Don’t Blast the Media. Engage!

A s I write, I’m about to speak for the second time in a week about the media. Both invitations, at two very different conferences, I almost turned down, because I don’t think much about the media. I obviously work in it. I’m tremendously grateful to have platforms to highlight the good and to work through contentious issues. But early on in my life as an opinion journalist, I realized that criticizing the mainstream media — “the liberal media” — could be something of an easy parlor game among conservatives. It’s true that the media tend to be more secular and liberal than I’d like. But why complain? How about engage?

The first conference focused on talking about truth in a post-truth society. I can’t prove it, but I’m certain that people long for truth. Think about our Covid time. If there was not more to life than flattening the curve, three years ago this month, ours would be a dire existence.

This conference was explicitly Catholic, and an audience member credited Father Mike Schmitz for his excellent use of the media, with his Bible in a Year podcast, which records a priest reading parts of the Bible daily. It was the most popular podcast in America. That does suggest that people are thirsting for something.

I once asked him whether he was worried about losing his humility with such a viral type of feature. He reminded me that he was simply reading the Bible. For years, he had a podcast where he gave his opinions on things. That wasn’t as popular as Scripture. There’s a humility check. And it says something about what people want. Something certain. Something hopeful. Something transcendent.

The second conference hasn’t happened yet, as I write. It’s on a Catholic campus, but not necessarily for a Catholic audience. The questions this time will be about religion and democracy. I don’t know whether people will agree, but I keep thinking of Alexis de Tocqueville and his Democracy in America. We need believers. We need people who believe in a merciful God so that there is some mercy in the midst of our angry chaos. People who believe that they need to live according to the Sermon on the Mount make for better neighbors.

One of the great malpractices of our time — though surely not exclusive to it — is using religion for political purposes. God does not belong to a political party. He is much greater than that. And therein lies our hope. We humans — some of us, maybe most of us? — try. But we fall short. Our politics completely fall short. But that’s not the sum of our existence.

If you take a look at media, there are signs of goodness and beauty. Think of the local news spots that feature children in foster care who need a home. Someone realized that even with all the pressures in daily life, people can be good and generous, and that’s newsworthy.

One of my hopes is that after the Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, we can have a coming together. The initial media response was a wee bit of madness. But nine months in, I wonder whether we now have the opportunity to highlight how we can best help women and families. There really is more common ground than we generally think. Most people who are pro-choice are not rabidly pro-abortion. I don’t know if that comes through in politics. Media though, don’t have to win elections. Yes, there are ratings. Yes, there are clicks. But good stories mean something. They can attract. They can inspire. At a certain point, we can’t take another scare story. There is more to tell. There is reason to inspire. For all of us.

I’m still not entirely sure what I’m going to say to my audience of media practitioners and academics about the media and religion. But in practice, I’m grateful to you who put up with reading me! I not only obviously have a point of view — I do think there is something refreshingly honest about opinion journalism — but I bring my faith into much of what I write. National Review founder William F. Buckley Jr. gave me the idea for that.

As then-editor of our website in 2008, I announced his death and in response received countless tributes about readers’ experiences with him. Often the story was about how, when a person encountered him, he treated that individual like the most important person in the world. In retrospect, most wished they had not talked, but listened. It was his reverence for them and, for those who never met him, his faith perspective that made a lasting impression on them. My favorite email was from a medical doctor who said that Bill was the father figure in his life — he had watched him on his PBS Firing Line show weekly, and his mother had encouraged him to learn confidence from WFB.

Writing about religion, or from a faith perspective, doesn’t mean you are any better than anyone else. It generally means you know there is more than what you know and do. In my case, it means I am a sinner in need of a Savior, and I’m blessed to see people living for eternity in my travels.

The media are a beautiful thing. We all have our criticisms and preferences. But that we can even have a bit of a relationship here — amazing! May we always use it for the good.

This column is based on one available through Andrews McMeel Universal’s Newspaper Enterprise Association.