Posted on 10/12/2003 5:44:54 PM PDT by TrebleRebel
Several years ago, a newspaper colleague paid me what for her was a sincere compliment: "For a right-winger, you're actually OK." What do you say to a patronizing comment like that? "Thanks, hon, and for a fat girl, you don't sweat much"?
Actually, I took it in the spirit it was offered: as a fellow reporter's admission that she had been wrong to prejudge my character and abilities based on my politics. My writing and my professional conduct had won her over.
I tell that story to conservative journalism students as an example of the kind of prejudice they will face if they pursue media careers and as a suggestion for how to deal with it. Any conservative, especially a religious conservative, who chooses journalism as a vocation should understand that he or she is entering hostile territory.
That, of course, isn't news. It is a cliché to say the news media are liberal, but it is the truth, as a number of independent studies and surveys have confirmed. That is especially true on social issues. And reporters are overwhelmingly secular.
It isn't simply that coastal media elites skew survey results. In 1994, The Orlando Sentinel's Peter Brown commissioned a survey of journalists and readers from five medium-sized media markets and one large middle-American media market: Dallas-Fort Worth. The poll found that in terms of worldview, most Dallas area journalists have more in common with their colleagues at The Washington Post than with the people who read their newspapers and watch their telecasts.
What does that mean for the conservative new to a newsroom? For one, she will be astonished by not only the pervasive groupthink but how little awareness there is of the narrowness of thought present. Indeed, the paper may pride itself on its commitment to diversity. It rarely seems to occur to editors that a newsroom filled with a demographic cornucopia of journalists who think more or less the same way may benefit institutional self-esteem but not coverage.
For another, she will be struck by the gap between what journalists actually know about conservatives and what they think they know. Reporters and editors, like most people, assume their own frame of reference is normative. The conservative in the newsroom will be assumed by many to be a Bible-thumping, race-baiting, gay-hating bigot until proved otherwise – because that's what many journalists, who rarely if ever socialize with conservatives, think we all are like. Moreover, they believe that's how rational, fair-minded people see the world.
Sooner or later, the folks who run the media will realize they would stop losing readers and viewers if they would hire more conservatives and thereby present a more balanced, better informed and more interesting product. Until that day, journalism needs young conservatives to be pioneers. As Catholic historian Paul Johnson said to potential church converts, "Come on in, it's awful!" Journalism isn't awful for conservatives, not by a long shot, but to succeed, they have to be cleverer, tougher, harder-working and more patient than liberal colleagues.
As a conservative journalist, you will have to distinguish yourself by the strength of your writing and reporting. You have to love journalism for its own sake, not because it gives you a platform for your views. You will have to be a journalist first, not an ideologue who lets his convictions blind him to facts. You will have to pick battles carefully and never, ever give in to the romance of self-pity. A chip on your shoulder is a weight that will sink you.
Finally, a sense of humor will keep you grounded. Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby once told me why he admired Ken Chandler, a fellow conservative who was then publisher of The New York Post. "Ken's the only man I know at that level who stays in journalism for the same reason everybody gets into it in the first place: Because it's a hell of a lot of fun."
Rod Dreher is an editorial writer and occasional columnist for The Dallas Morning News. His e-mail address is rdreher@dallasnews.com.
We Boston FReepers have been trying to get the "Globe" to admit that FRee Republic exists. Mike Prager a "Pravda' reporter came to us looking for looking for Pro-freedom protesters, I got some good pix in the "Globe" but nary a mention of FR, they came to us.
I would have put on an accent like Topol's in the movie "Fiddler on the Roof" and said, "Thank you, your honor. How often does one get a compliment like THAT?" But I never get the chance to use that line (never get compliments!)
On one occasion I faked out a lib (unintentionally). He had prejudged me as another lib, so he was astounded to discover that I considered Slick Willie to be a lying charlatan. Nevere did find out the basis of his wrong judgment. Maybe I look like a liberal weenie or something. This is not a comforting thought....
I wish they'd all go and stay at the various IndyMedia's then, or that channel 9415 on the Dish Network. I prefer the 5 W's and nothing more.
Seriously, I didn't go to journalism school, I learned the trade on the job. Maybe that's why the five W's are still important to me.
to this one:
Bill Plante (CBS WH Corr.): "The media is mostly left-leaning"
"The media is mostly left-leaning. It is difficult to turn out graduates in majors relating to the media who are at the right of the political spectrum. So the media gets to be leaning to the liberal side. ...The Democratic party sees the media as their ally."
I work in San Francisco and hear that all the time. Conservatives are rare here. Latest one I heard was "I'm a flaming liberal but I won't hold your love of Bush against you!". The day after Arnold won the recall election as our new gov, all the libs were dejected and depressed while I was beaming and gloating, made up for all the snide comments I usually receive.
Another thing I would have said to the liberal woman, mentioned in this article, if she had said the patronizing comment: "You want me, don't you?".
No southern accent, either, though I'm born and bred. Or maybe it was the facial fuzz....
Another thing I would have said to the liberal woman, mentioned in this article, if she had said the patronizing comment: "You want me, don't you?".
And that would have precipitated a turkey-walk to the parking lot in the loving embrace of the security dept. You're a right-wingnut, therefore you must hate women, and you just provided actionable evidence. Do not appeal to the examples of Gray Davis or der Schlickmeister in extenuation. They are righteous on the "issues", so they get a pass on character.
(All the same, I'm with ya. I'd like to do it myself!)
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