I’m sick of mainstream media in the United States. Articles about controversial topics, especially global and religious beats, are obviously biased as the worldview of one nation, one that filters information through the common values and experiences of citizens in a secular democracy. So, then, why has media become the problem?
Some say the problem is there is no “our” experience and the national narrative is flawed. I believe that traditional media and global issues bloggers have been the mainstream voices saying this. Their concern is improving objective journalism and their experiences reading and interacting online with a global, independent media network has brought the guilty verdict home. Instead of telling a new story, these writers blame the concepts and labels that blinded writers and readers from connecting themselves with the real story in coverage.
I think we would pretty much agree this is not news, it’s more like watching the media is catching up with itself. If it makes me wonder how one of the most prolific American global thinkers like Thomas Friedman are just now discounting the traditional narrative for excluding real American experiences and that the public has a fractured identity, then I have to question his perspective and let the American narrative go as a cohesive story.
To lay it out clearly, maybe he finds Islam and Muslims to be a good narrative to use because like Americans, Muslims around the world have no one culture, race, background. There really is no such thing as a typical Muslim. It never has been that way for Americans either and if that’s the way he has seen it in the past, I think we should consider the popular appeal of his last published works about the future of the modern world.
Perhaps this the story is not being based not in bad journalism but dysfunctional politics. Maybe the responsibility rests on a public that is blaming traditional journalism or giving slack or even ignoring the intellectual development of social media and blogging as the future mainstream narrative. The first point involves people attacking old school media for it’s obvious struggle with objectivity and covering those mistakes without being self-critical of the way those stories reflect the bias of their own identities. The second is not leaving comments or thinking about online community as a virtual but also politically viable conversation.
For the sake of the future of media, I think the mainstream should go ahead and let go of pointing a finger at the root problem. Leave that coverage to social media and bloggers with different perspectives because they have a better pulse on the American public. Seriously, pay better and more attention to news from the people who actually live here. Prolific global thinkers like Friedman may miss the entire point by moving around and getting better informed about the new world. Perhaps first we need to know how in many situations there’s nothing new about historic change at all.
Perhaps the historic change in America is a return to the birth of this country, a time when the “new” world was here. This wasn’t because it actually was new and there were obvious consequences to building a political system in this country on the foundation of this worldview. There were of course people already here and most were tragically pushed to the outside of Western civilization, a peoples to be studied and taught to be like “us.” I’m sick of what this has become – objective thinking about media and the world without the media informing the public with any constructive sense of self-awareness.
What’s the problem? Well, I think it’s awareness in general. There are a lot of issues here that people feel need to be brought to light. Mostly this is done by white people probably because history has been written mostly by white men who over the generations became gradually aware the legacy crippled civilization’s ability to evolve. The story’s setting has become dysfunctional. Everyone who actually lives out the part of history that was not included just sigh and ache to move on. Sometimes letting go is an act of power greater than hanging on to oppression and marginalization.
Bringing new found “awareness” to these issues and their absence in the American narrative is an act of power over the people who lived them and carry their memories inside from past generations’ stories. The failure of mainstream media is not knowing what questions to ask or what stories to follow. They report on the extremes. Instead of being self-critical, reporters are often critical of the entire industry. I think the only real criticism of the industry is that it’s a waste of money for readers.
Perhaps the problem with journalism is reporters have to admit when coverage is a waste of time as well. If there’s a root problem in any of this, it’s for the American public to articulate. The access to information online is more democratic than the political environment right now. In order to re-think America’s role in the world and move on, perhaps we have to let go of objective journalism and let Americans tell us how America’s narrative has changed – rather than depend on national events like September 11, 2001 define the narrative as obviously messed up. Actually, I think the latter is especially the reason to do so.
