Rural Routes/Margot Ford McMillen

New Voices Needed in Political Coverage

Here we are. Crunch time. And the fun never stops. Even after a fairly civil debate from the VP candidates, we suffer through lots of media-driven drama and a smidgeon of issues. Instead of leading the civil discourse, it seems that the average news anchors can never see the longterm effects of their discourse.

This year the drama comes from Ukraine, Israel, and abortion. The longterm issues — cost of living, climate change, health care — are rarely mentioned and in fact hardly affected by the drama. In fact, while media occasionally nods at how current decisions impact the future, the nuances are too subtle and thorny for media to handle. A TV announcer can show us human damages from a bomb but human damages from paycheck troubles are too hard to assess. Immigration is an international tragedy, currently affecting countries in all parts of the planet, but it is always treated as a horror and a travesty without any understanding of the immigrants’ points-of-view.

Voters addicted to the media drama, and I count myself as one, might agree with a newscaster’s stance on most subjects because we consume the media that echoes our views. For those of us leaning left, PBS, The Nation and CNN might be our go-tos. For those leaning right, it’s Fox News and National Review. But there are usually sticking points on which we don’t agree. In this election cycle, one sticking point is Israel.

Armchair observers on both the left and right have said from the start that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could pull the entire region into conflict. Media, however, defends him and the U.S. participation in his wars. According to the Council on Foreign Relations, the U.S. has sent more military aid—more than $230 billion—to Israel than to any other since that country’s founding. That’s more than three times what we’ve sent to Ukraine at $70 billion.

Most of us peacenik types insist that we stand on moral high ground. Aid to Israel, we say, is killing innocent civilians with our U.S. weapons. The arguments haven’t changed since the 1960s when the innocents were Vietnamese. Aid to Ukraine, on the other hand, is protecting that country’s right to democracy and independence against an aggressor. We try not to see Ukraine and Palestine as parts of a political game. But, always, political gamesmenship is in the equation.

Gamesmanship was clear during the Democratic Convention when pro-Palestinian protestors rallied for a chance to speak. They were denied but they didn’t go away. Now it seems pro-Palestinians might cast votes as uncommitted or third-party or even vote for Trump. So let’s say that the Palestinian vote contributes to a Trump win. Will it accomplish what the pro-Palestinian voters want? Will Trump insist on a ceasefire? Will Trump stop military aid to Israel? Will Trump persuade Israel to stop expanding the war? Not hardly.

“When I was 20, I voted morally. Now I vote strategically,” Mark Rudd (formerly of the 1960s anti-war group the Weathermen) told Andrew Marantz of The New Yorker. His point is that there are potential and unimagined gains and losses beyond the immediate drama. If the media could adopt that strategic approach, our decision-making could be better.

The strategic approach makes us look farther down the road. Pew Research Center reminds us that in 2020 and 2024 the major issue has been the economy (both years, around 80% were concerned).

Climate change, even more important in the long view, has lost ground with only 37% being concerned in 2024. That could change if media will connect current weather horrors like Hurricane Helene to the reality that warmer oceans are creating more violent storms.

How can we reduce the near-term drama so voters concentrate on the best long-range outcomes? We consumers must insist on changes in the media. On Oct. 1, CBS made a good beginning with fact checking during the aforementioned VP candidate debate. Perhaps the knowledge that their facts were being scrutinized kept the candidates civil and honest. Fact-checking should be an integral part of all campaign events.

Next, we need to get more points-of-view into the conversations. Start with the complexities of immigration. While many of our pundits and politicians travel to ports where immigrants are dying, literally dying, to get to our country, we rarely hear voices that explain why folks leave home. Seeing the situation from their point of view will help us imagine long-term solutions.

And now the hard one, the economy. Can we imagine a future where everyone’s fed, where kids are cared for, where all lives have meaning, where the planet is safe? How can understanding today’s problems help us get to a sustainable future?

We need new voices. It’s gratifying that so many women, minorities, LGBTQs are moving into positions in media. At present, most of these newbies are voicing scripts that mimic their male colleagues. The day will come, however, when they find their own voices. And, then, we can begin to imagine the future that we need.

Margot Ford McMillen farms near Fulton, Mo., and co-hosts “Farm and Fiddle” on sustainable ag issues on KOPN 89.5 FM in Columbia, Mo. Her latest book is “The Golden Lane: How Missouri Women Gained the Vote and Changed History.” Email: margotmcmillen@gmail.com.

From The Progressive Populist, November 1, 2024

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