In the first period, the newspapers made people aware of the dangers in the world.

In the second period, the media made them aware of the threats to the planetand the evils of globalization.

As the third period begins, the media seem to be shifting from info-tainment toinfo-distancing, denial for short.

To get some answers, this historian takes a longitudinal look at three periods in foreign news coverage. The first period went from World War I to the Vietnam War, specifically from 1918 to 1968. During this period the ideas came from a matrix spawned by national, regional and local elites.

The second period emerged in 1969 and lasted till the end of 2000. During this period an ideological revolution spawned by the civil rights and anti-war movements rose up against the existing elites. As a result the ideas that shaped foreign policy and news for the last 30 years came from an unstable mix of old elites and new “special interests.”

A third period is now beginning as George W. Bush constructs his administration. Older interests and ideologies voted for Bush and newer ones supported Gore. Both the winner and the loser call for unity but emotions are polarizing the two sides.

America now is more into the world than ever. It is now involved in a low intensity war in Colombia. It could soon become openly involved in another one in the Middle East. And wobbly markets reflect fears of a possible American and worldwide recession. Foreign news could dominate the media and computer screens much more than the second period and at least as much as in the first.

The First Period

One man in particular, Walter Lippmann, shaped the first period, especially through his book “Public Opinion” (published in 1922). Earlier he had been a key adviser to President Wilson who launched the League of Nations, the UN’s predecessor. Lippmann was pessimistic about any democratic foreign policy. By public opinion he meant the informed views of local, state and national elites.

Lippmann was a key player in the formation of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in New York. The CFR then spawned a network of World Affairs Councils (WAC) all over the country. The concept was to bring politicians, businessmen and academics together to discuss foreign affairs that the general public had little interest in.

Newspapers, magazines and other publications created public opinion by publishing articles on salient issues. Editorials voiced opinions on those issues. Lippmann also had a big influence on George Gallup who launched American public opinion polling in 1935.

In the 1916 elections President Wilson campaigned on a peace theme that was popular among the American electorate. But hardly a month into his second term, on April 6, 1917 he took America into World War I. What Lippmann a few years later would call public opinion gave him the support he needed.

President Franklin Roosevelt was a key advocate of the Neutrality Act adopted by Congress in 1935. But in the summer of 1940, when Hitler’s armies defeated France, public opinion gave him the needed support for arming Britain. During World War II the newly coined term bipartisanship came to signify elite consensus. Bipartisanship and public opinion supported the Cold War against world communism.

Bipartisanship at the top defined agendas and formulated the different opinions. Newspapers publicized agendas, issues and opinions. Polls measured how informed populations lined up for or against an issue or initiative. The public opinion system worked well until the Vietnam War took a bad turn. Elite and sub-elite consensus broke apart in early 1968.

The Second Period

Even as the first period emerged from World War I, the second one emerged from the Vietnam War. Like Wilson in 1916, President Johnson in the 1964 presidential campaign kept saying “I do not seek a wider war.” But, again as in Wilson’s case, less than a month after his re-inauguration, he plunged us into war. But whereas Wilson delivered victory in 20 months, the Vietnam War went on till April 30, 1975.

The makers of policy during the first period belonged to a network of club-like institutions that shaped public opinion. But in the second period diverse “special interests” arose that contested the policies and the elites behind them. The new interests became particularly prominent in the media and academia. They did not form clubs the way the elites did but rather were linked by a common liberal ideology.

Earlier in the 1960’s the liberal elites urged Americans to go out into the world. The Peace Corps was popular. But after 1968 Americans turned inward. In 1972 Senator McGovern campaigned with the theme “come home, America.”

The word world fell out of favor. If globe has a technological and planet an environmental connotation the world connotes people. In the second period it seemed there were too many dangers and people out there. If you traveled to such places it was for business, scientific or personal reasons. Newspaper travel sections favored safe places for tourists, meaning mostly North America and Western Europe.

By the early 1970’s it was evident that new media forms were developing. Television reporting and news analysis was encroaching on newspaper turf. Alternative media offered a different journalistic fare to their readers. During the later 1960’s and the early 1970’s, publications like the Village Voice still saw themselves as a part of the peace movement. But soon enough more and more of their fare became cultural. As the alternatives got more and more ads some of them became as bulky as the mainstream papers.

In the 1980’s the mainstream papers began to adopt the coverage style of the alternatives. In the 1990’s mainstream and alternative became indistinguishable. The big papers discovered that the alternatives’ shift from politics to culture brought in many new readers and advertising. The word information became cutting edge in the context of the Internet revolution. Entertainment was a key component of the new culture. Soon editors saw that information and entertainment could be fruitfully combined. Thus appeared the hybrid term “info-tainment.”

Newspapers still were sources of information but no longer of significant opinion. More and more opinion was shaped by rapidly proliferating think tanks. Politicians, businessmen and academics networked with each other in these “research centers.” But newspapers were no longer sought out. Editorials often came from the whims of editors or publishers. Think tank opinions were transmitted directly to the higher echelons of government and corporations. Others who were interested could get both information and opinions through the Internet.

The Coming of the Third Period

During the years from 1968 till now America has turned into a World Empire not seen since the Roman Empire two millennia ago. Its legions are spread worldwide. The global economy is centered on America. The main forces generating the huge tidal waves of globalization are American technology and culture.

We live in an “information age” and a communications revolution is going on. Whether we call it world, globe or planet the six billion humans on this earth are now far more interdependent than they were even a decade ago.

In the first period, the newspapers made people aware of the dangers in the world. In the second period, the media made them aware of the threats to the planet and the evils of globalization. As the third period begins, the media seem to be shifting from info-tainment to info-distancing, denial for short.

In Colombia, America is soon going to feel the anomaly of being the biggest consumer of drugs in the world while it seeks to uproot every narco-plant in the region. A second low intensity war is already sucking America into several Middle East conflicts. A similar torture rack could pull America apart in the Taiwan Straits where it sells arms to Taiwan while having close military ties with the People’s Republic of China.

Then there is emerging economic trouble. We could be facing a worldwide recession this coming year that will hit not only America hard but much of the world as well. There is no way the media in the end can keep out “foreign affairs” from their content nor turn it into info-tainment or info-distancing.

Some voices are again saying that “secret diplomacy” is the best way of settling crises. Back in World War I Woodrow Wilson vowed to end secret diplomacy. Wilson’s stance inspired his young follower Walter Lippman to create an open public opinion. But 50 years later that approach turned out to be too closed and was rejected.

Eighty years ago it was war, crisis and revolution that created public opinion. Now we are facing the possibility of a repeat. No secret diplomacy will work because wars, crises and revolutions, more than ever now, spring up at grass roots levels. For better or worse, ordinary people, not great leaders, are instigating and maintaining protests, as now in the Holy Land. If the media keep looking up they will keep getting fat wads of ads. If they look down they’ll see reality.
Franz Schurmann is a co-founder of Pacific News Service.

Other commentaries by Schurmann are available online at http://www.newamericamedia.org/