The Missionary Position

Following up on the previous post, "Mario Looks at the World."

U.S. newspapers are different than their overseas counterparts for many reasons -- the First Amendment, the vast size of the country, its booster-led-and-legislated localism (until the last couple of decades) in retailing, banking, and other advertising areas, and the absence until recently of national newspapers, particularly of the Red Top, Boulevardier, etc. genres found in much of Europe.

This meant that your typical newspaper, in speaking up for the Common Man -- somewhat of a Jeffersonian construct and thus possibly more important in America than elsewhere -- tended to speak up for someone named either John Q. Public or John Q. Taxpayer, usually portrayed with a fedora, a round nose and a bristle mustache, saying, "You can't fight City Hall!" -- except that the newspaper was there to help him look for corruption, mismanagement and the like so that he could get his taxes held down, his property rezoned, or his garbage picked up on time. Oh, and potholes filled.

Apart from reporting in the interests of John Q., the typical newspaper was a grab-bag of press releases, wire stories, human-interest pieces, humorous photos, check-passings, and the like that largely chronicled the official business and middle-class lifestyle of the community. The reporters were often lower-middle-class types who grew up there and found their writing or reporting skill saved them from 30 years on the line at Saginaw Steering Gear. Sometimes they thought John Q. was kind of a boob, but they generally disliked potholes, too, and enjoyed a day at the track just like he did.

Comes then the professionalization of journalism, starting in the early 20th century and building to its crescendo in the post-World War II years, when America was contemplating the professionalization of nearly everything. Then mix this with journalists having been on the right side in the three biggest news stories of the time:

* Watergate, in which, in the end, he was a crook.
* The Vietnam War, which, whether you think it was wrong in the first place or was conducted wrongly because we didn't aim to win, ended up being a fiasco.
* And most important, civil rights, in which the news media, as detailed by Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff in "The Race Beat," (whoops, got that wrong in the first posting) played a major step in the country's finally living up to its creed.

But ol' John Q. was of two minds on these issues. Nixon resigned and the Democrats briefly won, but people seemed more upset that the president cursed in the Oval Office than that he tried to subvert the law. Vietnam led to Kent State and "My country right or wrong" bumper stickers. And primarily, the press showed the rightness of Dr. King's cause, and people voted for Lester Maddox as governor anyway. The press showed how the police were used as an occupying force, and John Q. elected Frank Rizzo as mayor.

And let's not even mention La Raza or the ERA. From the view in many newsrooms, John Q. just wasn't getting it. He seemed willing to protect his suburban dream at the cost of all of America's cities. When people talked of the need for sex education, he heard "my daughter could get pregnant at 14." (After all, if he had known how to do it at 14, he might have tried to.) It turned out that he didn't really care very much about American petit apartheid, separate motels and drinking fountains and the like; they were legislated away, and nothing much happened. But John Q. did want an orderly universe. He wanted one in which there were some rules, and people who followed them, barring acts of God, generally came out ahead.

He wanted his newspaper to keep fighting for the little guy, as it always had. But increasingly, the newspaper said that the little guy was the black person denied equal housing, the woman wanting to be a police officer, the prisoner jammed into a cell and beaten, the teen demanding an abortion without telling her parents. John Q. didn't see much point in going over and over these points. Equal housing, yeah, but you know what they did to property when they got it; cops needed to tackle 250-pound miscreants, not just read them their rights; prisoners were prisoners, for God's sake; children were children and if their parents were legally responsible for them, how could they not be told? It didn't make sense.

Meanwhile, the streets were unpaved, crime was up, taxes were up, and cars were rusting out in two years; and anyway, where are the divorce listings? I heard the couple down the street split up, but it's hush-hush. But the newspaper doesn't run divorces anymore! Oh, and the woman I work with, her son was dean's list at old State U and her daughter just got married to a guy from New York. Her taffetta gown was just beautiful -- they must have spent a fortune, wonder where they got that type of money? That stuff used to be in the newspaper. What happened?

And further meanwhile, in newsrooms, a growing, professionalized, committed journalistic force -- backed by more money than newsrooms had ever before had, educated in colleges, and often drawn to newspapers far from where they had grown up -- found its own view of the world growing further and further apart from John Q.'s. The answer, clearly, was to educate. "Give light and the people will find their own way!" "Let the people know the facts and the country will be saved!" Such were the mottos that had graced editorial pages. Trained journalists would make sure that the real reality -- not the reality of the era of "Father Knows Best" -- would be presented, and eventually John Q. and his whole family would get it and catch up.

More to come.