Tour Information:
Day of Ideas
Philanthropy
The Media
China
Animals
Humor
Military
Religion
Science
American Icons
Education
Politics
Tech & Innovation
Arts & Letters
Idealism & Practicality
Women's Rights
Nature & Environment
Markets & Morals
Civil Rights
Politics & Presidents
February 1996
Why Americans Hate the Media
by James Fallows
When ordinary citizens have a chance to pose questions to political leaders, they rarely ask about the game of politics. They want to know how the reality of politics will affect them—through taxes, programs, scholarship funds, wars. Journalists … ask questions that only their fellow political professionals care about. And they often do so—as at the typical White House news conference—with a discourtesy and rancor that represent the public’s views much less than they reflect the modern journalist’s belief that being independent boils down to acting hostile …
They are interested mainly in pure politics and can be coerced into examining the substance of an issue only as a last resort. The subtle but sure result is a stream of daily messages that the real meaning of public life is the struggle of Bob Dole against Newt Gingrich against Bill Clinton, rather than our collective efforts to solve collective problems …
Even if practiced perfectly, journalism will leave some resentment and bruised feelings in its wake. The justification that journalists can offer for the harm they inevitably inflict is to show, through their actions, their understanding that what they do matters and that it should be done with care.
Vol. 277, No. 2, pp. 45–64
Click here to read the full text of this article.
