The media needs to initiate a deeper dialogue
By Adam de Jong
May 11, 2008 9:25 p.m.
More often than I would care to admit, I come across media coverage of an exceptionally salacious news story. And it only illustrates how most members of the American mainstream media treat the general public with nothing but disdainful condescension.
For all the talk about the idealism of self-loathing, chain-smoking journalists, the reality seems to warrant a much starker description: Journalists complement their enrapturing cynicism with the attention span of a gnat.
For the most recent example, let us turn our attention to the coverage of the bizarre drug bust at San Diego State University in which 96 young men were arrested, including 75 SDSU students. The media coverage gives reason to believe that though the media does not create “the problem,” asinine journalism blows stories way out of proportion in such a degrading way that it makes the public think an epidemic exists where it does not.
The SDSU drug raid is a perfect example. Less than a week ago, a six-month undercover investigation by the San Diego District Attorney, which was prompted by the cocaine overdose and death of a female student, ended in the raid of the SDSU chapter of Theta Chi’s fraternity house. According to the district attorney’s office, a 36-year-old male was the alleged conduit between the university drug network and a Mexican drug cartel.
First and foremost, I am saddened by what has transpired at SDSU. As a San Diego native, I am friends with many students at the university and wish nothing but the best for those who made stupid decisions at a young and evidently naive time in their lives. Obviously, what happened at SDSU is a testament to a lingering drug problem in this country.
It would be nice to see the media cover events with the perspective that allows the public to use this horrible event as a time to discuss our enduring drug problem in a frank and mature way. In an ideal world, the SDSU drug bust would provide newspapers and television news programs with a cycle of stories aimed at finally initiating a realistic dialogue about how best to revamp our drug policy so that fewer people are using dangerous substances and going to jail.
The drug problem has no easy solutions, but a good place to start is to move beyond the Reaganite “D.A.R.E.” and “Just say no!” hysteria and start an honest conversation about substance abuse. One wouldn’t expect politicians to initiate such a complex discussion, but one would hope that the media would be able to do it.
Yet consider some of the stories that have been published in the aftermath of the SDSU drug bust. The Sunday edition of The San Diego Union-Tribune had a story, “Drug raid has SDSU concerned on image.” It seems to convey that the biggest problem with what transpired is that SDSU is going to be thought of as a “party school.” The Los Angeles Times’ news story reported how the undercover police officers “dressed like students, complained about their parents and professors, and talked freely and knowingly of things of great interest on campus: music, sex and drugs.”
That explains everything about college life in a nutshell, doesn’t it?
If there was any broader societal message, one that transcends the drug policy, it would be that two of the SDSU students who were most involved in this little drug operation were on track to graduate with a master’s degree in homeland security and a bachelor’s in criminal justice, respectively. Now if that doesn’t make you feel good about your government I don’t know what will. But if we can’t find frankness from the media, maybe expecting a little bit of biting commentary is just too much to ask.
No wonder the national discourse on drugs is represented by the farcical people of D.A.R.E. This is what happens when the media treats us all like we are either too stupid or too sensitive to discuss complex political and social issues.
For as much as we drone on and on about freedom of the press, far too often our media outlets practice self-censorship out of nothing more than condescension.
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