Brian Stelter , the New York Times' TV reporter, has a bit of a problem--we might even say that he has discovered, unwillingly, the Stelter Uncertainty Principle. The Stelter Uncertainty Principle is a double-edged-sword: On the hand side of the blade, it's fun to be on the cutting edge of new discoveries; but on the other side, it's no fun to be wrong.
Stelter reported last Saturday on a "cease fire" between Fox and MSNBC--in particular, between Bill O'Reilly and Keith Olbermann--and yet that ceasefire, which was never as complete as Stelter made it out to be last weekend, came unraveled almost immediately after he reported it--Olbermann denounced Stelter, as well as Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch, on his very next show, on Monday night. So, on the one hand, Stelter can say that The Truce was maybe somewhat true--more on that below--when he wrote it, but it was obviously not much of a ceasefire, and thus not really big news. (But what reporter wants to think like that? That his "scoop" is just a little dip?)
Stelter attempts to make sense of it all in the New York Times this morning. Reading through Brian's recap, one is reminded of The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, which can be summed up as, "The mere fact of looking at something changes that something."
That's what might have happened to Stelter: It's entirely believable that The Truce was the intention of Murdoch and General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt, but the reality on the ground--in the suites of Fox and MSNBC, in the studios of Bill and Keith--was much different. In particular, it appears that MSNBC was abiding by a sort of cease-fire order, but Fox wasn't. To put it another way, GE put the restraining arm on MSNBC, but News Corp did not put a similar restraint on Fox.
As FNC said in a statement to Stelter, "This has nothing to do with preventing anyone from practicing journalism or interfering with freedom of speech — this is about corporate responsibility. We’ve never suppressed any stories about NBC or G.E. — both organizations are covered as news warrants.”
Indeed, while there's at least some evidence to suggest that Murdoch personally didn't like the feud, there's no evidence to suggest that he gave any sort of order to Fox to change its tone. In fact, as Stelter notes, during the time of the supposed Truce, FNC's Glenn Beck quipped that the “merger between G.E. and the Obama administration” (in re: bailouts to GE Capital) is “nearly complete.”
Also, not only was the Truce not completely real, ever, upon observation, The Truce reverted back to being The Feud--when Olbermann was outed by the Times, and started taking heat from the left; as noted here at TCG, Glenn Greenwald and many other lefties have taken Olbermann to task for seeming to take "cease fire" orders from his corporate masters at General Electric for at least a while. But now, of course, Olby is on a tear--he has to be even more ferocious toward Fox, just to prove his lefty bona fides.
Thus the Stelter Uncertainty Principle. The mere fact that Stelter was reporting this tenuous reality made it likely the reality would change--from Truce to Feud to even bigger Feud. If quantum mechanics was daunting to Heisenberg--not to mention unlucky co-eds, who found themselves in an elective class they couldn't understand!--then quantum media mechanics is just as challenging.
In the meantime, Fox is getting the last word. Here's how Stelter concludes his story:
It remains to be seen whether the personal attacks will be halted again. Fox’s stance on Friday suggested that the corporate criticism would not.
“At this point,” a Fox spokeswoman said Friday, “the entire situation is more about major issues at NBC and G.E. than it is about Bill O’Reilly and Keith Olbermann.”
Thus we can conclude, fellow students of quantum media mechanics, that The Stelter Uncertaintly Principle applies to some Cable Gamers than to others.
