Wednesday, May 19, 2004
Every day, the news seems to get bleaker. Huge bolded headlines scream obscenities at the reader: "Twenty dead in Palestine," "Car bomb kills head of Iraqi Governing Council," "One in four South Africans infected with AIDS," "Sudan massacres bring back haunting memories of Rwanda,"...on and on. The morbid stories eventually blur together into an opaque sheet of suffering, daunting and by all accounts impenetrable. The 24/7 deluge of negative news that floods Americans through the internet, television, and newspapers has sensitized the public - and made too many people stop caring.
What's the solution to this? You can't go in and change the fundamental culture of media. At least not directly. Sensationalism sells, and good news is no news. There is absolutely no incentive for the media to change the way they operate. So what can you do? Demonstrate that there is another way. Demonstrate the viability of nuanced reporting. Complexity and metrics of hope are not vices that should be considered taboo - they are an integral part of expanding America's worldview.
The case for meshing a positive layer into media may not be obvious. Simply put, when facing a hopeless situation, few people will seriously care about it. The poverty and AIDS epidemics serve as perhaps the best example of this. For instance, the number of Africans who are stricken by malnutrition and disease is staggering. Tens and tens of millions. But those are statistics in a situation that will never truly improve - or at least that's the impression you would get by reading the newspapers. As a result, if it can't be fixed, why should Joe American care about pumping his tax dollars into it? The U.S. government is providing aid and there are dozens of humanitarian organizations at work already.
Now imagine reporting which uses the successes of those aid workers as a lens through which to highlight the work that has to be done. Reporting which shows what has worked, what can work, what needs to happen for efforts to work better. Op-ed pieces which instead of simply criticizing, criticized constructively. Human interest stories which put faces to the statistics, showing not only showing slack-ribbed children eyed by vultures, but the new school that was just built as well. This isn't just about the various crises overseas - far too many people endure hardship in America as well. Or, if you like, apply it to Iraq.
I am not proposing we gloss over fact or pamper the reader. All I am proposing is that the news be delivered in such a way that the reader doesn't walk away feeling at once distraught and helpless. That reader may frown, but he or she is not going to do anything, because it seems there's nothing a single citizen can do.
All it takes is one newsmagazine to lead the way, something to show the media conglomerates that nuanced reporting is viable, that it still sells, that it informs and elucidates even better than the status quo.
I see no reason why the University of Virginia can't be the founding location for such a project. Mr. Jefferson would be proud. Make it a biweekly or monthly supplement to the Cavalier Daily, perhaps. Or begin it independently through the COUP. Focus it half on [inter]national topics and half on local topics? Contain submissions from people all over the country at different colleges, or adults too? There are any number of options, any number of details that can be determined later.
There are many ways to affect policy in this country, but the most terrifyingly powerful method is to rouse the electorate. An electorate which is knowledgeable and cares about current events within and without the United States is one which can move mountains. I don't know a better way to sting that bear awake than to couch those current events in a light which makes them appear solvable.
Who's with me?
--Elliot
ehaspel@virginia.edu
