Milan Kundera’s Aside on Journalism in Immortality

I recently finished reading French-Czech writer Milan Kundera’s novel Immortality. It proved fascinating for its unconventional narrative, insight into the human condition, philosophical reflections, and social critique. While it’s hardly a good indication of the overall book, a passage describing the recent history of journalism leapt out at me.

To summarize the narrator, journalism early in the 20th Century, back when Hemingway was on the beat, was about drawing near to the facts, asking questions with pen in hand, noting down what you were told, and then faithfully conveying it through print or radio, and later television. Ask a question, receive an answer, pass it on. This first stage of modern journalism strikes me as somewhat passive.

Later, journalists learned there was power in asking questions. Kundera raises Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein’s investigation into the Watergate scandal and the way it eventually led to a president resigning from office. Despite the Nixon administration’s attempts at a cover-up, the two dug until they uncovered the defining political misdeeds of modern times. Journalists learned to ask the tough questions, and the answers could have a powerful effect.

The legacy of this second stage of journalism is visible today in every television or radio interview covering topics even remotely debatable. Have you ever watched Stephen Sackur on the BBC program HARDtalk? This is my least favorite style of interview, but there’s a lot of it going around. Sackur seems to have gotten his job for the alarming way he can begin every sentence with “but.” “But your opponents would say . . . ” “But doesn’t that strike you as a little . . . ” “But surely you don’t believe that . . . ” “But I have a quote from you here that says . . . ” I long for just a moment when a statement can simply stand.

When it is balanced, aggressive journalism has its merits, but when Immortality was first published in 1988, this second stage of modern journalism was just getting warmed up and would soon slough its objective skin. The following decades have seen journalism and activism mixed thoroughly through the rise of radio talk show hosts, 24-hour cable news, and the Internet’s bewildering array of blogs, articles, blurbs and worthless tidbits. This type of journalism is so active it only asks questions so it can then provide the answers itself.

The worst of this is represented by Fox News Channel, but other networks are guilty as well. The only facts they are interested in are those that support their interests, and when the facts aren’t on their side, they’re willing to peddle fantasy. Kundera’s second stage of journalism has reached the point of propaganda.

Which brings me to what I believe is a third stage--or mode--of journalism. I believe the antagonistic mode of the journalist’s interview has evolved into a curious performance in which the two sides pretend to engage in a duel in Q&A form but all the questions and answers are known by both sides from the start. The next time Wolf Blitzer interviews someone on Capitol Hill or out on the campaign trail, he and his guest should come to me so I can write up their exchange ahead of time and spare them the trouble of coming up with something to say.

And that’s what makes the farce complete. We the audience collude in this cover-up of truth. We know the questions and we know the answers, so nothing is coming to light and nothing results. It’s like watching an episode of an old sitcom for the umpteenth time. It isn’t funny anymore, but at least we know what comes next.

Immortality isn’t really about journalism--it’s about life and love, with significant doses of big ideas--so I feel bad about focusing on a brief aside for a blog about something as bleak as the state of mass media today, but there you have it. Maybe I’ll have more uplifting things to say after reading Kundera’s better known novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being.