Saturday, November 3, 2018

Invisible Hand

Andrew Marantz, "Invisible Hand," (Talk of the Town), New Yorker, October 15, 2018, p.

Last Monday night, about fifty New Yorkers of diverse ages and nondiverse politics showed up at the main branch of the Brooklyn Public Library for the first in a series of “Midterm Explainers”—informal talks ahead of the November elections, followed by cheese and screw-top wine. The evening’s topic, according to a flyer, was “The invisible hand of the super PAC.” The explainer was Zephyr Teachout, who was identified as an anti-corruption activist and a “veteran candidate”—a polite way of saying that she ran for governor of New York, in 2014; for Congress, in 2016; and for state attorney general, this year, all without enduring the potentially corrupting effects of winning.

COMMENT

   Here is an example of a public library fostering civic engagement by hosting a political lecture series.  
   In the article, Teachout is attempting to give an information literacy talk about how to follow the money in politics. Her audience, according to the reporter anyway, is surprisingly unreceptive considering that they all showed up to hear her talk. When she tries to tell them how to use Facebook to uncover the source of funding behind political ads they say, "we don't use Facebook," and then claim never to watch political ads.  As Teachout keeps pointing out, it's not about them.  It's about the people who do get their political information from Facebook ads. 
     When she asks if anyone knows who their state senator is about 1/3 of the audience raises their hands. This is actually a much higher than the rate than I have ever observed, especially among young voters.  When I ask college undergraduates if they can name the politicians who represent them they can all identify the president; a few know who their congressman is; but only once did I have a student who could name the governor.  The State Legislature (the ones who can allocate finding and make rules that affect the State system of higher education) are a complete mystery to students.  
     I believe that this ignorance of State-level politics is because young people do not read local newspapers. In part the currant breakdown in American politics is due to too much emphasis  on national politics and not enough knowledge of state and local politics where individual values can have a far more direct influence. Despite overblown hopes, the Internet and citizen journalism have turned out to be inadequate substitutes for local news reporting.  
     In some places without local newspapers libraries are trying to fill the gaps, in some cases by actually publishing community newsletters. It's an imperfect solution. Libraries have an obligation to both-sideism that, as lazy journalists found while reporting on the 2016 elections,  leaves the gate ajar for inadvertently spreading deliberate disinformation and propaganda.  Also, unlike real reporters librarians can't leave work to report breaking news.

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