Hey, Slublog: Where’s the Money in That?

posted at 1:31 am on April 29, 2009 by The Other McCain
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OK, buddy, I’m not bustin’ on ya, but this just happens to be the kind of stuff that chafes me personally:

C.S. Lewis . . . said something along the lines of “what we need are not more Christian writers, but good writers who are Christian.” . . .  Too often, conservatives and Christians tend to isolate themselves from culture or create art that is too overtly political or religious while ignoring the fact that art needs to be good on its own merit in order to effectively communicate whatever message the artist is trying to send.

Arguments that begin with, “What conservatives need to do is . . .” immediately provoke me to ask, “OK, who’s footing the bill, and where do I apply?”

Andrew Klavan leads by example, as did Michael Crichton, Ayn Rand, C.S. Lewis and others who have, in one way or another, influenced culture in a conservative direction. The great difficulty for any writer is always to find a publisher, or in the case of a screenwriter, to find a producer, and then proceed from there to finding a market.

The especial problem faced by the conservative is to reach the market in an environment where the relevant intermediaries — the publishers, producers, directors, the critics, and so forth — are overwhelmingly liberal. After years of working as a journalist in Washington, I’ve gotten used to meeting conservatives convinced that they’re going to write The Book That Will Make The Big Difference. OK, fine, suppose you find a publisher and the book comes out. Will it be reviewed in the New York Times? Will, say, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker or Esquire be interested in a feature article based on the book? Will the author be profiled in People, interviewed on “All Things Considered,” or appear as a guest on the “Today” show or “The View”?

That an author like Mark Levin is able to produce a bestseller is testimony to the commercial appeal of conservative ideas. But even a bestseller like Levin’s Liberty and Tyrrany has limited influence, because he will get no favorable notice from liberal “mainstream” newspapers and magazines. He won’t get a glowing 15-minute profile segment on “60 Minutes,” he won’t get that chummy 10 minutes on Letterman’s sofa or spend an hour trading flattery with Oprah. A book by Mark Levin will not be assigned (as are books by Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn, inter alia) as required reading by hundreds of like-minded university professors.

Well, I speak of books, and the handful of conservatives in Hollywood can speak of TV shows and movies, and the point is the same: The most influential institutions of mass communication in America are dominated by liberals, and conservatives and their ideas therefore face enormous obstacles to commercial success, above and beyond the ordinary difficulties faced by any creative person seeking to reach a mass market.

This is not to discourage anyone from trying, merely to warn them that should they dare to try, they had better be determined enough to persist despite repeated disappointment, to endure financial hardship and fierce resistance, if they hope to have any success at all. And not many people have that kind of determination.

To answer pre-emptively a question I’m often asked: One reason there are so few conservative journalists is that journalism is a low-paying field, and conservatives are smart enough to seek more lucrative employment. I don’t blame them at all. However . . .

In recent months there have been a spate of columns and blog posts by professional Republican political operatives — guys who collected six-figure salaries or seven-figure consulting contracts from GOP campaigns last year — complaining that conservatives suffer from a shortage of aggressive political reporting to match the output of various liberal operations like Talking Points Media. Meanwhile, I spent seven months doing freelance campaign reporting for The American Spectator and Pajamas Media for a fraction of what was paid to the professional operatives. Now, after running one of the worst campaigns in the history of the Republican Party (total spending by the national GOP in the 2008 cycle: $791 million), the big-money operatives want to whine about a shortage of conservative reporting. Well, Chuck U. Farley!

So, like I said, Slublog, I don’t mean to bust on you personally. It’s just that you accidentally touched a spot worn raw by certain clueless GOP greedheads.

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