you've heard that name Barry Commoner? Very few, which is sort of going to prove my point. Barry Commoner is a well-known professor at the University of Washington, St. Louis. He has done a lot of work on energy policy. Very strong environmentalist, very well known, ran for president in 1980, as the citizen's party candidate, third party. From the word go, he was essentially written off by the by the media, broadly defined. Marginalized.

And he wrote an article called ‘Talking to the Mule,' which had an interesting point. Commoner said, which I like because I have a teaching background, "When I was professor, I was writing articles and writing books and I would get interviews on the Today show, I would get interviewed in major newspapers, The Washington Post, the New York Times, you name it. So I thought I would run for president in 1980. I knew I wouldn't win, but I thought I would have an opportunity to introduce some new political perspectives into the dialogue of the country. But it was like talking to a mule. I would go to Detroit, hard hit, automobile industry closing down, terrible poverty in the city and I would present an Economic Conversion Plan. Economic conversion is important for us to think about right now in our country, and I would talk about how auto workers...could be involved in making a new...rail system for our country. And I would talk about what could be done in the city. I would have a whole economic conversion plan that would be good for Detroit, that would be good for the country, the shifts we need to make in our economy and then I would talk about the issues. No one would show up, it's like talking to the mule." So what Commoner found out what was between him and the people was the media. Very frustrating. "