I am writing a response to “Letter to the Editor: U.S. Capitol riot revealed distrust of media, importance of journalism.” In the article, it felt as if Professor Len Apcar was having a grand revelation, while also entirely missing the point. The professor states late in the article that “…the media must refocus and try again to understand, explain and portray. It needs to understand how it happened and why.” However, the professor had already made sweeping and strong statements about what led to the Capitol riots, and he misrepresented the current distrust in media as a movement to end media and journalists.
As a professor of communication, he knows more than most about the power of not just what is said, but also what isn’t. He knows that words themselves are nothing without context, tone, timing and delivery. People don’t distrust media. They distrust the current organizations and institutions that provide the media. Pick a mainstream station; it’s abundantly clear the political leanings of the organization and the leanings of each of the individual contributors.
The people are tired of doom and gloom. The people are tired of only hearing about what we disagree on. They also want highlights of the good as hope is the seed to the future.
After a long day, most of us just want to know what’s going on in the world. Facts. Just like a good book, give us chance to take it and relate it to our own lives. Let us mull over the implications and discuss it over the dinner table. We don’t want or need the news to tell us how to feel, what to think and what to do. Sure, a spirited debate on a topic by experts to get the gears turning and hearing a variety of points would be great on occasion. But, that’s not what we get. We get an obviously biased Trevor Noah, screaming Tomi Lahren and much worse. Ultimately, primetime news agencies are about ratings above all else.
Look, we all know that there are major issues in this country. It’s obvious which ones are the most polarizing, but there are also so many of which most Americans agree, regardless of political affiliation, ethnicity, education and local population.
Just like the media’s news reels, the last election debates were stuck on the most polarizing of issues instead of other important issues like ethics in government, the federal budget deficit and unemployment that most Americans agree on. This country is stuck in a tennis match of disagreement.
I wish the message to the students was more about how they will one day be the strings that connect all Americans. That through free speech, they can be the catalyst that drives us apart, but also the catalyst that can bring us together.