What are newspapers for?

The paper ran a long piece yesterday called "Music attracts teens to hate groups."

The local angle was a guy named Robert T. Huber, a hatecore musician who lives in Newark, Del., where he's a doctoral candidate at the University of Delaware. Like most doctoral candidates, he teaches and grades papers. That's a worrisome thought if you're an undergrad physics student at UD and you're black, Jewish, Catholic, gay, Asian, Hispanic or even white but not, you know, a racist moron.

Anyway, Lee Williams reports that Huber's racist band, Teardown, played a recent concert/hate-rally called "Uprise 2006," which was held Jan. 28 in Middletown, Pa. And Williams does a good job providing context, explaining how such bands and concerts have become the recruiting strategy for hate groups, and that these groups are actively recruiting here in the Delaware Valley. (Correction: That's Middletown Borough, near Harrisburg, not the Township next door to Everybody's Hometown, where I sit writing this. This American History X stuff was still too close to home.)

This article is a good example of reporting that's fair and accurate and, therefore, not "balanced." The paper, implicitly and occasionally explicitly, takes sides.

Newspapers do this all the time. Most often, as in this case, they do so when the choice of sides is obvious. But the truth is that newspapers are for certain things and against other things.

Most newspapers, for example, because they are newspapers, are active and sometimes aggressive proponents of the freedom of the press. When that freedom is at stake in a story, newspapers may report "both sides" of the question, but they do so making it clear that one side is right and the other side is wrong. From the newspapers' perspective, access to public records is a Good Thing, and that perspective shapes their reporting on the issue. They may even offer awards for reporters and editors who demonstrate a "commitment to the First Amendment and Freedom of Information."

Newspapers are also in favor of charity. Donations to charity are invariably reported as good news. Newspaper also puff Good Causes, helping to promote benefit dinners, races, festivals and every variety of -thon with articles touting such events before, during and after they occur. Newspapers are often joint-sponsors of such events. Many even also run their own separately incorporated charitable nonprofits. This is a noncontroversial stance, but it is a stance -- a taking of sides.

Another stance explicitly held by most newspapers is demonstrated by the article above from Sunday's paper. Newspapers are against racist hate groups. Reporting on such groups assumes the perspective that their successes, like traffic deaths, are a Bad Thing to be reported as bad news. Articles like the one above include quotes from people at the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League not just to provide "balanced" comments from the other side, but to provide corrective comments from the right side. This isn't the typical other-handism of lazy modern journalism in which "balance" trumps accuracy. These advocates of tolerance are quoted to tell us what we can do -- "we" here being an undefined and undifferentiated ideal of the larger community, of which the paper considers itself a part and which the paper assumes ought to do something.

This stance against hateful, hate-filled racist groups is an expression of newspapers' explicit commitment to "diversity." The key words there are "commitment to" -- as in taking sides. This commitment arises, I think, from several causes, some of which are simply smart business sense. If you want to reach -- and sell to -- as many readers as possible, you have to include everybody. That desire to cast a wide net and reach diverse readers has also led newspapers to promote more diversity within the newsroom, which has, in turn, reinforced this commitment to "diversity" in their reporting. (A cynic would note that there are more baldly economic reasons for this limited, but real, increase in diversity within newspapers, such as the fear of getting sued, but however mixed the motives, it's happening.)

This commitment also arises from the sense that it is the Right Thing To Do. No, really. It is naive to believe that good intentions, at face value, wholly explain the actions of any individual or institution, but it can be just as inaccurate to disregard them completely. And good intention, the desire to do the right thing, is a part of why newspapers are committed to "diversity."

This act of conscience is, I think, partly motivated by residual guilt -- the regret that newspapers were slow to take sides during the 1950s and '60s as the civil rights movement changed America. In 1965, Frank Gaebelein was a 70-year-old, white, evangelical academic working as a correspondent for the conservative, white evangelical Christianity Today magazine. He traveled to Selma, Ala., to cover the rabble-rousing march being led by Martin Luther King Jr. After taking stock of the situation, Gaebelein decided he had no choice but to join the march. This violated the idea of journalistic neutrality and also violated the timid, wait-and-see approach of his editors. Generally it got him in a lot of trouble at the time. But it also meant that Gaebelein got the story right, when so many others were still getting it wrong. Looking back, many editors and reporters wish that their newspapers had had that kind of wisdom and courage. The contemporary commitment to "diversity" is, in part, an expression of the desire not to make that same mistake again.

I keep putting the word "diversity" in scare-quotes. This is because, while I know, vaguely, what it means, I still find it a difficult term to pin down. It seems to be a deliberately amorphous term, chosen in part because it stops short of something more explicit and potentially controversial like, say, the term "justice."

Here I think newspapers' advocacy of diversity is similar to their advocacy of charity. Both of these are, undeniably, Good Things. I am happy that newspapers are for them and not against them. Newspapers ought to be for them. But both of these Good Things imply a trajectory, they point toward something more. That something more is an idea of justice. That idea is, of course, a whole lot more complicated and a whole lot more controversial than simple charity or diversity. It is relatively easy to take sides and to come out in favor of charity and diversity. Taking sides for justice involves far more wisdom, courage and homework.

Taking sides for justice may, in fact, require more homework, more wisdom and more courage than a daily newspaper -- with its daily rush and ever-present, fast-approaching deadlines -- is capable of providing. That being the case, one could argue that it is therefore appropriate for newspapers to take sides in favor of charity and diversity, but to stop short of taking sides in favor of justice. But one cannot argue, consistently, that newspapers are free to advocate for charity and diversity but that they may not advocate for justice because newspapers "aren't supposed to take sides." That line has been crossed.

The next logical question, of course, is what do I mean by "justice"? I hope I've made clear that this is not an easy question to answer. Neither you nor I have the time or patience here to survey the many attempts to answer this question from Aristotle to John Rawls, or to discuss the ways in which my particular religious beliefs influence my understanding of justice in ways which might differ from yours because of your particular religious beliefs, or the ways in which these diverse metaphysical starting points nonetheless arrive at some rather similar conclusions about fairness, etc. And if we haven't the time here, then it's understandable that newspapers haven't the time either, in their daily grind, to make a meaningful and viable commitment to justice a part of their work.

Then again, framing the matter this way -- as a perennial question of moral philosophy -- may be letting newspapers off the hook too easily. I noted above that newspapers invariably advocate for charity on behalf of Good Causes, but what constitutes a Good Cause? Here again we could plunge into Aristotle and Rawls, the Torah and the Tao, and decide that this is one of the great perennial questions that we haven't the resources to answer definitively. Or we could, as newspapers do, adopt the pragmatic approach of Justice Potter Stewart and just say of Good Causes that "I know it when I see it."

This pragmatic rule of thumb governs newspapers advocacy of charity and diversity, and even -- occasionally, as in the article cited way up there at the top of this too-long post -- of justice. It may not settle the perennial questions, but it accommodates them while allowing us to go about our work.

There remains one other hurdle preventing newspapers from advocating justice and that is the matter of courage. Here I'm reminded of Dom Helder Camara's observation, "When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist." The so-called "Red Bishop" wasn't really red -- he was not a communist, but he realized that such name-calling was the inevitable byproduct of taking sides for justice, of asking "why." The prospect of such baseless name-calling seems to terrify many newspapers, preventing them from asking why. That's a shame, because asking "why" is one of the things newspapers are supposed to be for.

Comments

[Linkmeister]

It could be argued that when newspapers were owned by individuals and their families "justice" was more easily determined and its attainment more desirable. Now, when the papers are small parts of large corporate "media" companies answerable to hundreds if not thousands of shareholders, it seems to be harder or less desirable.

[Kim]

Ah, Linkmeister -- that's because, though each and every one of those shareholders may be very concerned about justice and fairness and goodness and holiness individually, those same shareholders *in aggregate* are concerned only with profit and greed. Thus incorporation doth make evil of us all....

[Toby]

A cute little link related to the news story that kicked off this post.

[rob]

At what point do these girls get old enough I can stop feeling sorry for them and just think they're plain evil?

[Steve]

Uhhh...I think it's actually Middletown, PA near Harrisburg. (Just south of Harrisburg, actual location of Harrisburg International Airport and Penn State-Harrisburg Campus.)

http://www.middletownborough.com/

P.S. I live in Harrisburg, my sister lives in Middletown.

P.P.S. Hmmm...I remember some controversy a few weeks back when a supposed concert of hate bands was supposed to take place...but I thought it was north of Harrisburg. And the owner of the bar where it was to take place cancelled it saying he didn't realize the bands were hate groups (although some people questioned his truthfulness)...and some of the bands cancelled saying they didn't realize some of the other bands were hate groups and that it was being billed that way.

[Stephen Frug]

Well said.

[Dharvey]

I think this was a fascinating discussion of modern newspapers. Personally, I subscribe to the notion that newspapers today lose their integrity due to being held by conglemerates not families, but not for the reason of greed. Instead, it is the *writers* who are afraid to go against the corporate ownership for fear of losing their jobs. Fearful of the consequences of reporting a straight negative story about the conservative government, which the shareholders of these media syndicates probably support, reporters now dance around the points, hoping we read between the lines. Sadly, most of us can't.

Ultimately, freedom of the press is linked directly to freedom of individual speech. When reporters self-censor, we have a real problem.

[Fred]

Steve --

Thanks, glad to here this didn't happen in my neighborhood. Sorry to hear it happened in yours.

[Mialexa]

Uh, come on, teenagers hate everything. They are hate filled and hateful. They hate the way their parents breathing sounds, they hate their hair, they hate each other. They are probably the most hate filled individuals on the planet, barring Muslims, which some teenagers are, making them doubly cursed. Don't blame the music, it's just the hormones.

[Mandos]

Barring Muslims? Look, whoever you are, I'm a Muslim, and I know a lot of other Muslims, and I don't see anyone I know in that.

[Mialexa]

Yeah sure Mandos, no hatred coming from Muslims. Hmm, are you making a joke or do you never watch the news. I'd say that there is way too much hatred coming from the Muslim world right now.I know a lot of Muslims too and even the sweetest, most innocent looking one, my hairdresser, supports suicide bombers.

[Mandos]

I bet you support all kinds of grotesque things, like I see on your blog.

Who is this generalized entity "Muslims" of which you speak? I'm even suspicious that "supports suicide bombings" is taken out of context and twisted into something bizarre.

[Ian Welsh]

Excellent post.

[Mialexa]

How could "supports suicide bombers" be twisted into something bizarre? It is bizarre in and of itself. One would think that having been the victim of opression, you would not wish it upon others. Unfortunately human nature does not work that way.

[Beth]

One would think that having been the victim of opression, you would not wish it upon others.

Yes, just as one would think that being so outraged by violence against innocent people, you'd try to avoid attacking innocent people yourself. I guess human nature doesn't work that way, either.

[Doctor Science]

I 'm not a journalist, Fred, but I think I disagree with you about newspapers having a fundamental commitment to diversity. I think they have a fundamental need for *novelty* (man bites dog) and *variety*, because each issue has to be just enough different from the last to be worth buying. This can translate to a commitment to diversity as a moral principle, which for me at least is best summed up by the Vulcan philosophy of IDIC:

The glory of creation is in its infinite diversity,
And the ways our differences combine to create meaning and beauty.

(oddly enough, I can't find a really good weblink for discussions of IDIC. I may have to make one myself . . .)

Diversity as moral principle thus involves (a) recognizing that people are different from each other, and (b) recognizing (or believing) that these differences are valuable, a source (and possibly *the* source) of meaning & beauty. We learn through the stress of difference.

If newspapers (or other media) use diversity in this sense as a principle, I don't get the impression it's well-articulated or even conscious. Diversity in this sense is also AFAIK not a principle of any organized religion, and is indeed in contradiction to most. The monotheisms, for instance, hold meaning & beauty to be intregral manifestations of an underlying singular reality; IDIC holds that they are qualities that arise or are appreciated only when differences collide.

[Bill]

I asked a friend of mine who has been a journalist for over 20 years what he thought about this post. Here is his answer:
You should never have asked me an opinion on THIS topic:
The reality (in my world): the newspaper is today what it always has been: an economic tool, a business, a capital venture. Recall that the purpose of a newspaper is to make money. It’s function within society, secondarily, is to disseminate in the news (ideally) with a neutral position on the facts.
Through the course of time the media has taken on some fascinating disguises, and with the rise of social responsibility in the 20th century, there have also been bred at least three generations who have become reporters and journalists “with a cause” who truly believe that the newspaper (or other media) are here for the primary purpose of defending the public’s right to know and acting as the watchdog for society. They truly believe that their publicizing of wrongdoings can move mountains and save lives.
Well, yes, lives have been saved, thankfully, and the movement of mountains can be attributed at least partially to what the press does. It almost goes without saying that the press was able to control much of public opinion prior to counterculture, and during Watergate, but what if the politics had been different and it had been the almighty John Kennedy who had been involved in trying to cover up a burglary authorized by higher-ups of his party/administration and then created a “massacre” by firing the attorney general and other key officials in the investigation? I daresay there most likely would have NOT been so much rioting on Pennsylvania Avenue, mobs of college students protesting, and huge amounts of press covered by obviously liberal reporters and editors. Or a president forced to step down to end the public chaos.
The mountains were moved when the editor/publisher wanted them moved, but it was because of dislike for the official’s party, it wasn’t entirely because laws were broken and presidential powers were horribly abused. Let’s face it, laws get broken every day in Washington and everywhere else. It’s when information brokers decide it’s worthy that it gets “a chance.”
The actor-created, rose-colored concoction that was Charles Foster Kane, the multi-billionare who ran a newspaper that continually lost money in order to further his personal causes, is loosely (very loosely) based on Hearst, and he is supposed to be a champion of causes. The reality, however, is that Hearst and anyone who runs a media property has to be a businessman (or woman) first. The money made from the business generates a “ration of opportunity” within limits to allow idealistic reporters and editors to go after their causes. And don’t worry, nearly every stance a reporter or paper takes can be found justifiable one way or another.
It is interesting that polls of reporters and the media show an overwhelming liberal political bent (more than 80 percent of reporters and editors surveyed profess to being “liberal” or at the very least, members of the Democrat party). Fox and Ruptert Murdoch were very, very smart in seeing a marketing need that needed filled among US news consumers. A news channel with a lean to the right was long overdue, but make no mistake, it is blatantly a capital venture. No matter what any media property tries to say (no spin, fair and balanced, bringing you the world, America’s news) they are all about money, ratings, attention, awards, control, gain.
A point the author alluded to was lazy journalism and I could not agree more. We witnessed some degree of this ourselves during the prison riot in ‘93. A national-level reporter descends upon a small town and thinks by throwing her weight around she will automatically get reliable information: “No, I don’t think you understand. This is Good Morning America. We want to talk to such-and-such...” and she’s stunned to hear “I don’t care who you are, these people don’t want to be bothered with a camera in their faces,” so she goes with rumor and innuendo. The local press was even worse, printing hearsay on the front page about dozens of bodies seen lying all over the place. No verification needed against deadline. No responsibility, just get the attention.
And ultimately that’s it. It’s your attention. The real purpose of a media property that lasts is to get (and keep/hook) your attention because your attention means higher ratings/circulation. which translates into more advertising revenue. The publisher and the editor can hide behind “defending the right to know” as much as they want, but they will sensationalize anything (or decide not to sensationalize) with gain in mind. The publisher wants to gain ad revenue for the ownership’s profit. The editor wants to gain Associated Press awards to further his/her career. The reporter wants that big break, that winning piece that gets him/her the celebrity status and money that comes with being a star reporter.
It’s all about ulterior motives. That’s not cynicism. That’s reality. In the end, a young reporter may spout ideology, but if she doesn’t wake up to reality be the time she’s become an editor, she won’t last. It’s all about the money in the end, and the beauty of it is, in the media, the mountain-moving, cause-promoting, life-saving, justifiable Watergating DOES make money and earn awards and further careers.
And now we enter a fascinating new phase in national and global media. The free thought and open opportunity of the web has brought minds together like never before. Anyone can have a blog or a site and anyone can be a journalist. This is fascinating to witness when you’ve been a reporter for more than 20 years. It’s a little frightening to think that anyone can create something that appears completely authoritative and readers will believe it.
But that’s just the short term. Let’s look at the future and where all this open forum evolution will take us. The population will continue to grow more cynical and suspicious of websites, both the mainstream media sites/channels as well as the average blogger/wikki who presents supposedly authoritative information. Public opinion will continue to become harder to inform (and sway). News channels continue to be fractionalized, society continues on the road toward polarization. In the end, the news media’s stature as a watchdog will be diminished and its credibility, perhaps justifiably, will go down the tubes.

[grenadine]

this discussion reminds me of another great treatise on the role of the newspaper in society as a whole, which illustrated both the abilty of committed folks to advocate for "causes" (in this case labor rights and free speech) and use the press to further those causes, as well as the dangers of any newspaper owner in placing profit over all else. i am speaking, of course, of the classic film "Newsies." i stongly urge a viewing, if only for Christian Bale's dubious american accent.

[Lenora Rose]

Mialexa: The Muslims at the wedding I attended last weekend (The wedding of their son -- a Baptist celebration as he'd accepted not only a Christian wife, but her faith with it) were friendly and peaceable. They weren't even disappointed in their son's religious or spousal choice, nor even uncomfortable with hanging out with the Bride's relatives. I could ask Adam if they were secretly muttering "Kill the Heathens", if you like, or considering putting a suicide bomber on the skating pond where the Bride & her friends went for the "first dances". And if you argue that of course they wouldn't raise anything at a wedding... you haven't been to many weddings.

But sorry, even if you dismiss that one rather pleasant afternoon, your generalizations *still* don't wash in my experience, any more than "Evangelical Christians are all Bush-loving right-wing bigots" would.

As for teenagers - I hated my hair. I hated my face, and my acne, and my pudgy belly, and my life. I hated being laughed at by boys, I hated the popularity contests whose rules I could never seem to catch on to in time, and how so many people who were nice when left on their own turned nasty when they felt they had to fit in with their friends.

Somehow, this never translated into blind hatred for any racial group or religion, any culture or gender. Or a belief "my people" were superior. Indeed, I've seen an amazing number of teenagers who hated their hair and the way their parents' breathed who didn't magically subscribe to a White Supremacist position. If you can actually make a viable connection between hating hair and white supremacy, I'd love to hear it.

[Christy]

When I saw this in the paper it infuriated me. Far too much attention drawn to such a heinous topic if you ask me. With a big fancy picture above the fold on a Sunday nonetheless, I'm sure he cut it out signed it and made copies to hang everywhere to promote his incredulous music. Argh!

[lj]

Whoa!!!
Study Reveals German Bank's Nazi Past

*Link: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,185235,00.html

[cosmicdancer]

if only for Christian Bale's dubious american accent.

I thought he *was* American. Isn't he? I thought he was just doing a bad accent from whever it is his character is supposed to be from *in* America. (hey, why not let this digress into an irrelevant little side conversation...everyone else does it)

[bulbul]

I thought he *was* American. Isn't he?
Actually, he is Welsh.

[J]

"It’s all about ulterior motives. That’s not cynicism. That’s reality... And now we enter a fascinating new phase in national and global media. The free thought and open opportunity of the web has brought minds together like never before...Let’s look at the future and where all this open forum evolution will take us. The population will continue to grow more cynical and suspicious of websites, both the mainstream media sites/channels as well as the average blogger/wikki who presents supposedly authoritative information...News channels continue to be fractionalized, society continues on the road toward polarization. In the end, the news media’s stature as a watchdog will be diminished and its credibility, perhaps justifiably, will go down the tubes."

Oh gee, look everyone, it's another prediction of the Death of All Media! Did you come up with this all yourself, Bill, or did Daddy McLuhan help you with the big words?

[J]

Well here's my clever, peripatetic, cultural analysis for YOU Bill: Conservatives wouldn't be nearly so cynical about the media if the media hadn't caught them again and again and again and AGAIN with their hand in the till, or down the pants of an intern, or up the robe of an altar boy, or passing millions to X, Y, and Z dictatorship. If none of that had come to light--if, in other words, the media weren't so annoying in their habit of Disrupting the Narrative--you and the rest of the Folks Who're Like Folks would be as ardent a defender of it as you are of the rest of the world's huge, monied interests.

[Mabus]

As a conservative...when I occasionally get the impression of a "liberal" media, it usually has to do with someone's attempt to be excessively impartial, a trait I've seen liberals complain about more recently as well. Some commentator starts talking about a vile dictatorial regime or hateful political movement as though there were two possible, reasonable opinions about its legitimacy. Of course, sometimes there are two possible opinions, and we just don't realize it. (And sometimes there aren't.) Whether that matches anyone else's experience, I don't know.

Of course, it's regrettable that anyone might come to think that "excessive impartiality" is a liberal phenomenon, but then you've gone to all that trouble to persuade people that you're the open-minded ones.

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