Tom Avila is a contributing writer to Metro Weekly news magazine and a staffer for the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association (NLGJA) . He has written a book...which no one has chosen to publish.
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Before losing her battle with breast cancer, my friend Jilline was a prominent member of the Philadelphia theater scene.
A writer and performer whose autobiographical cabaret performances included songs like “Come On to My House” – sung while she cooked Italian food for her audience – and a burlesque-flavored version of the Disney classic “Bear Necessities,” Jilline would greet her audiences by introducing herself as “the 6-foot Amazon redhead whom all men desire.”
It’s funny that an interview with Mike Huckabee should remind me of that.
Flipping channels, I stumbled on an interview with the Republican presidential hopeful where he was, once again, trying to move the interviewer beyond theology and into topics like the economy, health care and the war in Iraq. Amazing, really, when you consider the frustration expressed by some political journalists who constantly find their policy-centric questions stymied by prolonged circular rhetoric and pseudo-inspirational anecdotes.
In essence, Huckabee is trying to add adjectives to his own intro, to adjust the narrative so that he is defined as being more than the “evangelical candidate” or the “God candidate.” Perhaps to something more like “the fiscally conservative, bass guitar playing, father of three who supports consumer-based health care and expanded highway infrastructure.”
And while the vast majority of us have not run, are not running and will not ever run for public office, we are all walking around with any number of adjectives strung together. I’m a “5-foot-8-inch, fiscally conservative, gay, Mexican-Irish, Catholic with policy opinions on national defense, immigration and education reform that defy the traditional definitions of conservative and liberal.”
The Personal Bio as a Reporting Tool
If you’ve ever read Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel’s book, The Elements of Journalism , or if you’ve participated in one of the Traveling Curriculum training sessions offered by CCJ, you’re already familiar with the concept of the personal bio as a reporting tool. The idea is that we all bring something to the table … or laptop … when we sit down to write; to pretend the factors that make up our identity have no effect on our journalism is unrealistic.
Heck, some of us write monthly columns where we do nothing but.
But what about your readers, your viewers and, as we think about the upcoming election cycle, the individual American voter? Think about it. How many times have you heard, read or even asked, “What are the evangelicals thinking right now?” or “What are Latino voters going to do?”
Obviously, the polling that allows journalists to draw conclusions that require a minorities-as-monoliths way of thinking is designed to give audiences an idea of the big picture, not a surgical dissection.
And the pundits and the pollsters have their own job to do with interpreting and explaining what those numbers might mean. That’s the key word right there. Might.
I have to say that I loved watching what happened in New Hampshire. First, because I’m a native New Englander (another line for the intro), I have long known that “Live Free or Die” is much, much more than a motto on the Granite State license plate. One New Hampshire voter who was interviewed just before the primary warned the journalists covering the contest that “if you tell us we’re going to vote for A or B, we’ll vote for C.”
Crystal Ball Punditry
But I also loved it because it was all starting to feel too finished. Watching and reading the coverage between Iowa and New Hampshire made it seem like things were all wrapped up. And why is that? Because women were going to vote this way and there weren’t enough evangelical Christians in New Hampshire to go that way .gif)
and Latinos love Senator Clinton because of the Clintons’ past relationship with the community … unless we love Obama because he can identify with the racial issues we deal with. Or we like McCain because we vote Republican.
It’s one thing to use all the polls and even crystal ball punditry as a starting place for reporting – whether the reporting is on the presidential campaign, public attitudes toward prayer in schools or some piece of state or local legislation – but think of these things as the onramp to a four-lane highway, not a narrow dirt road.
You know your community, and whether you’re reporting at the local, state or national level, that information is invaluable. If polls and surveys are telling you that voters in rural areas are thinking a particular way and you happen to live in a rural community, test all the lanes. Don’t leave the newsroom thinking that you have to find a “soccer mom married to a NASCAR dad with two kids in a public school who is for ‘No Child Left Behind.’” Leave the newsroom ready to see what the people who the pollsters might not have spoken to are thinking.
It will not only make your reporting more robust and nuanced, it will also keep the public conversation moving. You’ll be informing potential voters and decision makers what the landscape looks like, not affirming or alienating.
After all, it’s hard to be motivated to participate in the public conversation when your television and newspaper are telling you the decision has already been made. Christians don’t believe in same-sex marriage. Democrats are for amnesty for undocumented workers. Young voters are backing the candidate of change (whoever that is this week).
The 2008 primary process is showing us that the American public is vast, diverse and increasingly unpredictable. They need journalism that appreciates and addresses that diversity and prepares them to go their own way.
The opinions expressed in this essay are those of a 5’ 8”, fiscally conservative, gay, Mexican-Irish, Catholic and not those of his employer, the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association.
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