Journalism and American Democracy

As the race for the presidency winds down we have and will continue to see more endorsements for a presidential candidate. Just last week Colin Powell endorsed Obama. But what significance do these endorsements hold, especially more now that the election is only one week away? While these endorsements are legitimate and have an impact I think it is more so to affirm the decisions voters have already made. These public figures serve as role models to the general public. By making a decision and having it affirmed by someone you look up to is a comforting feeling. If a person you admire endorses someone else you can always move to the next without hesitation. Apart from the – what I would say – lack of  influence on the decision the language endorsements use is interesting especially toward this election.

In the LA Times, references to the Bush administration go nowhere near unnoticeable. With phrases such as “misguided adventure” and referring to opponents as assailants, the rhetoric is by no means subtle to the watchful eye. While an endorsement is obviously partisan, the language is accusatory and set out to attack. But passive-aggressively. Apart from  being accusatory toward the beginning of the piece, it also concludes with an accusatory line besides the usual “we urge you to reelect Obama.” They state, “The alternative offered by Romney would neglect the country’s infrastructure and human resources for the sake of yet another tax cut and a larger defense budget than even the Pentagon is seeking.” By bringing in the Pentagon, images of the 9/11 attacks still haunt the public. By using such images, the LA Times equates Romney to these attacks on America. This was prevalent throughout the entire article. Therefore, it is easy to state that the LA Times focused more on crating a negative image out of Romney, than a positive one of Obama.

The Des Moines Register on the other hand focused on how they believed Romney would be able to address, what they labeled, the most important issue of this election: the economy. It focuses on the business successes of Romney and how they would reflect his successes in the economy. They site his experience. the structure also differs from the times, as it seems to be more of a conversation with Romney getting the last word. By structuring as such there is better portrayal of the newspaper as a subject that was not taken lightly (as it should be portayed). But to conclude, the Register did what I found to be very interesting and a method to disqualify themselves as a partisan newspaper. They listed all the previous endorsements – which include both GOP and Democrat) and whether those endorsed won.

What we receive from both sources are different approaches. One is more lingering on the past and mentions of the future, while the other is more on the now and the future. Whatever the case, the newspapers took their stance and lived with their failed or successful endorsement.

Earlier this month Princeton professor Christy Wampole published the article “How to Live Without Irony” in the New York Times, sparking heated and lengthy responses to what she calls a generation “investing in sham social capital without ever paying back one sincere dime.” She postulates that Millenials have developed no culture of its own, instead pulling from what others have already created as a mechanism of self-defense. Her argument lies in the assumption that this generation – unlike others before – fears being torn down for its ingenuity.

Journalist Jonathan D. Fitzgerald’s article “Sincerity, Not Irony, Is Our Age’s Ethos” ran in The Atlantic three days later, defeating her classification of modern life as dispassionate with examples of rising artists producing sincere, vulnerable music and writing. He does not believe, as Wampole does, that the 90s were the peak of sincerity, instead remembering his own coming of age decade as apathetic and melancholy. And where she uses generalities to explain her criticism, Fitzgerald makes a point of throwing names and statistics around to support his. One that stuck out to me most was the Knights of Columbus-Marist Poll survey. “Among Millenials,” Fitzgerald writes, “six out of 10 prioritized being close to God and having a good family life above anything else. For those in Generation X [of which Fitzgerald and Wampole are a part], family was still important, but the second priority was not spirituality – it was making a lot of money.”

I hesitate to jump right in and agree with what is largely a defense of my generation, because I, like Wampole, observe with a mixture of distaste and humor the “hipster movement.” Granted, I was a child in the 90s, but I don’t remember hipsters existing back then. It certainly is a new movement and there are members of my generation who choose to take part.

That said, the hipster movement is just a new way to accomplish what adolescents have always sought – protection from the harsh critics sitting across the lunch table. Adolescents are insecure, but their approach to life with “apathy” and refusal to stand out from the crowd is a self-defense mechanism not limited to Millenials, as Wampole intimates. Fitzgerald is right, they were around in the 90s. But they’re around today, distinguished by the label “hipsters,” and these cultural robots were around in the 70s and 80s too. I mean really, are you going to try to tell me that everyone aged 50 was a true fan of disco? I guess you’ve seen That 70s Show too.

I can’t tell Wampole or Fitzgerald what our generation will be remembered for. Perhaps Fitzgerald gets close when he cites icons such as Lady Gaga or Frank Ocean. Or maybe those two will only be remembered as sub-cultures, filed away with hipsters and disco. But every generation of adolescents has got a little sincerity and a little irony in it, and that’s because we’re human and sometimes our fears get in the way of being true to ourselves. If anything, what we once wrote in diaries is now broadcast over blogs, Twitter, and all-too-personal Facebook statuses. We’re more sincere but also more ironic, because we have more places to express. So here’s my nod to remembering our generation as the first to grow up on social media. The distance social media provides also gives us the courage we need to be sincere. And with the rise of cyber-bullying, forgive us a little if we need an ironic tweet or two, or tens of “likes” for “creatively” hating on Bieber, to lift us up when we’re feeling unsure.

The emergence of African American newspapers forever gave African Americans a voice, even though not always loud or powerful, a voice nonetheless. Coming from the birth of the nation where “It is difficult to fathom the kind of limitations on speech that were imposed on African Americans” (The Press page 84), a media outlet exclusively available to African Americans is a great stride in civil rights.

Today, African American newspapers still function similarly as they did in the 1960’s, catering to the African American community, and raising awareness of injustices to their race. In the Louisiana Weekly, based in New Orleans, there are sections such as Entertainment, and Classifieds but also article dealing with major issues such as racial profiling and unfair treatment of blacks in the workplace. I found an article called “The Hard Truth.. Recognizing the face of evil” by Min. J. Kojo Livingston. It comments very heavily on racism of African Americans, and cites America as “a nation built on lies, theft, and oppression.” The freedom of speech allows for negative comments about out country, even if it may be looked bad upon in conventional main strem media. And African Americans, after their years of oppression, have gained the right to publish what they like, even if it may be against the foundations of our government. The important thing about African American newspapers in the past and today is that they allows African Americans to publish what otherwise might not be published in a main stream media outlet. Mainly because of the constraints of the media we have learned about throughout our class, such as demographics, fear of loss of revenue and competition between media outlets.

Overall, I believe that the one of the main goals of journalism, to serve as a function of the common good, lives within African American newspapers. Which I also believe was ultimate dream for African American newspapers by popular advocates of this cause such as Frederick Douglas and Ida Wells.

I could be sitting in front of the TV right now watching the third and final presidential debate before the election takes place in a little over two weeks.

But where would it get me?

I sat through the entirety of the first two debates and paid attention to most of both. I was sort of disgusted by the lack of information I felt I had attained by the time each of them ended.

The most recent debate, that took place last Tuesday, had both candidates rubbing me the wrong way from the beginning. A 20-year-old college student asked the candidates how each of them could assure him that he would be able to find a job upon his graduation. They both answered the question without actually giving an answer. Mitt Romney sad several times that he had a plan to put in place to ensure that the young student would be able to find employment. My family and I were literally shouting at the TV, “Okay, so what is this plan?!!” (For the record, my parents are both undecided voters, so it’s not like they had a predetermined anti-Romney stance on the debate).

Plain and simple, it’s really annoying to try to decipher information when all two people are really doing is 1) repeating what the other person said; 2) bringing up things the other person said in the past; 3) arguing with the other person; and 4) arguing with the moderator. Somehow, I managed to make up my mind about who I am voting for based off of the last debate, but it was mostly to do with the way the candidates conducted themselves, as opposed to the actual issues our country faces.

We talk all the time in this class about what type of information the public needs, what type they get, and what type they deserve. If you ask me, these debates don’t present the public with the type of information they need, and they definitely deserve better.