Everybody who has ever read my stuff or listened to an interview knows the lens through which I see the world.
I call out racists as racist.
I call out misogyny as misogyny.
I use the terms “trans-sexism” and “homo-sexism” because it is all sexism. And gender. And trans women are attacked more than anyone because our society cannot fathom how a “man” would “choose” to become a “woman.”
Journalism is not about centering yourself between one person’s humanity and those who would deny them that humanity. I learned that long ago. And I was appalled when I got to public radio and found an entrenched journalism that did just that, without question.
I feel like journalism organizations expect the people they hire to lie. They talk about wanting to hire Black and Brown people, and yet, they expect their new employees to put themselves away, see the world not from their unique lens, but through the lens of white men who conceptualized the idea of “objectivity” in the first place.
Then the leaders of those news organizations go to conferences and lament that “we hire them, but they don’t stay,” as if there’s something wrong with the employee, not the system they’re walking into.
The problem, of course, is they’re hiring skin color, not unique and multi-faceted people. The idea of objectivity has led us to the idea that “truth” is just one thing, and people can’t have different truths based on their lives and backgrounds.
Haven’t any of these organizational leaders seen Rashomon?
Which brings us to FOX (News). Which seems to have taken the “put yourself away and put on an act for the organization” to a whole new level.
When the New York Times revealed this week the text message that supposedly got Tucker fired, my first instinct was to say, “Come on. Tucker’s racist? You didn’t know that?”
My second instinct, though, was that perhaps the honchos at FOX didn’t know that. Perhaps they had convinced themselves that Tucker was playing racist on TV. To get ratings. But he didn’t actually believe that stuff. And when they found out he actually believed his act, that was too much.
OK, it may be a stretch. And a cynical one at that. But the reason FOX gave is either a bald-faced lie (completely plausible) or reveals their view of what news is: It’s an act. Put yourself away when you walk in the door and give the audience what it wants. If you reveal who you are, then you’re gone.
What I find most disturbing about this is that journalists who spew hate as their act-which-they-secretly-believe are wildly successful, and journalists who call out that hate are said to be “biased.” But that’s for another column.
For now, I’m just having trouble fathoming why the Times wrote about this text message with complete credulity.
“For years,” wrote Jeremy W. Peters, Michael S. Schmidt and Jim Rutenberg, “Mr. Carlson espoused views on his show that amplified the ideology of white nationalism. But the text message revealed more about his views on racial superiority.”
White nationalism and racial superiority are two different things? Really? And is this hair-splitting definition coming from FOX or the Times writers?
Reading deeper into the story leads me to wonder why these three journalists buried what may be an even more important piece of information - one that I suspect is closer to the truth about why FOX execs had had enough with Carlson.
“In other messages he had referred to women — including a senior Fox executive — in crude and misogynistic terms.”
Ah. He insulted a senior FOX executive. With a term that I am assuming reduces her to a penis receptacle. But that can’t be why he was fired. An executive wouldn’t take that personally, would she? And sexism isn’t really important enough to derail a star, is it?
I mean, Michael Schmidt of the “Hillary must be guilty of something” 2016 presidential race coverage, is one of the writers. He’s one of the New York Times’ “best” writers. And he thinks that it was the racism - not misogyny - that Carlson displayed in private that mirrored the racism he espoused on his show that was the real reason he was fired?
I would love to talk to former Times executive editor Jill Abramson and all the female editors who left in her wake about this view that saying horribly misogynist things about the boss and colleagues is somehow not a strong enough reason to fire someone. Would she have let that stand on her watch?
Gun Laws and Mental Health
I’m also seeing that kind of unquestioning credulity in the reporting of the loosening - hell, the eradication - of gun laws in various states around the country. Georgia, which saw a shooting this week in a medical facility, now allows total open carry, no permit involved, and doesn’t care if you have mental health issues.
And none of the stories I have read about this have mentioned that “mental instability” used to be the excuse gun advocates gave for why shootings happened in the first place.
Do you remember that tired excuse that it’s not guns, it’s mental illness? Now, journalists are reporting changes in gun laws, and shootings by people with mental health issues, without putting the two issues together.
What if… hear me out on this… having access to guns allows people battling demons to be more destructive? What if… we invested as much of our state budgets in mental health care as we do in tax breaks and incentives for billionaires?
What if… we cared more about people than weapons?
And what if… journalists based their reporting on that dichotomy?
The Atlanta shooter’s mother would not tell the press why her son was at the medical facility that day, but she hinted at it.
“My son…has an affliction with mental illness and mental health illnesses,” the mother told reporters. She added that her son had successful treatment for his issues while he was in the Coast Guard.
"They made it to where we found the right cocktail and information for him that helped him to move throughout the days and learn his symptoms and how to try to, you know, make sure he took his medication.”
I want to know what happened after that. Was he not taking his medication? Did he have trouble getting a doctor’s appointment or getting good treatment after he left the Coast Guard? Where did he get his gun, and how? And how could this have been prevented?
If I’m an editor, that’s what I’m asking my reporters to find out. What is the problem? And what are the solutions? Not, “is the solution politically expedient,” but what the solutions are.
That is the role of journalism at its best. There are some great news outlets that do “best.” Sadly, though, they are few and far between.
Great piece, Carrie. I think the “lying” is thanks to agendas and echo chambers, and it happens on the left as much as the right. For instance, so many stories I’ve read parrot the line that puberty blocking hormones are “completely safe and reversible” without mentioning that Lupron is a cancer drug that’s causing long term issues with fertility and sexual function. Is that lying? Or just omitting? Or toeing a line? Or being lazy? Or telling a noble lie? Or actually believing something that’s wrong? Or waiting for someone to say it first and make it ok?