Sign up for The Media Today, CJRâs daily newsletter.
When a political dispute breaks out, should reporters simply âreport the controversy,â or instead attempt to referee and resolve it? This is one of journalismâs never-ending debates, and it came to the forefront again over the weekend, as news organizations covered the fallout from Senate majority leader Harry Reidâs assertion, in 2008, that voters would embrace Barack Obama in part because he was a “light-skinnedâ African American âwith no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.â
These remarks, made public in the new book Game Change, an account of the 2008 presidential campaign, set off a volley of apologies and accusations. Republicans compared the racially charged remarks with ones made in 2002 by then-Senator Trent Lott, and argued that, like Lott, Reid should be made to resign as Senate majority leader. Democrats pushed back, saying that Reidâs remarks were hardly analogous to Lottâs fond comments about Strom Thurmondâs 1948 segregationist campaign for the White House. (Lott: âWhen Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We’re proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn’t have had all these problems over all these years, either.â)
The political press, of course, ate this up; seemingly every major outlet had an article Monday on Reidâs troubles. For the most part, the structure of these stories was similar: Republicans say this, Democrats say that, this is whatâs likely to happen next. But there were real differences in the way different stories attempted (or didnât attempt) to deal with the key question: whether Lottâs and Reidâs comments were actually equivalent. Those differences, in turn, have consequences for the mediaâs ability to write about race and politics. If you donât draw distinctions between dissimilar events, you canât make sense of those events.
At the far end of the âdonât attemptâ pool is Deborah Solomonâs brief story in Mondayâs Wall Street Journal. After presenting what Lott and Reid said, the story quotes GOP Chairman Michael Steele alleging the existence of a âdouble standardâ that favors Democrats, follows that up with Reidâs apology, then moves on to other matters. Thereâs a little more, but not much, in a blog post co-written by Solomon covering the same material.
Stories elsewhere tried harder to engage the question. Chris Cillizzaâs WaPo article quotes Democratic Party chairman Tim Kaine as saying Reidâs remarks âclearly were in the context of praisingâ Obama, and Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) saying the two episodes had a âtotally different context.â Douglass K. Danielâs AP story goes with a longer version of Jack Reedâs quote. But while both stories give space to other Democrats to vouch for Reidâs anti-racist bona fides, they donât fully tease out the difference between the Lott and Reid remarks.
David Jacksonâs USA Today story, meanwhile, doesnât get around to the âdouble standardâ issue until its conclusion, but when it does, it offers a clearer statement: âKaine, who appeared with Steele on NBCâs Meet the Press, said Lottâs comments appeared to support segregation, while Reid was trying to praise Obamaâs ability.â A similar take, at greater length, appears in The New York Times. The opening of Mark Leibovichâs article is archetypal âhe-said, he-saidâ stuff, but toward the end, thereâs this:
âThey are not in the least bit comparable,â said Lani Guinier, the Harvard Law School professor whose nomination as assistant attorney general for civil rights in 1993 was pummeled by conservative groups and eventually withdrawn by President Bill Clinton.
Mr. Lottâs remarks, Ms. Guinier said, seemed to be expressing nostalgia for the segregationist platform of Mr. Thurmondâs 1948 presidential campaign, while Mr. Reid comments seemed to be addressing âan unfortunate truth about the present.â That truth, she said, is that Mr. Obama would have had a more difficult time getting elected if his skin were darker and if he spoke in a dialect more identifiable as âblack.â
While thatâs a lot more clear and cogent than a vague reference to a âdifferent context,â itâs still presented in the voice of a sometime political participant. Among mainstream reporters, Politicoâs John Bresnahan was the only one to directly address the comparison. Bresnahanâs Sunday story opens with a lengthy recitation of the Republican line, then delivers this paragraph:
The comments â or at least the interpretations of them â were obviously different: While Lott’s words could be interpreted as a call for the continuation of racial segregation, Reid’s were not an argument for race-based policies but rather a characterization of racial attitudes among voters today.
This is correct. Reidâs use of the word âNegroâ was tin-eared and offensive (not to mention, in the context of even a âdeep backgroundâ interview, incredibly dumb). But unlike Lott, the idea he was expressing amounted to analysis, not a prescriptive political vision. Whatâs more, his analysis was accurate. As excellent pieces by Dave Weigel and Omar Wasow show, Reidâs thoughts about the nature of Obamaâs appeal are backed up by research about how voters perceive black candidates; they are also, as Jeff Zeleny writes for the Times, consistent with things that Obama himself has said.
This is interesting stuffâat least as interesting, in the long run, as the latest mess Harry Reid has created for himself. But by conflating the two sets of remarksâor at least, by not taking a skeptical look at efforts to conflate themâmuch of the press effectively conspires to prevent itself from digging into this fertile ground. There is no way to explore the complicated way that race and politics interact, and to write intelligently about that intersection, if you are going to seriously entertain the prospect that Reidâs and Lottâs comments are equally offensive. In an ideal model of the press, journalists are stewards of public discourse, people who set public norms but also help the public talk about knotty subjects like race and racism. A failure to draw important distinctions doesnât just shirk the responsibility implied by that model, it actively frustrates it.
The traditionalistâs objection is that itâs not up to reporters to make those determinations; itâs up to them to report the news. And not every news story, of course, is an exegesis on race and politics; some are just accounts of what people said.
Thereâs something to that. But even âreporting the newsâ consists of making endless little judgments. Here, for example, is another portion of the NYT story linked above:
Politically speaking, there is a fundamental difference between Mr. Reidâs travails and those of Mr. Lott. While Mr. Reid was instantly forgiven and strongly supported by Mr. Obama, Mr. Lott was not by the Bush administration (Mr. Lott essentially accused the Bush White House of abandoning him.)
Based on that passage, itâs fine for reporters to make interpretations and draw conclusionsâon their own informed authorityâabout the political fallout from events. Why, then, shouldnât they be able to bring the same critical approach to bear on events themselves? Thatâs what Bresnahan did in his Politico storyâand itâs something we should expect from journalists more often.
Has America ever needed a media defender more than now? Help us by joining CJR today.