Jennifer Foster: Consider the words, not just the speaker

Let’s play a little game. You’ve undoubtedly heard about the way newspapers, especially daily newspapers in midsize and large markets, have been shedding staff members by the dozens to try to cut expenses.

Now, consider the following statement:

“Newspapers, bought up by corporations in the last generation, have pursued profits at the expense of news gathering.”

Would you agree with that?

What if I told you that Michael Moore said it?

I’ve thought a lot this week about how people react to the person speaking rather than what is being said. It happened to me as I was reading the latest column by liberal feminist Susan Estrich. I usually read her strictly for entertainment, but then I found myself actually agreeing with her.

My instinctive reaction was moderate alarm.

Why? Everything she said about John Edwards was right.

The force of the speaker’s personality so often obscures the reception and consideration of information – even good information – he or she is delivering, much to the detriment of the listener’s complete understanding.

Take Moore’s statement. It’s simple: It’s impossible to cover the same amount of news the same way with fewer people. Something’s got to give. In these days of news staff shrinkage, it’s either the completeness or the complexity of the coverage – or both.
So, in their zeal for double-digit profits margins, corporate-owned newspapers continue to cut staff and resources used to gather and report the news. Those actions have unavoidable, undeniable ramifications in the news product.
In other words, newspapers have pursued profits at the expense of news gathering.
Those are the facts, and they aren’t any less true if Michael Moore acknowledges them.
In this space last week, I defined statesmanship as the subjugation of partisanship, the willingness to listen to those with differing points of view.
But guess what, folks? Our politicians aren’t the only ones who need to change their ways.
We are taught as young men and women that polite people don’t discuss politics or religion with others, ostensibly because it’s impossible to do so without agreeably disagreeing with them. That does everyone a disservice in so many ways: Yes, it robs us of opportunities both to hear other arguments and strengthen our own. But worse, it deprives us of the chance to learn how to separate the people from the issue, how to get along them in spite of disagreements. That ability goes beyond politics. It’s a life skill everyone needs.
Blame it on the 24-hour news cycle and the promulgation of cable news channels, but most political discussion in America now takes place in isolated vacuums. They are populated by viewers and listeners who talk only to their fellow vacuum-dwellers and vilify and blame folks in the other vacuums. And they are ruled by high profile, multimedia magnates who prize unabashedly their status and the cult-like followings their personalities create.
Americans’ constitutionally protected freedom of speech is designed to ensure a marketplace of ideas, a society in which the best ideas for governance, among other things, win out based on reason.
But the marketplace is useless if no one comes to the sale.
We have to learn how to talk to each other again. Assessing the statement aside from the politician or pundit who makes it is a good start.

Jennifer Foster is a political enthusiast who lives in Auburn and writes a column for the Opelika-Auburn News. She can be reached at jefoster1@bellsouth.net