Why Do Our Scandals Seem so Similar? (Hint: Watergate)
Jack Hitt, in the NYT (July 18, 2004):
THE lead story from Wall Street last week read more or less like this: "Kenneth L. Lay indicted; Martha Stewart sentenced." The two are constantly linked in the media like some poster couple of corporate corruption. ABC News has mashed them together as part of "a rash of rogue C.E.O.'s."
What's distinctive about these and other business scandals is the way the mass media has been telling the stories in the same terms. And the public has grown to expect this. It almost doesn't matter what first draws the media's attention- whether it's Mr. Lay's friendship with President Bush or Ms. Stewart's national renown - once the scandal begins, there's a Kabuki-like quality to the drama. Every person enveloped by the scandal seems to assume an almost ritualized role. In fact, certain characters appear repeatedly: the fallen giant, the whistle-blower, the dogged journalist, the arrogant lieutenants, the little people left twisting in the wind.
As to the story line, the public knows it can tune in at any random point. The plot will be as reliable and familiar as any primetime drama that jumped the shark three seasons ago.
How different could Ms. Stewart's and Mr. Lay's cases be? Ms. Stewart's inside tip to sell off her ImClone stock would have resulted in roughly a $45,000 profit. Mr. Lay's alleged trades netted a somewhat different amount: about $90 million. Then, after the summer of 2001, when Enron's manipulation of the energy markets fleeced the entire state of California, Mr. Lay is accused of falsely representing the company's fiscal health even as its stock plummeted from $90 to $1, decimating the retirement pensions of at least 4,200 families. .
So then why are the story of Ms. Stewart's selfish misdemeanor and the dark plots alleged of Mr. Lay are so often paired?
Here is one answer: Watergate. The first great national scandal that toppled a mighty leader left its harrowing imprint on the nation's psyche as profoundly as violence does on a little boy. The media have been re-enacting the same story ever since.
"Watergate was our formative trauma," said Suzanne R. Garment, the author of "Scandal: The Culture of Mistrust in American Politics." "It established the category of '-gate' and the assumption that the cover-up is worse than the crime." True to form, many stories refer to the scandals as Marthagate and Enrongate.
"Ever since Watergate, we look for the familiar character, the power-mad leader who will fall, brought down by a weak but honest whistleblower," said Larry Sabato, the director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. "We look for all the familiar Watergate characters."
The arrogant lieutenants in the original drama were H. R. Haldeman and John Erlichman. This season, at Enron, their roles are being played by Jeffrey K. Skilling, the former chief executive, and Richard A. Causey, the former chief accounting officer. The details are telling: Last week, Time magazine reported that Mr. Causey "asked a judge to unfreeze some of his assets to pay for a country-club membership."
Another trope is the mighty leader addled by power. If Richard M. Nixon spent that humid soupy summer of 1974 cranking the air conditioning until the White House was as cold as a meat locker so that he could enjoy a roaring fire in the fireplace because, as Nixon explained, it helped him think, that's as delicious a detail as the story about Ms. Stewart threatening to fire her Merrill Lynch stockbroker if he didn't change the "hold music" on his telephone.
THE lead story from Wall Street last week read more or less like this: "Kenneth L. Lay indicted; Martha Stewart sentenced." The two are constantly linked in the media like some poster couple of corporate corruption. ABC News has mashed them together as part of "a rash of rogue C.E.O.'s."
What's distinctive about these and other business scandals is the way the mass media has been telling the stories in the same terms. And the public has grown to expect this. It almost doesn't matter what first draws the media's attention- whether it's Mr. Lay's friendship with President Bush or Ms. Stewart's national renown - once the scandal begins, there's a Kabuki-like quality to the drama. Every person enveloped by the scandal seems to assume an almost ritualized role. In fact, certain characters appear repeatedly: the fallen giant, the whistle-blower, the dogged journalist, the arrogant lieutenants, the little people left twisting in the wind.
As to the story line, the public knows it can tune in at any random point. The plot will be as reliable and familiar as any primetime drama that jumped the shark three seasons ago.
How different could Ms. Stewart's and Mr. Lay's cases be? Ms. Stewart's inside tip to sell off her ImClone stock would have resulted in roughly a $45,000 profit. Mr. Lay's alleged trades netted a somewhat different amount: about $90 million. Then, after the summer of 2001, when Enron's manipulation of the energy markets fleeced the entire state of California, Mr. Lay is accused of falsely representing the company's fiscal health even as its stock plummeted from $90 to $1, decimating the retirement pensions of at least 4,200 families. .
So then why are the story of Ms. Stewart's selfish misdemeanor and the dark plots alleged of Mr. Lay are so often paired?
Here is one answer: Watergate. The first great national scandal that toppled a mighty leader left its harrowing imprint on the nation's psyche as profoundly as violence does on a little boy. The media have been re-enacting the same story ever since.
"Watergate was our formative trauma," said Suzanne R. Garment, the author of "Scandal: The Culture of Mistrust in American Politics." "It established the category of '-gate' and the assumption that the cover-up is worse than the crime." True to form, many stories refer to the scandals as Marthagate and Enrongate.
"Ever since Watergate, we look for the familiar character, the power-mad leader who will fall, brought down by a weak but honest whistleblower," said Larry Sabato, the director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. "We look for all the familiar Watergate characters."
The arrogant lieutenants in the original drama were H. R. Haldeman and John Erlichman. This season, at Enron, their roles are being played by Jeffrey K. Skilling, the former chief executive, and Richard A. Causey, the former chief accounting officer. The details are telling: Last week, Time magazine reported that Mr. Causey "asked a judge to unfreeze some of his assets to pay for a country-club membership."
Another trope is the mighty leader addled by power. If Richard M. Nixon spent that humid soupy summer of 1974 cranking the air conditioning until the White House was as cold as a meat locker so that he could enjoy a roaring fire in the fireplace because, as Nixon explained, it helped him think, that's as delicious a detail as the story about Ms. Stewart threatening to fire her Merrill Lynch stockbroker if he didn't change the "hold music" on his telephone.