So let's surf the website, and the top story below the nameplate is by Tom Avila, and it's headlined "What the Campaign is Teaching Me: The Opposite of Hate is Journalism." A staffer for the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association, Avila is concerned about "the level of anger and, frankly, outright hatred that we’ve seen" toward candidates in both presidential camps. His concern reflects the hostility so often shown to people of his sexual orientation, but he brings the discussion back to journalism as he says, "the role of the journalist is an incredibly crucial one right now. While I have never wished to be wrong more than I do right now, I think that the ugliness we are seeing is a glimmer of what might come to pass come the early hours of Nov. 5."
So it goes. The next most prominent story on the CCJ website is also about the election. It's headed "Conflict and Conflation of Race and Gender," and it's by author and CCJ trainer Tracy Thompson. She wrote it in March, but it's still timely because she goes deeper than the day's headlines as she writes, "We live in fractured times, ... and this conflict mentality long ago stopped being a useful method of understanding the world -- which, after all, is what journalism is supposed to be about." Her view is nuanced and complex, as she explores the tension between supporters of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, black and white feminists and journalists who transition from daily deadlines to free-lancing as their are children and they take on caregiving obligations.
Or Jon Margolis, who covered politics for The Chicago Tribune for years, then went to the "toy department" (sports desk) and now free-lances from his home in Vermont. He has a column on "postmodern" election coverage in which he notes "the campaign and its coverage have been about ... the campaign and its coverage." He explains:
Did Barack Obama call Sarah Palin a pig? Did John McCain say you have to earn $5 million a year to be considered rich? Does Obama really want to teach kindergartners about sex? Are McCain’s campaign ads dishonest?Margolis says both campaign and coverage are "ironic and absurd [and] ... self-referential," just like postmodernism.
Forget for a minute that the answers to these questions are: No, No, No and (with Karl Rove’s apparent endorsement) Yes. Instead, just think about their connections to the world outside the campaign. Minimal at best. Not only are the candidates and their talking heads squabbling about events almost entirely unrelated to such mundane matters as war, peace, prosperity, schools, health care and such, but they are squabbling over the coverage of these squabbles, with Obama-ites complaining that the press isn’t forthrightly condemning McCain’s ads and the McCainiacs proclaiming they don’t give a hoot what the “elite media” say.
Margolis wrote when the financial crisis upended the presidential race. And given his subject matter, I think we have to allow for the possiblity he's being a little ironic, absurd and self-referential here, at least around the edges. But I think he's onto something important here.
(Disclaimer: My ears perk up when I hear the word "postmodern." So should yours, since I've been known to ask about it on final exams.)
Anyway, let's look at Margois' article, headlined "Post-Modern Campaign Needs Reporters Rooted in the Now." Part of it is about ancient history, Nixon and Vietnam and stuff like that, and part of it can be written off to nostalgia on the part of a reporter who covered the '68 election. But, again, Margolis' column is and I think he's onto something.
And, not to be self-referential, it is the kind of thing that's been known to pop up on my final exams.
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