Why They Hate Us: Because We Don’t Love Them

As I sat in Cindy Sheehan’s camper in Crawford Monday I made a realization: Everybody hates the media these days. Why? Because the media don’t love them.

That afternoon, I had just recorded an interview for NPR with Sheehan, the anti-war activist who’d been camped outside President Bush’s ranch. To get out of the Texas heat and the noise of the protest site, we went inside the fifth-wheel camper where she’d slept during the last weeks of her protest.

I was cordial with her. She was nice to me. But I wasn’t the one who asked the questions. I simply taped her responses to questions NPR’s Alex Chadwick asked over the phone.

So when the interview was over Cindy got up and went to the camper door. There she said to her media handler, “I don’t think I’m going to do anymore interviews with NPR. They’re too hostile. They’re just stooges of the government.”

Later, when I heard Alex’s questions, I gave him credit for calling her on some pretty radical—possibly unfounded—statements she’s made. Sheehan’s become an important figure in the war debate. So it’s only fair that she have to answer some tough questions. After all, answers to tough questions are what she’s demanding from President Bush.

But nobody likes it when tough questions are pointed at them or their allies. So, instead, people are pointing their fingers back at the media.

We’re not playing fair, they say. Seems like every day I hear someone blame the media for some social ill. Some of those accusations are deserved. Every institution created by humans is flawed. However, the media have become an easy scapegoat. Most problems are more complicated than the fault of one person, group or industry.

From my experiences, it seems like much of the finger pointing is based on one thing: some people actually want the media to be biased. They want the media to be biased in their favor.

As journalists we’re taught to be fair to the people on all sides of a story, although we sometimes fail to meet that standard. Truth is hard to find. Time and resources are limited. But most of us are trying. I promise. We should always strive for perfection. For journalists who do, it’s frustrating when we ask the president tough questions only to have his supporters accuse us of “liberal bias.” Then we turn around and ask the president’s opponents tough questions and they accuse us of being “stooges of the government.” Shockingly, the pro-war and anti-war crowds do have one thing in common: they both want the media to be fairer to them.

From that desire came a dangerous moment in the culture war: the creation of partisan media.

Some conservative radio talk-show hosts I’ve listened to are so angry that the media isn’t fair to their point of view. Is that true to some extent? Probably. So what did the conservatives do about it? They created talk radio and made it a haven for their ideas—not to mention a billion-dollar industry. They call it Rush Limbaugh and Mike Gallagher. More recently they created their own news organization and made it a ratings juggernaut. They call it Fox News.

Liberals have seen their point of view lose its punch after Bill Clinton left the White House. The left seems a little slow in recent years. So they just recently got around to copying the right’s idea and created a haven for their ideas. They call it Air America and Al Franken.

Whether it's Fox News or Air America, both are obvious about their political bent.

We’re living in polarized times. Some call it a “culture war.” With an equally polarized, partisan media, the two extreme sides—the warring “liberal” and “conservative” factions—have dug deeper trenches. In the trenches they’ve surrounded themselves with like-minded soldiers. They refuse to leave their fortifications to negotiate with the other side. War’s don’t end peacefully in situations like that.

It’s too easy for us to just park ourselves in front of TV networks, radio shows, websites, magazines and newspapers with which we agree. They lean our way. They’re comfortable. Worst of all, these media outlets are dwelling too much on opinion—Franken or Limbaugh just mouthing off—because that sells. People aren’t getting facts. They’re essentially getting a newspaper with 19 editorial pages and only one page of news.

Juan Williams, a reporter for NPR who also comments on Fox News Sunday, said in a February speech that media consumers are in real danger of becoming close-minded. They’re not subjecting themselves to opposing points of view. They’re not allowing their ideas to be challenged. An unchallenged idea is like a muscle that’s never used. It either stagnates or atrophies. It’s never toned or strengthened.

More importantly, willingness to consider other points of view is critical in developing compassion and tolerance. However, there are a few problems with openness. It requires us to listen to people we think are wrong and be fair to them. When it comes to our media intake, it means we need to occasionally watch some networks we wouldn’t otherwise watch or read some publications we wouldn’t otherwise read. But first, it means we need to find good sources of facts. We’ve got to find a station or a newspaper that’s doing actual reporting, that’s—at the very least—trying to be fair and balanced. Those facts will then be the basis of the opinions we form, challenge and refine.

Last week, as I covered a pro-war counter protest in Crawford, a man singled me out from a crowd of reporters. He pointed his tiny home video camera in my face and started drilling me with questions.

“How can you do what you do? How can you exploit what’s going on here?” he said.

I’m not exactly sure what he was trying to ask me, but he obviously had a beef with the news industry. I must say he had no problem filming what was happening there—a public event. So I’m not sure what was so wrong with me recording it.

Nonetheless, in the heat of the moment—both literally and figuratively—I didn’t quite have the time to get my thoughts together and tell him what I’ve written here. But I’m thankful for his disdain. I’m thankful for his opposing view. It forced me to formulate my defense for an industry under attack—whether those attacks are deserved or not. Perhaps next time I’m staring down the angry red light of a video camera I can share my point of view and challenge someone else’s.