The article was originally published in the Casper-Star Tribune on November 2, 2019.
The late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan once said, “You are entitled to your opinion. But you are not entitled to your own facts.” His words came to mind this month, when the State Department issued its nine-page report on the investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server. The New York Times headline read: “State Dept. Finds No ‘Deliberate Mishandling’ of Clinton emails,” while Fox News’s headline read “State Department report on Clinton Emails finds hundreds of violations, dozens of individuals at fault.”
Reading further, Fox’s opening paragraph described an investigation that “found dozens of individuals at fault and hundreds of security violations,” and that “the report described an investigation fraught with obstacles.” After reading the document for myself, I found the Fox News story accurate. Meanwhile, The New York Times correctly reported that “there was no systemic or deliberate mishandling of classified information,” and that the State Department had reviewed “thousands of pages” and “took statements from hundreds of past and present officials.”
Both sets of facts can be found in the same nine-page report. But while Fox readers prefer to hear that Hillary Clinton is a crook, New York Times subscribers want to learn that she’s been profoundly mistreated; and in today’s news media everyone can have what they want.
Nearly every morning our news reporting pulls us farther apart as a country by presenting us with two sets of facts. A Pew Research Center Report found that roughly half of all Republicans now think Democrats are “closed minded,” “immoral,” “lazy” and “dishonest,” and about a third of Democrats have similar views toward Republicans. Today, 27 percent of Democrats and 36 percent of Republicans see the opposing party as a threat to the country, making it no wonder we can’t come together long enough to fix our crumbling highways or lower the exorbitant cost of prescription drugs.
It wasn’t always this way. A 1956 poll showed 78 percent of Republicans and 64 percent of Democrats viewed the media as fair and balanced — this during a time when Republicans and Democrats read the same local newspaper in the morning, and over supper tuned to the same CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite. As neighbors we didn’t always agree, but with a common set of facts, we nonetheless united around policies as varied as the Wilderness Act and Medicare. Together we established nearly 50 national parks and passed legislation ranging from the Voting Rights Act, immigration reform, veterans benefits, the Freedom of Information Act, the Highway Safety Act and Head Start. We also had a Senate that understood the importance of working together. Between 1900 and 1950 they voted on 34 nominations to the Supreme Court and approved 71 percent of those nominations by a simple voice vote.
But in 1981, Cronkite — once considered the most trusted man in America — retired. A few years later the FCC abolished the Fairness Doctrine and the Cable Act relaxed controls over cable TV. This opened the way for Rush Limbaugh to launch his nationally syndicated radio program and Fox News to create an alternative for conservative viewers who felt disenfranchised by a media dominated by the Democratic Party.
But with this new proliferation of competing news organizations, there were no longer enough customers to go around and that unleashed a set of commercial forces that increasingly left media organizations using controversy to attract their viewers. No longer was it sufficient for them to be just factual and accessible. To survive, they needed to find a niche. Increasingly, that required tailoring a message to appeal rather than just inform. The days of Walter Cronkite were over, and it is no coincidence that it also marked the moment when we began to forget how to work together. The price we pay for our divisions is unaffordable healthcare, a stalemate at our borders and an educational system that has let down an entire generation.
In a monarchy or a dictatorship, none of this might matter. But our system of government requires that we work together in order to get things done. The Framers knew that the best way to lower prescription drug prices would take into consideration the needs of a conservative coal miner from Wyoming alongside those of a liberal English teacher from Connecticut. They gave us a democracy, not a kingdom, but we have lost sight that for this to work we require a common set of facts.
In June of 2016 Michelle Obama said, “Here in America, we don’t let our differences tear us apart. Not here. Because we know that our greatness comes from when we appreciate each other’s strengths, when we learn from each other.” A few months later, President Trump said in his inauguration address, “When America is united, America is totally unstoppable.” Oddly enough, on this point they are both correct.