The president of the United States
and his chief adviser both called America’s news media “the opposition party”
in interviews this week. As I prepare to start a new semester with my journalism
students in the days ahead, I anticipate them asking me what a journalist’s
role is in this country right now.
And I am so ready with my answer.
Let’s start with the more reasonable
question: Do some news media outlets have a liberal or conservative bias? The
answer there is sure, but how one uncovers that bias is more subtle. If a news
outlet has a liberal or conservative opinion staff, this just means that the opinion
writers and commentators are liberal or conservative – not the news reporters
themselves. Gail Collins of The New York
Times is a liberal columnist, while George Will of The Washington Post is conservative, and they will always be so.
Both of those newspapers have a more liberal op-ed page, while a publication
like The Wall Street Journal has a more conservative opinion page. But
again, that’s just one section of the news outlet’s coverage.
Biased news reporting is much more
important to detect, as this means the publication is trying to influence you as it reports. In looking for this, it’s
important to study the types of stories the news outlets are choosing to pursue,
not the material they gather from that reporting. For instance, when my seniors
interviewed students around the country asking their opinions of the new presidential
administration, this was balanced (and well-executed) reporting. The fact that
more teens and young adults were critical of the new president than
complimentary of him was more a result of the average young adult’s political
persuasion, rather than any bias on the part of my students. However, if my
students had gone out of their way to look for Trump opponents, that would have
indicated a liberal bias in the reporting.
In the 21st century, we have
seen changes in the presentation of news coverage that requires the consumer to
pay more attention to whether or not a news outlet is biased in its reporting.
The cable news networks, for instance, go from reporting a story to gathering pundits’
opinions so quickly that news and commentary may feel like they’re blending
together, while technically they may not be. On some reputable news outlets’
websites, headlines for opinion stories are listed next to headlines for news
stories, and this can lead a reader to think the website is trying to force an
opinion, when in fact it just has a messy homepage. And, of course, there are
many other nascent news websites that are biased in every way, filled mostly
with opinion-based reporting and making no apologies for it. These publications
exist to meet the consumer demand for news that reaffirms the political beliefs
the readers or viewers already had.
But let’s get back to those news sources
that have been considered “reputable” for many years – the major networks, CNN,
The Times, Post, Journal and so many
others. They are taking a lot of heat for their coverage of the new
administration right now, and that will continue. The reason for this is not because
they are revealing a liberal bias. The issue here is much more basic, and it’s
completely defensible: The news media has a democracy
bias. The First Amendment, which gives them the right to investigate the
news and report it freely, is a pillar of the ideals that guide our country. We
entrust our journalists to pay close attention to these ideals, since their
very existence is representative of these freedoms.
Right now, the new administration is
altering the way we approach democracy. There are individuals sitting in airports
as I write this, unable to re-enter the United States because of new rules that
regulate who gets to come here and who does not. There is a country south of
ours that is preparing for U.S.-ordered construction of a wall between it and
America. When our government changes the way our democracy is carried out and
presented to the world, our news media have the responsibility to cover the
hell out of that. For reporters, this means asking tough questions, yet not
telling the reader what to think. For opinion writers, it means writing
whatever they believe, with evidence to support their points. For publishers,
it means spending more money on overtime and hiring of more reporters, because
if we don’t cover the mechanisms of democracy while the wheels are being
re-oriented, then American journalism has no purpose.
So what is a journalist’s role in
America today, class? It is what it has always been – to gather, write, edit
and spread the news. But sometimes, high-quality news coverage can help us
through our deepest crises. When Edward R. Murrow asked tough questions of
Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s, the stakes were high. When Walter
Cronkite, David Halberstam and many others reported vividly about Vietnam in
the 1960s, the stakes were high. When Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein outworked
the country in covering Watergate in the 1970s, the stakes were high. Right
now, in America, 2017, the stakes are high again.
So “opposition party,” really? I do
beg to differ, Mr. President. If your goal is to shuffle the deck on democracy,
I really need to know how that’s going down. Your tweets do not suffice. I need
to read the news. And my students need their reporter’s pads. There are questions
to ask, and responsibilities to fulfill.
No comments:
Post a Comment