Stephanie Nicholas Acquadro, a long time member of NA’s English Department, has an impressive history of civic engagement, including numerous Letters to the Editor and blog commentary in The New York Times. Her recent Letters to the Editor include “Where We Stand After the Debates” in response to “Mixing Humor With Scolding to Defuse Clashes in a Final Substantive Encounter” by Michael B. Grynbaum (10/20/16) and “A Stunning Failure of the Media and the Polls” in response to “News Media Again Misreads Complex Pulse of the Nation” by Jim Rutenberg (11/9/16). Her blog commentary includes a response to “The Life and Example of Gwen Ifill” by David Brooks (11/15/16) , where her comment was the number one “Readers Pick” as well as a top “New York Times Pick.” Enjoy this thoughtful commentary on the state of the American press by Ms. Acquadro.
“American as Apple Pie, Ice Cream & Newspapers” by Stephanie Acquadro
I just finished grading a batch of essays written by my twelfth grade Film Studies class, after we watched Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and All the President’s Men. The prompt for the essay provided the students with a definition of “patriot” and asked them to choose one of the films and argue which film more effectively depicted patriotism. Out of the twelve essays I received, eight of them analyzed All the President’s Men, most of which made the case that reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein were patriots because despite the odds, they fought a corrupt system, defended the First Amendment and wrote articles that led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon, which my students believe restored justice and respect for the office of the presidency. The papers reminded me of a bygone era when investigative reporters were superstars and most citizens believed in the integrity of the press.
What a difference a few decades make. Considering the colossal failure of the media to get almost nothing right about this year’s election coverage, both the campaign and on election night, it’s impossible not reflect on what happened to not only lead the press to get so much wrong, but to also wonder why so many distrust the media, including my students.
It might be easy to blame Fox News and its hyper-partisanship—some call the network a branch of the Republican Party—but long ago, when major cities like New York and Chicago issued several dailies in morning and evening editions—readers knew the party affiliation of each paper and chose their reading material accordingly.
The diminishing number of newspapers and the reliance on internet bullet points delivered on Facebook and Yahoo, among other sources, probably can also shoulder some of the responsibility. News blurbs about actual important news events are doled out alongside of tidbits about the JoliePitt divorce and the Kardashian robbery. My students probably know where Ms. Kardashian was when she was robbed, but many don’t know where Syria is.
The popularity of the Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report, while ultimately providing a valuable source of information to young people in particular who relied on the two shows for news coverage, did, in fact, mix serious issues with comedy. The comedy certainly benefited from the serious news, but I wonder if the comedy softened the blow and focus of the seriousness of news.
Ultimately, the lack of faith in our media may be a result of the divided nation we have become. Many remain in their own bubble of ideas, turning exclusively to news sources that reflect or confirm their own beliefs. As President Obama recently observed, had he only watched Fox News, he wouldn’t have voted for himself either.
So, what do we do, from this point on, to get my students to value the importance of the press as they did in their essays about All the President’s Men? One thing would be to remove the profit element of news reporting. As in almost any enterprise one can think of how money too often corrupts even the best of things. Les Moonves, the head of CBS, famously said of Donald Trump’s campaign, “It may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS.” Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite are turning in their graves. Would Murrow have been able to take down Joseph McCarthy had his ratings continued to tank? Would Cronkite have been able to utter his condemnation of the Vietnam War had sponsors threatened to pull their ads? TV news bureaus, at one point, were never expected to turn a profit. Now, in competition with the infinite number of cable outlets, networks rely on every faction of their programming to be profitable. Reliability is the casualty.
Social media has indisputably changed the nature of what we define as news. If it’s on the web, the feeling goes, it must be real. A groundswell of reaction explodes whenever something of note reaches a tipping point, whether it’s Tom Cruise’s alleged Botox treatments or a young, bloodied child sitting alone in an ambulance. Because high school civics classes are no longer required in most American schools, few young people know how the government works, vote in elections or know why the cosmetic adjustments of a movie star are less important than a civil war being fought thousands of miles away. Had some more of Tuesday’s voters realized the actual reality of some of the candidates’ promises within the confines of our Constitution, perhaps the election would have turned out differently. Thomas Jefferson famously said he would prefer “newspapers without government” over “government without newspapers.” Real journalists have an obligation to tell us the truth. Would it be a bad idea to issue an oath to journalists like the one issued to doctors, promising the practitioners of news dissemination to do no harm, to be obligated to no particular ideology and to keep the public informed of those activities the average citizen has no access to?
I don’t have all the answers; I’m just a high school teacher, but I am heartened to see my twenty-first century students recognize that patriotism isn’t just a lapel pin or the swelling of patriotic music (sorry, Dimitri Tiomkin, composer of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington). It is workers, including journalists, who do their jobs with dedication and integrity, even if it reveals an ugly truth about our leaders. I hope that in real life again, journalism wins back its trustworthiness and the populace works to remain educated and informed so that the movies won’t be the only place we can hail the media.