The enemies of the people

Ihate it when people in our business start talking—or worse, writing—about how noble they are to do this work. Because journalism is no more noble than a lot of jobs, and a lot less noble than a few. Most of us do it because we wanted inside work, or because other things didn’t work out. Journalism is a fall-back for a lot of us; some of us nurse novels, some see what we do as a day job, a way of paying the bills until we figure things out or someone discovers our genius. I’ve worked at newspapers for nearly 40 years and don’t have any illusions about my colleagues. Some of us are good folks, some of us aren’t. Some of us are lazy. Some of us work really hard.

Some of us are cynical sourpusses. Some of us are bright-eyed and idealistic.

It’s probably no different at your place of business.

But while we’re no more or less noble than anybody else who works for a living, the work we do is important. At least the basic stuff is— going to meetings, asking questions, looking details up in court records— is important. (I’m very aware that you can get anyone to give you an opinion for free.) Someone needs to monitor the people who have the means to tax us and put us in jail. Someone needs to keep up with the transactional business of government. Someone needs to hold the powerful accountable.

It’s a simple job, but hard to do well. All you have to do is ask powerful people who don’t want to deal with you questions they don’t want to answer.

Some of those powerful people invariably push back. I’ve had political consultants and deputy sheriffs come after me, wanting my job because I wrote something they didn’t like. And they’d have had it too if I’d been sloppy, if I hadn’t had the notes and the recordings to back up the account that was printed. I’ve seen people get in big trouble in this business for making innocent mistakes. For the most part, newspapers—and most news-gathering organizations—are serious about accuracy.

Sure, there are exceptions. Especially these days, when there is a lot of fake news out there. It’s easier to make stuff up than tell the truth. I’ve known dishonest reporters who’ve done that. Most of them didn’t last, but I imagine a few prospered.

There’s money to be made in presenting rightfully confused people a narrative that exonerates them and scapegoats those not like them. People would rather be entertained than educated. They’d rather receive a world view that privileges their preconceived notions than be challenged by the reality that most issues are complex and no one really knows the precise best thing to do at any given time.

It’s easier to sell reductive, simplistic solutions than nuance. It’s easier to scare people than to make them understand that, though the universe is an innately dangerous place and absolute security is impossible to achieve, the best way to go through life is fearlessly, with your heart open to fresh avenues of delight.

I’m aware of how that sounds. I stand by it. The world is savage, but the best way to live is fearlessly.

People get death threats in this business. When it happens you’re supposed to tell your supervisors and let them make a big deal about it, but usually you hang up on the caller and get back to work. A couple of times a year you might get a weird call or email that could be construed as a threat. These days, the electronic stuff is pretty easy to trace back. If you send me a creepy email I can usually find out who you are and whether I need to be concerned within a few minutes. (I work at a newspaper, son, I know how to track you through the public records.)

But I spent a lot of years working the crime beat. I know that sometimes when someone makes a threat, they will follow through.

I have worked in buildings with bulletproof glass where visitors had to be buzzed in through security. I thought that was silly, but then some of the people I worked with had been friends with Don Bolles, an investigative journalist assassinated in 1976. (That same year Jim Leslie, a former reporter for the Shreveport Times turned political advertising consultant, was shotgunned to death in Baton Rouge because he went to the newspaper when a powerful politician tried to pay him for his services with a city check.)

Last week, one of the crazy people who got sideways with a newspaper and made threats followed through on them. I didn’t know any of the people killed, but our professional community is an increasingly tighter circle—two of them were friends of friends. They had families. They had bills. They had problems.

They were like you and me.

And I am not one to blame anyone but the criminal who decides to act. I don’t think violent movies or video games or the reckless rhetoric of demagogues cause us to hurt one another. But these things do contribute to the coarsening of society and the fraying of the cords of connection between us. They don’t make the madman act, but they might contribute to the making of the madman.

I’m not saying we ought to feel bad those people were murdered because they were newspaper reporters engaged in some noble pursuit. I’m saying we ought to feel bad because they were human beings who were only doing their necessary, important, lousy-paying and disappearing jobs.

You call them “enemies of the people”? I’ll fight you.

A lot of us will.