Obama right on autocue

DID you notice the autocue? Well, never mind you were not supposed to. The autocues at Barack Obama’s inauguration were the two A3 size smoked-glass panels to his front left and right at 45 degrees to the horizontal.

The words of Obama’s flawlessly delivered speech rolled on each smoked panel reflected to the only the speaker’s eyes. It was smoke and mirrors. The two million members of the crowd and vast television audience were oblivious.

Obama could read the words while appearing to be directing attention to the crowd beyond the glass and he could move from left to right quite naturally as the words flowed simultaneously on each pane.

It is wonderful technology and a far cry from that dismal day in the 1972 Australian election campaign when Prime Minister Billy McMahon’s primitive autocue – manually operated by none other than the then political nascent John Howard – faltered and jerked leaving McMahon looking even more timid and tentative than he really was.

So often, how a politician says something is as important as what he says, particularly in this age of the television clip and now the internet video clip.

Obama did not say very much, but gosh did he say it well. And in doing so he managed to appeal to the great majority of Americans, gain approval of nearly all major groups, and not offend or alienate any. There was something for everyone and nothing to offend anyone. You almost felt you personally knew the man.

It was exactly right for the occasion.

But I’m not being cynical here. To the contrary. It was an admirable exercise in judgment and understanding.

Indeed, it seems to me, that America and the world are fortunate. Having suffered the imperfect storm of events – Monica, Chads, Electoral College and Supreme Court, a then-stultifying opponent — that yielded George Bush junior (funny how he never used that otherwise most favourite of American epithets), the US is now beneficiary of another equally unlikely confluence of events to yield Barack Obama. Any other first-term senator, let alone a black one, would have had no show in any other circumstance.

Obama has a great understanding of the media and judgment in his dealings with it. In contrast I and many of my journalist colleagues come across personally and by observation, so many politicians who are utterly bewildered by the media.

If Obama exercises the same judgment in other areas, the world will be fortunate.

In “The Audacity of Hope” Obama wrote: “Simple math tells the tale. In the 39 town-hall meetings I held during my first year in office, turnout averaged four to five hundred people, which means that I was able to meet with maybe fifteen to 20,000 people. . . . In contrast, a three-minute story on the lowest rated news broadcast in the Chicago media market may reach 200,000. In other words, I – like every other politician at the federal level – am almost entirely dependent on the media to reach my constituents. It is the filter through which my votes are interpreted, my statements analysed, my beliefs examined. For the broad public at least, I am who the media says I am. I say what they say. I become who they say I’ve become.”

Usually, journalists confronted by a whinge about media power and its misuse would dismiss it as just another whinge. But that paragraph bites. It makes a journalist feel empathy (not pity or sympathy, but empathy) for the politician.

That seems to me to be part of Obama’s deserved success – he can put himself in the shoes of each member of his audience and make each member of his audience feel what it might be like to be him.

Obama succinctly pinpointed the half dozen failings of western (particularly US) media. First is the putting news values like conflict and bizarreness before information. Second is the failure to put things into context. Third is the prominence of ideological opinion. Fourth is the shallow convenience of the observance of balance and objectivity. A “he-said-she-said” piece quoting both sides of an issue may appear balanced and objective, but does not give the reader much understanding of issue. Fifth, is the putting of words into an interviewee’s mouth. Sixth, is the refusal to publish facts contrary to the publisher’s line.

And then came the two-way empathy. He expressed understanding for journalist facing deadline pressures; editors facing pressures from publishers on what line to take and editors and managers facing pressure from shareholders demanding higher dividends.

And then he painted the picture of the politician who is victim of this, not as hapless and hard-done-by, but as being made cynical against his or her will to the detriment of good government as a whole.

The lack of context grieved him most. The great issues facing politicians are complex. Making them artificially simple, results in adversary politics and the wrong solution. A classic example was Karl Rove seeking support for Bush’s tax cuts for the rich. A Senator said, if you could make these couple of amendments you would have 70 per cent support in the Senate and a better Bill. Rove replied: “We don’t need 70 per cent, we just need 50.”

Expect an Administration which is not scared of complexity and has the humility to admit that government is difficult.

That has got to be better than an Administration which was emboldened by simplicity and too arrogant to ever admit that, in dealing with difficult issues, even it occasionally got it wrong.