I have come to the conclusion that it might be easier
to invite Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to a bar mitzvah than to
defend the press to fellow conservatives.
I've tried it before, penning a tongue-in-cheek column
about the insidious blogosphere acronym MSM
(mainstream media), only to be pelted with FU and SOB
initialism from offended right-leaning readers.
As a career journalist and lifelong Republican, I've
often found myself caught between an elephant and a
newspaper rack. How does one reconcile happily being a
press-pass-carrying member of all that conservatives
have come to detest?
Recently, a reader gently explained it to me: I'm
suffering from the Stockholm syndrome.
Interestingly enough, every time the latest Iraq
kidnapping tale hits the wires, my journalism
colleagues note that I would make a horrible hostage.
Between demanding a mirror to fix my hair before the
requisite Al-Jazeera video and flinging my best
flippant Arabic phrases at the New Balance-clad
captors, I would, estimate my colleagues, be dead
within about 10 minutes.
But being a hostage of the liberal media ain't
half-bad. Sure, one endures sleep deprivation and
sometimes sources would like to rip your fingernails
out, but newsrooms feed hostages well, with a steady
supply of chips and salsa, and free pizza provided on
nights of elections and national disasters. These are
the people with whom I spend holidays, laugh, cry,
drink and watch televised police pursuits. Every day I
willingly return for more.
But the Stockholm syndrome isn't just about being
comfortable in one's hostage situation. It's about
developing loyalty to your captors.
When I briefly left the newsroom to helm a magazine,
the office with a view, 9-to-5 schedule, impeccable
carpets and living wage completely depressed me.
Within a year, I was back to the asylum and happier
than Hugo Chavez in a red-shirt store.
I have never remotely denied that newsrooms lean
liberal. I personally don't care how a reporter or
editor votes, as long as their work is objective and
fair. Journalists on both sides of the political
spectrum can unfortunately be biased, or give off the
impression of bias. I quickly learned my lesson as a
newbie reporter when I pulled up to a Democratic
election-night victory party with a GOP sticker on
my car and nearly got chased with torches.
I've worked full-time in five newsrooms, and can
report there are lots of liberals, lots of moderates
(usually socially liberal, more conservative on crime
and defense or fiscal matters) and a few
conservatives. Cynical liberals and irreverent
conservatives adapt best in newsrooms. The smug
liberals and pious conservatives generally don't
fare as well. Unifying factors among journalists
usually include "South Park" or similar non-PC humor.
I've never been shy about my electoral preferences —
not that it wasn't obvious that I was one of two or
three people giddy on election nights 2000 and 2004 in
a sea of newsroom glum. But through the years my desks
have been decked out with stuffed GOP elephants,
Reagan shrines or a "Let's Make Fun of the French!"
calendar.
Sometimes my captors have pleasantly surprised me. A
couple of years ago, I bought a talking Donald
Rumsfeld doll for my desk. Instead of stringing Rummy
up by his little loafered foot, a liberal co-worker
bought him some friends: George Bush Sr. and Dennis
Miller dolls. It's like a big right-wing tea party on
my desk now — or starting to look like Republican
"Chucky."
Sometimes my captors have scared the bejeezus out of
me. One birthday, my colleagues at the time presented
me with a life-sized cardboard cutout of Bill Clinton
(sans Big Mac) inscribed on the back, "Dearest Bridge,
Can't we all just get along? ... P.S. My place at
six." Bill was soon after adorned by yours truly with
a GOP baseball cap and lacy red bra, and a Bush-Cheney
button was pinned on his lapel.
Fred Barnes once mused in The Weekly Standard that the
politically homogenous newsroom — from 53 percent
liberal and 17 percent conservative in a 1971 survey
to 34 percent liberal and 7 percent conservative in a
2004 survey by Pew Research Center for the People and
the Press — was due to increased diversity
recruiting. "In truth, the effort to hire more
minorities and women has had the effect of making the
media more liberal," he wrote.
But I would add that drop is also due to news-happy
conservatives avoiding the mainstream media; the
explosion of blogs has especially provided a home for
right-wing news junkies to write without fearing a
partisan editor over their shoulder. Yet conservatives
really need to take the bull by the horns and enter
the mainstream press — in all echelons of the
newsroom — and not just complain about leftist slant.
Strive to be as fair and objective as you'd wish all
of your colleagues to be, work hard and volunteer to
bring the chips and salsa once in a while, and you'll
be fine.
But will newbie conservative journalists become
victims of the Stockholm syndrome as well? I'd
ruminate on that, but I've got to go — my captors
need me to shoot another video.
