Freedom of Assembly, an archival photo from my collection. Fifth Avenue, NY City, date unknown.
When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby-talk, when, in short, a people become an audience, and their public business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk…
-Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (2005)
Because, to put it reductively, what gets attention is a very different category from what's important for sustaining a flourishing society.
― Chris Hayes, The Sirens' Call: How Attention Became the World's Most Endangered Resource (2025)
I read Postman in grad school and have recently returned to his books in between and alongside Chris Hayes' mindbender. Inspired by Postman and Hayes, kindred thinkers a generation apart, I've been keeping my eye on the firings, defunding, abnegations, and resistance in media organizations.
I am sure, for example, that the commentators on Morning Joe were thrilled when they heard that John Grisham had been booked to publicize "The Widow," his 51st book. There were questions that any experienced journalist might have asked during that interview, but everyone around the table was dumbstruck and fawning. I've always wondered if Grisham had any assistants poring over the news to generate story ideas, or a plot. Why didn't anyone ask that question? And what about his former active opposition to the death penalty? Is he still involved in that struggle given the retro climate in the country? And so on. Instead, Grisham was allowed time to recount his well-known daily writing routine without interruption, and ended with the complacent "and then I go out and play a round of golf." Everyone dissolved into giggles.
Bad news for professional media watchers accelerated when Bari Weiss became Editor-in-Chief of CBS news and asked—or insisted, or suggested—that 60-minutes reporter, Leslie Stahl, interview "peace negotiator" Steve Witkoff and his sidekick, Jared Kushner, last week. Why did Leslie Stahl agree to Weiss's "request?" What did Bari Weiss, or someone else, say to her behind closed doors? To watch Leslie Stahl stumble as she asked inane questions was painful, until she got to the word "genocide." For an instant, the bold Leslie Stahl surfaced.
The authors of Project 2025 would undoubtedly prefer the silencing of intelligent, informed interlocutors, and an unquestioning stupefied populace, to complete the demolition of American democracy.