Journalism and American Democracy

Just over a week ago, I parted with the iPad for the semester. I originally thought that the sorrowful goodbye would be more difficult than it actually was. In the seven days since returning the iPad to its proper owner, my life has remained mostly unchanged. I would be lying if I said I didn’t miss the convenience, didn’t miss the sleek touch screen, or didn’t miss the Twitter interface. But really, the iPad had not made a huge impact on my daily life.

When I first received the iPad, I was hesitant to acknowledge its value. I was worried that it would become an inseparable part of me and that and that I would be judged for using it in public. I quickly got over each of those fears and hesitations. I found the iPad to be tremendously helpful in classes and in life (using it for course readings and calendar organizing). But at the same time, the iPad was a mere convenience and did not really serve many unique functions that can’t be found elsewhere. After the first few weeks of having the iPad, its novelties wore off and I ended up using it a lot less than I thought I would. I’m worried how easy it became for me to use the iPad in public, both in class and around campus. Before having an iPad, I looked down on people who used them all the time- I thought they were just another pretentious use of technology. But I quickly got comfortable using it anywhere and overcame the fact that others might look down upon me for doing that.

Although I’ve stated that the iPad didn’t change my life, it did have its advantages. I’ve learned since not having it how easy it was to tote it around for checking email, Twitter, Facebook, or ESPN. I now understand why they are so trendy. The iPad, and other tablets, are definitely the future of personal technology. Being so easy to integrate into daily life, tablets will likely continue to gain popularity. While I would probably not purchase an iPad for myself, if given another opportunity to use one for an extended period of time, I would not turn it down.

And since you probably can’t get the song out of your head…

While reading “The Minority Press: Pleading Our Own Case,” it became obvious why there was a need for the minority press in the past. Pamela Newkirk outlined a strong argument for media that covers minority interest denoting the restrictions on free speech for minorities before the civil rights movement. While Newkirk pointed out that minorities are underrepresented and stereotyped in the media, she fell short of making a clear argument for why minority presses are needed in a post-civil rights movement era. I had a hard time believing that our troubles now are anywhere near the trials that were around for minorities in the previous two centuries. Contrarily, Mitchell Stephens and David T.Z. Mindich make a much stronger argument for minority press in “The Press and Politics of Representation.” In a simple short sentence, the two authors make clear that the limitations of journalism require (if not an ethnic press) a media more in tune with minority affairs. They argue that “journalism, the point is, is mindset bound and mindsets are boundless” (376). Here they state that the misrepresentativeness of media oversimplifies the complexities of important issues to stereotypes and limited coverage. To better understand the debate regarding the importance of the minority press, I had to investigate it myself.

Because the issues facing society are not as grave as they were during slavery, nor are they as severe as they were before civil rights legislation, it was difficult to see a clear need for minority media. To this end, I decided to explore the minority press of the most egregiously excluded and over stereotyped minority group I could find in contemporary society: the gay and lesbian community. Much like Fredrick Douglass’s North Star and the Freedom Journal, the Washington Blade attempts to gain rights and freedoms for an under represented community. The Blade covers topics on both the local and the national level that would be of interest to the Washington D.C. gay and lesbian community. In the local section, articles cover adoption “beats,” hate crime reports, and local health and business issues. The national section covers more political issues such as marriage rights debates across the country and how the issues facing politicians in DC affect the gay and lesbian community.

Although the Blade covers topics that are important to a minority group that is often ignored in the mainstream media, it comes up far short from serving  as an influential advocate to plead the case of gays and lesbians in the same way that the black press fought for freedom in the nineteenth century. The paper covers issues that affect gays and lesbians, but does not appear to have the same thrust as historical accounts of the minority press. This leads me to the question: if the minority press isn’t covering topics as important as slavery, what value does it serve in the modern media landscape? Given the statistics listed by Newkirk about the underrepresentation of minority reporters and minority stories in the media, it would be hard to argue that the minority press is not needed or that it does not provide valuable information. I believe that the minority press is less of an advocacy group to plead the case of each group to the world, but rather that it is evolved to be a means of interpreting stories in the context of a niche group. As much as we’ve talked about the press as a filtering authoritative institution, it is as limited as the journalists that make it up. In this sense, the value of the minority press stems from insight it offers to minority groups regarding issues of both local and national concern.

On the excitement scale, reading Idaho’s presidential election news coverage ranks somewhere between watching a Mitt Romney speech and watching paint dry. Newspaper and television coverage was seriously underwhelming and uninteresting. The predictable outcome of the state’s Electoral College allocation led media outlets to cover more contentious local issues. In fact, news articles regarding the POTUS election were quite difficult to find on the Coeur d’Alene Press website. Of the “Top Stories” listed on the Press’s homepage, the generic AP story covering the presidential race came up fourth. Instead, the Press decided that the most important story of the day were the voting technology glitches and the announcement of local races rather than the presidential race.

Eight driving hours and a different time zone away, Boise’s Idaho Statesmen portrays a similar ambivalence to the presidential results. Of the three print editions published by the Statesmen, only two had the election as its main headline, the third focused on the state education reform laws. Interestingly all three editions featured a secondary cover story touting “In Idaho, presidential result means more Obamacare, likely less federal spending.” Thus, when there was some sort of reaction to the presidential election, it was typically negative. The only story within the Idaho press that covered the results in a more positive light was a brief article about included the headline the Democratic gathering at a downtown Boise hotel from the Spokesman Review that included the headline “Idaho Dems celebrate, pool beckons.”

Idaho’s television news was equally unamused with the Obama reelection decision. Although there was limited television coverage originating from Idaho (as Northern Idaho gets the majority of its television from Spokane-based stations), it was staunchly pro-Romney. On Boise’s KTVB, hosts described Romney as “almost a native son” and utilized Idaho’s $600 million in Romney campaign contributions as evidence of the state’s love for him.

Idaho’s news coverage of the 2012 presidential election left much to be desired. Most of the election focus was on local issues including education reform and state government elections. In browsing Idaho news sources, it would seem almost as if there was not a presidential election day whatsoever. I guess the predictability of the results doesn’t warrant much coverage. Nonetheless, had the national election results gone the other way, it would be hard to imagine Idaho not giving more attention to the race. Regardless, I believe that it is important for local media outlets to focus more on local issues because there was plenty of national election coverage elsewhere.

SIDE NOTE: Idaho was most recently relevant in Presidential politics in August when Clint Eastwood officially endorsed Mitt Romney in Sun Valley. You can thank us for the chairs later…

For newspapers with broad readership, such as The Wall Street Journal and USA Today, abstinence has generally been the policy. Neither newspaper typically endorses a candidate during presidential campaigns. More targeted papers, however, have a tendency to endorse one candidate or the other. This decision to endorse is not the case for the Chicago Sun-Times nor the Oregonian this election cycle after both endorsing Barack Obama in 2008. I believe that scholars can gain insight into newspaper politics by analyzing two papers that chose not to endorse a presidential candidate after a history of taking a side in elections.

The Oregonian, a Portland based newspaper, typically chooses left-leaning candidates for its endorsement but chose not to endorse Barack Obama in the 2012 election. The editorial board justified their decision to abstain from the presidential election while still endorsing candidates in local races for several reasons. First, the board argues that the readers have the same access to information that the editors do regarding the presidential election, but lack sufficient information to make informed decisions in local elections. Secondly, the Oregonian noted that neither candidate had come to the state for open dialogue regarding issues that concern Oregonians. This lack of visitation has left both the Oregonian Editorial Board and citizens of the state with insufficient evidence to form a nuanced opinion of the candidates. The newspaper stated that it will not officially endorse a candidate, but will “take advantage of acute contrasts in the presidential contest” to assess the legitimacy of either candidate and analyze their policies. Further the newspaper promised to publicize the candidates when they show signs of listening to the interests of Oregon.

Back in the midwest, in one of the most shocking decisions of the endorsement cycle, the Chicago Sun-Times chose abstinence as well. Obama’s own hometown newspaper, that chose to endorse the President in 2008, decided that it was not appropriate to endorse candidates in the election. Instead of taking a side and endorsing a single political candidate, the Sun-Times chose to “provide clear and accurate information about who the candidates are and where they stand on issues most important to our city, our state and our country.” The paper aimed to allow a side-by-side comparison of candidates and their views. The paper will further publicize assessments of experts, but not endorse any of the opinions. Like the Oregonian, the paper argued that the vast array of media outlets and information sources allow voters to become informed on issues without the need for newspaper endorsements. The Sun-Times further justified its abstinence by citing evidence that claims endorsements don’t change many votes especially in presidential election and even promote the perception of a hidden bias. The newspaper claimed that its commitment to nonpartisanship is the driving cause of its lack of endorsement.

Both newspapers that chose not to endorse candidates shared many of the same justifications for their abstinence. The main theme of both pieces was that voters now, more than any other time in the past, have sufficient information to make their own informed decisions without the influence of the papers. Our use of Twitter in class has led me to hesitantly agree with this claim. While there is far more information available to voters, there is also much more misinformation available. Voters should be able to shift through the available news and information to reach an informed decision, but problems arise if they are not able to do so. This is where I believe newspaper come into play. Newspapers serve to shift through information and should do so transparently. While the Oregonian and Sun-Tribune argue that not endorsing a candidate allows them to be more nonpartisan, I believe that the limitations to journalistic objectivity make partisanship inevitable to a point. In this sense, it is best for papers to be transparent in their coverage by endorsing a candidate but still maintaining an effort to remain impartial.

After reading several columns by Kathleen Parker, I noticed a pattern in her writing that reveals the benefits and drawbacks of columnists in the media. As for the drawbacks, Parker gets stuck in the routine of covering similar topics in a very similar format. She frames her most of her articles around an absurdity in the world then attempts to explain it pragmatically. The structure leads to uncreative articles that become repetitive over time. Along the same lines, columnists often end up reporting on very similar issues, issues that are important and interesting to them, but not necessarily a wide range of readers. Parker exemplifies this criticism with her emphasis on patriarchal society and confronting death. These themes hit home for some readers, but an ambivalence towards them leads a columnist into obscurity.

This post should not be read as a complete criticism of Kathleen Parker, in fact most columnists are guilty of similar flaws. My favorite, and most famous, example of this is Thomas Freidman of the New York Times. While some of his articles are unique and interesting, many of them focus on the same economic themes of globalization and the Arab-Israeli conflict. He often writes pieces that are disconnected with the average reader of the New York Times, but appeals to a much smaller public. This can, however, be an advantage for journalists and the media. In my recent paper I argued that the American public needs an authoritative news source that is able to weave news stories with expert opinions. In this sense, both Friedman and Parker can be viewed as experts on their respective topics and provide readers with valuable insights into the issues that columnists deem important.

This is where Kathleen Parker’s use of a common pattern within her writing becomes valuable for her and her readers. I found that I disagreed with most of her views towards the beginning of her articles. The absurdities she mentions and attempted to justify, originally seemed, at least to me, unjustifiable. But then, Parker pragmatically explains the rationale behind such extraordinary events. For example, in her September 18^th Cyborg Romney piece, Parker successfully explains what limitations caused Romney to make the claims that he did regarding 47 percent of the American population. Her practicality and relative neutrality offers insight into otherwise politically charged issues. Although I was generally unconvinced by her arguments, she provides a tremendous framework of how to make sense of otherwise unintuitive events.

I believe that it is the transparency in her writing that makes Kathleen Parker so effective and respectable. She argues in a September 7^th column on MSNBC that the answer to the media’s problems stems from transparency. Because objectivism is nearly impossible in journalism, it is necessary to explain where a journalist is coming from before the consumer can pass any judgments on the issue at hand. Parker’s emphasis on explaining rationales and justifying beliefs offers the readers understanding of how she (and others who share her beliefs) arrive at her (their) opinions. Instead of attempting to hide subjectivity, I believe that the American public needs more journalists like Parker who are honest about their journalistic limitations.

When I first heard of the assignment to analyze wedding announcements, I was skeptical about how much it could actually reveal about a newspaper. To put this skepticism to the test, I decided to check my local newspaper’s wedding and milestone announcements because I have a fairly thorough understanding of the paper’s target audience. Choosing a random date for announcements in the Coeur d’Alene Press, led me to some fascinating findings.

For starters, I was instantly reminded of how small and well connected the Coeur d’Alene community really is. I had some sort of connection to both the wedding announcements and the only engagement announcement. For the weddings, I learned that a girl I grew up with as a family friend was married this summer and that a son of my dad’s coworkers also got married. The engagement announcement was for the son of my high school Spanish teacher who also happened to play on the same baseball team as my older brother. This connectedness in and of itself reveals that the audience of the paper is not only quite small, but quite connected to one another. The substance of announcements also reveals details about the audience. Almost all of the announcements emphasize the high school that each person attended, which further shows the connectedness of the community. Many of the announcements focus on military service and religion, which gives insight into the values of the paper’s readers. Both of these items reveal a more conservative constituency through the glorification of both church and military service. All of these details fit in with my preconceived understanding of the Coeur d’Alene Press’s audience.

In order to get a comparison I chose to look at a similarly small paper from San Juan Island, Washington where I interned two summers ago. After reading some wedding announcements in the San Juan Islander, it became much more obvious how much information about target audience can be found in wedding announcement. The San Juan Islander announcements all emphasized the local, small community as well with a focus on high schools and discussion of how each person is involved in the community. Another common theme in the wedding announcements was the type of employment each person was involved in. Most of the announcements mentioned employment by a local marine or aquatic store and some sort of environmentally focused career. These two facts reveal that the readers of the newspaper are nautically focused and environmentally concerned. While the political leanings are not as obvious as they were in the Coeur d’Alene Press, there are still subtle hints of the Islands’ left-leaning nature. One announcement in particular mentions the groom’s participation at the Catholic Worker House in South Bend (as an ND grad student, whom I met last winter), one of the radically liberal wings of the Catholic Church.

CDA Press Announcements: http://www.cdapress.com/lifestyles/article_1c40d353-499c-5ce3-b7a8-20d5c54db8f8.html

San Juan Islander Announcements: http://www.sanjuanislander.com/island-newshome/announcements/weddings