Journalists should not offer solutions
News and opinion are fine, but it’s up to pols to solve problems
JUDGING from my inbox, there are those who want to drag me out of the opinion business and into the solutions industry. “You seem to have a lot of criticism without your solutions,” wrote one reader. “It is easy to point fingers, but it is difficult to provide attainable answers and solutions.”
I hear it from the left when I hammer Democrats: “You are a typical conservative: full of criticism and complaint without one single constructive idea.”
And from the right when I pummel Republicans: “I read your article, which the newspaper said was a position from the right. REALLY? You criticize the right but do not offer any solutions.”
Sometimes, the push is sincere. Someone wants to know what I would do to clean up the messes I write about.
They don’t come any messier than the question of what to do with immigrants and refugees.
“It would be interesting to know what your ideas are about how we can solve the immigration situation, although it’s been occurring for years,” wrote another reader.
I like the word “situation” as opposed to “problem.”
Our only problem with immigrants is that we can’t get enough of them. There are still plenty of chores that need doing. After all, Americans have succeeded in raising several generations of smug and entitled young people who won’t do them.
X’ers, millennials, Generation Z, I’m looking at you.
As for refugees, the only problem is that they took Lady Liberty at her word when she promised — in the words of the poet Emma Lazarus — to take in the “wretched refuse,” the “huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” Offering sanctuary is what Americans do — at least when it suits us.
These are opinions, insights and observations. But they aren’t solutions. That’s the point. Solutions are fine — coming from butchers, bakers or candlestick makers.
Journalists should uncover facts, tell stories, fight bullies, follow their curiosity, lift up rocks, make people think, hold the powerful accountable, comfort the deprived and defend the despised.
But the one thing we should not do — not ever — is confuse our role with that of policymakers to the point where we suddenly feel pressured or compelled to propose solutions.
It is my job to tell you that you’re in a fix and maybe explain how you got into that fix, but not to find you a way out.
Here’s the best reason why: We’re supposed to analyze the universe of proposed solutions and tell you which ones are worth a shiny nickel. That’s hard to do when you have your own horse in the race. If I came out with my solutions, I’d be too busy pushing them to give yours a fair hearing.
Besides, dreaming up solutions to issues, problems and challenges is not all that difficult. In fact, usually, the process seems to be as easy as pie. After all, so many people come up with solutions so effortlessly.
Hey, I didn’t say they were good solutions.
The truth is, I do have some of my own, and they’re quite good — and, I think, workable. I didn’t say I didn’t have them, only that I didn’t think journalists should be proposing them. Mostly, I keep them to myself.
I have a 10-point plan for what President Joe Biden could do right now to alleviate the current situation on the U.s.-mexico border and a 20-point plan for what any U.S. president could do, with the help of Congress, to create an immigration policy that is better, fairer and more humane.
So what? My ideas are no better or worse than anyone else’s. The problem isn’t that the American people lack for ideas. It’s that our elected leaders in Washington lack the will to implement those ideas because they’re afraid of angering so many people that they’ll be voted out of office.
Ours is a land of immigrants that despises immigrants. It’s been that way since the mid-1700s when Benjamin Franklin - who was born in Boston but identified as an Englishman — claimed the Germans were invading Pennsylvania. He wanted them out.
That was no solution. And Franklin, in addition to being an author and printer, was also one of the nation’s first newspapermen.
For journalists - real ones, not podcasters or cable TV hosts - it is enough of a contribution to flesh out an issue in all its complexity and get others to think deeply and critically about it, so they can come up with their own solutions. You folks can take it from there.