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August 21, 2009 08:35 PM UTC

Journalism Professor Urges Media to "Report the Hate"

  • 39 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

Charles Davis, a journalism professor and Executive Director of the National Freedom of Information Coalition, wrote an interesting column urging the media to report on what’s really happening at many congressional town halls around the country:

Hate, shuffled off stage in the post-racial haze of the election of the nation’s first black president, is back with a vengeance. Hate, if it ever truly threatened to leave the political stage, is most definitely back, larger and nastier than ever.

As a near-absolutist First Amendment advocate, my prescription for hate speech is always more speech: Give the bigot a microphone as big as the hatred, I say, and watch as the marketplace of ideas works its magic.

Perhaps that’s why I worry, as I watch an emboldened mob grow more irresponsible with each passing day, that the mainstream media fails to give hate the coverage it deserves today.

My proposition is simple: Major news organizations need to cover hate the way they once did – as a standalone beat.

I was reminded of the way the news media once treated old-fashioned hate the other day while reading a PBS discussion of a fabulous book, “The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation.” The Race Beat, co-authored by Hank Klibanoff and Gene Roberts, documents the coverage of the civil rights movement in the South and chronicles in chilling detail what we now recall was a watershed in the treatment of hate as, well, morally repugnant behavior that we as a nation just weren’t going to stand for.

Such a stance required a moral determination on the part of the press – that overt racism institutionalized by Southern governments was wrong – and coverage of the goon sheriffs, their German Shepherds and their water hoses and their physical thuggery offered the nation a picture of hate in all its awful fury…

…Fox News’ Trace Gallagher said the other day that Fox would return to live coverage of the president’s health care town hall provided there is “any contentious questions, anybody yelling.”

Somewhere, somehow, the news media have to make the same determination those brave civil rights-era reporters and editors made: This is wrong, deeply wrong, and we must cover it, day in, day out, like any other beat, albeit a more distasteful beat than most.

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39 thoughts on “Journalism Professor Urges Media to “Report the Hate””

  2. I’ve watched, like everyone else, the vitriol that has comprised some of these town hall meetings.  While I’m embarrassed by it as a citizen of the United States, I’m not sure I consider it “hate” speech- even the constant references to Hitler and the Nazis.  I think it is more of an indication of how far we as a society have declined and what we will tolerate in our “conversations” with each other.

    Let’s be honest.  Have we seen anything worse this summer than that what we routinely see on Springer or any “reality” show on MT-V?  Over the years this country has tacitly given approval to yelling and screaming replacing thoughtful debate and respectful disagreement.  Look at O’Reilly, Hardball, etc.  Yell louder.  Drown out the other.  Hell, the McLauglin Group is even guilty.  If this was not true then these shows would not be popular.  It doesn’t make us wince anymore.  It is sad, but true.  

    This is nothing more than those particular chickens coming home to roost.  We have nobody else to blame but ourselves.

      1. …although there was far less that he had in common with Hitler than Obama does.  And not in the “Obama hates Jews” way.  In the way that he is attempting to control almost every aspect of our society.  As Jonah Goldberg would say, it’s “smiley-faced fascism.”  Good book, btw.

        In any case, the link I provided below is evidence of far-reaching hatred toward George Bush that was never covered by the media.  Bottom line here is that Democrats and liberals in the media are as hypocritical as they come.  

        Another example might be Barack Obama loaning $2 billion to a FOREIGN OIL company yesterday, the 7th most profitable company in the world (PETROBRAS-$18 billion in 2008).  He can support offshore drilling and obscene profits in Brazil, but not in America?

        2. Let’s start with the definition http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E…

          The Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im Bank) is the official export credit agency of the United States federal government. It was established in 1934 by an executive order, and made an independent agency in the Executive branch by Congress in 1945, for the purposes of financing and insuring foreign purchases of United States goods for customers unable or unwilling to accept credit risk. The mission of the Bank is to create and sustain U.S. jobs by financing sales of U.S. exports to international buyers. The Bank is chartered as a government corporation by the Congress of the United States; it was last chartered for a five year term in 2006.[1] Its Charter spells out the Bank’s authorities and limitations. Among them is the principle that Ex-Im Bank does not compete with private sector lenders, but rather provides financing for transactions that would otherwise not take place because commercial lenders are either unable or unwilling to accept the political or commercial risks inherent in the deal.

          The U.S. Export-Import Bank (Ex-Im Bank) is the principal government agency responsible for aiding the export of American goods and services, and thereby creating and sustaining U.S. jobs, through a variety of loan, guarantee, and insurance programs

          So this government corporation steps in to provide loans so that foreign corporations can fund the purchase of American goods and you think that is a bad thing during a recession?  Do you think that is a bad thing?  Why do you jobs? Profits? Workers? America?

          BTW Obama doesn’t really direct the money at the ex-im, a bipartisan board approves loans of this size. Oh and just so you know, the loan was approved before any of Obama’s appointees joined the board.

          http://www.exim.gov/brazil/pre…

          1. do you teach international econ somewhere?

            I’ve heard others like Krugman, Buffet, Friedman (Milton- not Tom), Volker, Greenspan and many more explain it. But your explanation (well, wiki’s) was just as good.

            1. I loved teaching, but bailed out of my PhD because I didn’t like the subjectivity of academic economic research (it has gotten better).

              Then I went to “wall street”. The markets are very unforgiving when it comes to subjective bullshit.

              I happen to have some direct experience with Ex-Im loans from my trading days, but I wouldn’t consider myself an expert on the matter.

              1. though in my experience ex-im experts get called that due to the depth of their political contact list, not objective subject matter expertise.  I’m thinking specifically of Caterpillar and John Deere- but others too.

        3. You denounce Hitler comparisons, and having cleaned your own personal slate, proceed to go nuts with them. Well done.

          Some of us have a little more respect for ourselves and for the process than repeatedly throwing out lines about Nazis for everything we disagree with.

          Not me, but some of us.

            1. doesn’t mean it wasn’t written. There was plenty of bitching from all sides about that one submission to MoveOn, which is why you know about it.

              As for why Katie Couric didn’t write an editorial criticizing William Nathaniel Coconut’s inflammatory poster at the back of a rally in Peoria, um, what would you have wanted her to say?

          2. I think the point is that “hate” is subjective.  Social norms generally dictate good and bad taste, but what I might consider “hate” some others might not.

            This is the same reason I’ve always had a problem with “hate crimes” legislation.  A person was beaten up.  The “crime” is assault.  That is NOT subjective.  The reason (was it hate?) is subjective.  I have never felt we should punish on what we thought others were thinking.  What we projected onto the action as the rationalization.  I always felt we should punish on actions alone.

            The media should be calling out the foolishness of it all. They could do this by a comparison chart.  Hitler killed 6 million jews (and others).  Obama did not.  Hitler had socialized medicine.  Obama wants a hybrid where the government plays a roll but the providers are still private.  On and on it could go.

            Perhaps that is why we have Stuart and Colbert.  They do the work of the news outlets anyway.    

            1. You just perpetuate it when you say we need a “chart” to compare, “Hitler had socialized medicine.  Obama wants a hybrid where the government plays a roll but the providers are still private.”  Why the hell compare Obama to Hitler in the first place?  Why not a comparison to modern countries who do have a form of national health care, which are democracies?

              1. …Was comparing Hitler to Obama.  

                If you would like to compare our healthcare to other modern industrialized nations that is fair- but a different topic than the one at hand.

                NOTHING pisses off an irrational hothead more (in hothead I don’t mean you WST, but the normal, run-of-the-mill “Obama is Hitler” person) than a calm rational response.  Nothing disarms them quicker too.

                So I would take out my chart and go line-by-line and watch their little veins begin to pop out of their forehead.  It would be fun!  I would love to do it at a town hall.  I wonder if FOX would cover it?  Most likely not.  Not sexy enough.  Not “man bites dog” enough.  

                The reality is you can’t have a war of wits against an un-armed person…

                And remember- the only thing higher than the rockies are the locals!

                1. a chart would change these loons mind?  Hell, Penry got caught getting his picture taken with a swastika sign, then had Nazi signs at his “everybody high on Crank rally”.  The first failure did not prevent the second.  They do it for a purpose.  To get the brain dead and racist support.

                  As you wrote, “The reality is you can’t have a war of wits against an un-armed person”, thus, no billboard, sign or chart will suffice as a weapon in that war.

            2. We make all kinds of laws that punish people disproportionately for the same objective outcome and a different subjective intent.

              Varying degrees of murder, for example.  Or sexual assault.  Or battery.  Or dozens of other categories of outcomes.

              Is it a different crime if I lose control of my car and crash into  you causing your death or I see you, and because of the color of your skin (or your gender or your religion etc) I aim for you, crashing into you and causing your death.  

              Of course it is. Same objective outcome. TOtally different- subjective- intent. But a different crime.

      2. I would argue it is ignorance.  I could argue that it is using the extreme to make a case against socialism.  Maybe it is just for the shock value.

        What I cannot argue is that these people honestly think that Obama is going to murder 6 million jews.  

        Ignorant and repulsive, yes.

        Hate?  Can’t get there…

    1. So the whole point of that article is that the Secret Service shouldn’t have questioned the guy with the sign saying, “Death to Obama, death to Michelle and her two stupid kids,” since some guy once held up a sign saying “The only dope worth shooting is Bush.” What that has to do with racism one way or the other is beyond me.

      But I have to say, the “Death to Obama” part didn’t bug me as it is a sort of typically unhinged but mostly harmless thing someone writes on a sign at a protest. The part about Michelle and the kids is what makes that sign really creepy to me. Curious that it didn’t bother you.

      1. …but as much as I dislike Obama I would’ve kicked that guy’s ass for saying such a thing.

        As for your question about what that has to do with racism…do you read?  Do you know how?  The generic word “hate” appears 8 times in the article, compared to “racism,” which appears only once.  I think the point is all the people who promote killing the president–whatever the motive, whoever the president–are complete and utter morons.  But there was thousands of such instances during the Bush administration that went virtually unreported and instead of denouncing comparisons of Bush to Hitler, CNN “reporters” called them “look alikes.”  There’s a small handful of really stupid people who promote killing Big O, but it is hardly representative of conservatives in this country.

        1. Yes, in fact I read so much that I know that “hate speech” is used in contemporary American society to refer to racism/sexism/homophobia and not just general anger or rudeness. Consider yourself slightly more educated.

          As for not seeing that sign, did you read the article you so proudly linked? Because his defense of that sign was his main reason for writing it.

          1. Very good try, but…only one of the eight mentions of “hate” is followed by the word “speech.”  Not to suggest that “hate speech” can’t, as you suggest, “refer to…general anger or rudeness.”  I’m even more surprised that you think someone holding a sign that says “Death to extremist Christian terrorist pig Bush” can be filed under the “general anger or rudeness” category.

            1. Let’s see if we can count the references to race and try to figure out whether the author is specifically concerned about racism. I bolded the parts where the author specifically mentions racism, civil rights, and hate speech.


              Hate, shuffled off stage in the post-racial haze of the election of the nation’s first black president, is back with a vengeance. Hate, if it ever truly threatened to leave the political stage, is most definitely back, larger and nastier than ever.

              I was reminded of the way the news media once treated old-fashioned hate the other day while reading a PBS discussion of a fabulous book, “The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation.” The Race Beat, co-authored by Hank Klibanoff and Gene Roberts, documents the coverage of the civil rights movement in the South and chronicles in chilling detail what we now recall was a watershed in the treatment of hate as, well, morally repugnant behavior that we as a nation just weren’t going to stand for.

              Such a stance required a moral determination on the part of the press – that overt racism institutionalized by Southern governments was wrong – and coverage of the goon sheriffs, their German Shepherds and their water hoses and their physical thuggery offered the nation a picture of hate in all its awful fury.

              Eager to jettison all that residual guilt, journalists and most Americans were ready to embrace the notion of a turning of the racial page, and President Barack Obama’s election offered hope that the hate beat was a thing of the past.

              Glenn Beck tells viewers President Obama has “a deep-seated hatred of white people,” while Sean Hannity openly relishes violence – and declares that if it occurs, the president will have only himself to blame. Beck one-ups Hannity by opining that white males are being driven to murderous rage by “political correctness.” Rush Limbaugh, meanwhile, has reached the point where he uses the names “Obama” and “Hitler” at random. All in a single week on the hate beat.

              Somewhere, somehow, the news media have to make the same determination those brave civil rights-era reporters and editors made: This is wrong, deeply wrong, and we must cover it, day in, day out, like any other beat, albeit a more distasteful beat than most.

              Wow, I think I’ve managed to figure out that the article involves race!

              1. …posted by ColoradoPols.  We’re discussing what’s posted.  Oh, and did I mention that you’re ignoring the actual argument in favor of saying I’m somehow off topic?  I know it’s the norm around here, but maybe you could set a higher standard for yourself.

                  1. I recognize hate when I see, read, hear or otherwise am faced by it…..those who can’t recognize hate, are forgiven……but not to be recognized as arbiters.

    2. It all makes me ill.  

      I have to keep repeating to myself that I will fight to the death against what they say at the same time as I will fight to the death for their right to say it…

  4. is he’s trying to argue that hateful statements are ok. He’s doing it mostly based on equivilent things he can find said about Bush – but the bottom line is he’s arguing that these are all fine.

    And on the left we have a lot of discussion about why statements like this are harmful to our society and should be condemned be they from the left or right.

    Interesting…

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