When I was a copy boy at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch about a thousand years ago, the reporters and editors I worked around were definitely a mixed bag – old and young, grouchy and cheerful, industrious and lazy, zealous and jaded, introverted and loud – but they were for the most part ordinary folk. Newspaper pay was poor then, so they were firmly ensconced in the middle class, if that. They had spouses, they raised children and doted on grandchildren, they went to church, they kvetched about low pay and high taxes, they barbecued in the back yard, and some of them sometimes drank too much.
Editorially, the P-D had a liberal tilt, characterized in the main by the belief that government could be a force for good – could improve people’s lives and serve the common weal – and also by skepticism about the motives of the financially and politically powerful. Most of the staffers at the paper were probably on board with this in a general sort of way, but they were nothing like evangelists for it. I think many were not all that opinionated or political; they did their job of reporting on fires and crimes, of editing wire copy, of covering sports and city hall, of chasing commas, and didn’t worry too much about what the big bosses or the editorial page philosophers thought. If pressed, most of them, but by no means all, would probably come down very slightly to the left of center politically. There are idealogues in every group, but the idea that this motley collection of the good, bad, and ugly was ideologically hawkish or inclined to see themselves as intellectually superior to the working classes is laughable. They were the working classes.
My father, Dickson Terry, was a P-D features writer there for many years, and I knew him to be a liberal thinker in that he deplored racism and believed government could and should play a role in helping the downtrodden. But he was pretty conservative in his general deportment, the sort of person who believes a real man supports his family and his community, pays his taxes and his debts, wears a necktie to the office, and is loyal to the United States of America. I know that he – and I assume the great majority of his co-workers – took some pride in their craft, wished to do it right and well, and believed that accuracy – the facts, zealously pursued, carefully verified, and devoid of supposition or opinion – was a newspaperman’s highest calling. They liked the idea of a free press playing a role in making democracy work by holding politicians accountable, but didn’t take themselves too seriously
It is these people, in a thousand newsrooms in a thousand cities and towns across America, that Donald Trump, with the enthusiastic approval of his worshipers, characterizes as crooked, dishonest, and the lowest form of life. I offer the above actual description of them by way of reassuring the delusional – or the merely lazy who casually and without a moment’s reflection accept stereotyping -- that they were not, and are not, engaged in a grand conspiracy to conceal the truth and advance an agenda. The ordinary folk who populate the country’s newsrooms are not members of a secret cabal that has clandestine meetings to plot out how to slant the news and suppress stories about political murders, child sex slavery, or contacts with alien life forms, nor are they forced by their bosses to do these things. Try to imagine a scenario in which a reporter digs up evidence of massive voter fraud or the existence of a child sex ring in a pizza parlor, and having the story buried by the boss for political or ideological reasons, and all of his co-workers, hundreds of ordinary citizens – like my father, for example --, keeping quiet about it.
Bottom line: What these people do is find and report news as accurately and thoroughly as they are able. They don’t withhold or slant what they find in the service of a political position or ideology. They just don’t. It doesn’t work that way. Reporting facts that are contrary to someone’s beliefs or expectations is not slanting the news. Reporting what Donald Trump says – his actual words – is not negative coverage. That these parents and grandparents, these little league coaches and bake-sale organizers, these charity volunteers and football fans, these friends and neighbors are sitting on information that Sandy Hook was a government conspiracy, or that 9/11 was an inside job, or that plans are afoot to take away people’s guns and imprison them in closed Wal-Marts is beyond ludicrous
All of the above is really about daily newspapers, which, for purposes of this discussion, are not the same thing as that which has come to be known as “the media,” a term without any actual meaning. Media is the plural form of medium, a word which when paired with the word “news” refers to a way by which news is disseminated. So, daily newspapers are a news medium. Magazines are another. So are radio, television; and now, the Internet. Within each of these there are multiple distinctions having to do with political viewpoint, size and resources, talent/knowledge/experience, and commitment to thoroughness and accuracy. They are not interchangeable. There is no “the media,” notwithstanding the vilification heaped upon “it” by Trump and his hot-eyed devotees.
No question, though, there is a widespread willingness, among people in general, and among people in “the media” who should know better, to lump them all together. Broadcast news – television, in particular – has brought much of this on itself (and, unfortunately, on everyone else) by relentlessly intermixing news and entertainment and by making matinee idols of its news readers. By making a Kardashian divorce or a network sitcom plot development part of the news, they inevitably make all their news suspect, and no amount of news spending and staffing or solemn intonations about what serious and professional journalists they all are can fix that. And, sure, journalists in even the most sophisticated outlets come up short occasionally with regard to the accuracy and thoroughness of their reporting.
But to be absolutely clear: None of that is the same thing as fake news, which is “news” that is literally made up – invented out of thin air – for fun and profit. Fake news is not new; Enquirer-like publications running stories about Elvis sightings, UFO encounters, and women giving birth to bowling balls have been around for a long time. But because they were tinged with humor by their very ridiculousness, they were taken seriously by a tiny minority of mouth-breathers.
Now, because of the internet and cable television, there’s much more of it, it has largely lost its comedic edge even though the stories are no less silly than they’ve always been, and many more people take it seriously; which is to say, they take it as seriously as carefully sourced, fact-checked, and provable stories in real news outlets. The unfortunate and potentially calamitous result of this mélange of real news, fake news, opinion-based news, and plain gossip: In the eyes of a sizeable segment of the American public, news reporting is one big mish-mash of interchangeable parts, all saying whatever they need to say to make money and none saying anything true. Or, worse, real news consists only of content that confirms one’s pre-conceived ideas and prejudices. That’s not reality – there is a real and true distinction to be made between those organizations that take the work of news reporting seriously and those that do not, but it’s how many people see it.
This is dangerous territory. When people generally disregard what is true in favor of what they wish to be true, they are easy prey for cynical politicians, purveyors of rumor and innuendo, and conspiracy theorists. When that takes hold, democracy ends and chaos follows.
Editorially, the P-D had a liberal tilt, characterized in the main by the belief that government could be a force for good – could improve people’s lives and serve the common weal – and also by skepticism about the motives of the financially and politically powerful. Most of the staffers at the paper were probably on board with this in a general sort of way, but they were nothing like evangelists for it. I think many were not all that opinionated or political; they did their job of reporting on fires and crimes, of editing wire copy, of covering sports and city hall, of chasing commas, and didn’t worry too much about what the big bosses or the editorial page philosophers thought. If pressed, most of them, but by no means all, would probably come down very slightly to the left of center politically. There are idealogues in every group, but the idea that this motley collection of the good, bad, and ugly was ideologically hawkish or inclined to see themselves as intellectually superior to the working classes is laughable. They were the working classes.
My father, Dickson Terry, was a P-D features writer there for many years, and I knew him to be a liberal thinker in that he deplored racism and believed government could and should play a role in helping the downtrodden. But he was pretty conservative in his general deportment, the sort of person who believes a real man supports his family and his community, pays his taxes and his debts, wears a necktie to the office, and is loyal to the United States of America. I know that he – and I assume the great majority of his co-workers – took some pride in their craft, wished to do it right and well, and believed that accuracy – the facts, zealously pursued, carefully verified, and devoid of supposition or opinion – was a newspaperman’s highest calling. They liked the idea of a free press playing a role in making democracy work by holding politicians accountable, but didn’t take themselves too seriously
It is these people, in a thousand newsrooms in a thousand cities and towns across America, that Donald Trump, with the enthusiastic approval of his worshipers, characterizes as crooked, dishonest, and the lowest form of life. I offer the above actual description of them by way of reassuring the delusional – or the merely lazy who casually and without a moment’s reflection accept stereotyping -- that they were not, and are not, engaged in a grand conspiracy to conceal the truth and advance an agenda. The ordinary folk who populate the country’s newsrooms are not members of a secret cabal that has clandestine meetings to plot out how to slant the news and suppress stories about political murders, child sex slavery, or contacts with alien life forms, nor are they forced by their bosses to do these things. Try to imagine a scenario in which a reporter digs up evidence of massive voter fraud or the existence of a child sex ring in a pizza parlor, and having the story buried by the boss for political or ideological reasons, and all of his co-workers, hundreds of ordinary citizens – like my father, for example --, keeping quiet about it.
Bottom line: What these people do is find and report news as accurately and thoroughly as they are able. They don’t withhold or slant what they find in the service of a political position or ideology. They just don’t. It doesn’t work that way. Reporting facts that are contrary to someone’s beliefs or expectations is not slanting the news. Reporting what Donald Trump says – his actual words – is not negative coverage. That these parents and grandparents, these little league coaches and bake-sale organizers, these charity volunteers and football fans, these friends and neighbors are sitting on information that Sandy Hook was a government conspiracy, or that 9/11 was an inside job, or that plans are afoot to take away people’s guns and imprison them in closed Wal-Marts is beyond ludicrous
All of the above is really about daily newspapers, which, for purposes of this discussion, are not the same thing as that which has come to be known as “the media,” a term without any actual meaning. Media is the plural form of medium, a word which when paired with the word “news” refers to a way by which news is disseminated. So, daily newspapers are a news medium. Magazines are another. So are radio, television; and now, the Internet. Within each of these there are multiple distinctions having to do with political viewpoint, size and resources, talent/knowledge/experience, and commitment to thoroughness and accuracy. They are not interchangeable. There is no “the media,” notwithstanding the vilification heaped upon “it” by Trump and his hot-eyed devotees.
No question, though, there is a widespread willingness, among people in general, and among people in “the media” who should know better, to lump them all together. Broadcast news – television, in particular – has brought much of this on itself (and, unfortunately, on everyone else) by relentlessly intermixing news and entertainment and by making matinee idols of its news readers. By making a Kardashian divorce or a network sitcom plot development part of the news, they inevitably make all their news suspect, and no amount of news spending and staffing or solemn intonations about what serious and professional journalists they all are can fix that. And, sure, journalists in even the most sophisticated outlets come up short occasionally with regard to the accuracy and thoroughness of their reporting.
But to be absolutely clear: None of that is the same thing as fake news, which is “news” that is literally made up – invented out of thin air – for fun and profit. Fake news is not new; Enquirer-like publications running stories about Elvis sightings, UFO encounters, and women giving birth to bowling balls have been around for a long time. But because they were tinged with humor by their very ridiculousness, they were taken seriously by a tiny minority of mouth-breathers.
Now, because of the internet and cable television, there’s much more of it, it has largely lost its comedic edge even though the stories are no less silly than they’ve always been, and many more people take it seriously; which is to say, they take it as seriously as carefully sourced, fact-checked, and provable stories in real news outlets. The unfortunate and potentially calamitous result of this mélange of real news, fake news, opinion-based news, and plain gossip: In the eyes of a sizeable segment of the American public, news reporting is one big mish-mash of interchangeable parts, all saying whatever they need to say to make money and none saying anything true. Or, worse, real news consists only of content that confirms one’s pre-conceived ideas and prejudices. That’s not reality – there is a real and true distinction to be made between those organizations that take the work of news reporting seriously and those that do not, but it’s how many people see it.
This is dangerous territory. When people generally disregard what is true in favor of what they wish to be true, they are easy prey for cynical politicians, purveyors of rumor and innuendo, and conspiracy theorists. When that takes hold, democracy ends and chaos follows.
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