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I live in the Midwest and am more than a little tired of gloom and doom journalists. The Trump’s America travelogues were cute at first but now are just plain ignorant.
There was a formula to the articles. You trooped to a series of rural areas you never heard of before in November of 2016 like you were on Safari. Then you talked to the quirky natives and wrote depressing, rambling screeds about the dummies who voted for Trump. And you went hunting for racists. Unfortunately, you did not learn a damn thing. Other than confirm your bias.
But the Heartland is not as dystopian as you want it to be. This is not a drug-addicted wasteland with no jobs and no hope. It is a changing economy, and people of different races actually live next door to each other and get along. Most of the time. Unlike, say, the Upper West Side or California’s gated communities. And the stories about all the awful are getting kind of boring. They all sound the same. Even the neo nazi the New York Times found at the grocery store. Yeah, it is nice to know where these assclowns are, but we can figure that out ourselves. So what do you offer as a solution?
Michael Cooper in US News has a challenge for you all here:
It’s important to know what happened. The world changed. And those changes were most acutely felt in communities built on manufacturing – like mine. But it’s time to talk about the answers. Americans love an underdog and a comeback story, but they’ll stop reading about Appalachia and the Rust Belt as long as the stories end in anxiety and uncertainty.
We don’t need profiles that excuse ignorance and treat bigotry as nostalgia. We don’t need stereotypes and quotable characters at the lunch counter. We need serious discussion of the challenges facing America’s heartland, not the fatalism heavy in every profile of western Pennsylvania.
Well, duh. Do these journalists think we do not know about the changes? We know the GM plant on 36th closed, and we know about the drug issues in our towns. And we are trying to solve our issues. We are addressing overdoses, for example, and stopping bullying . And we really do not need you coming in to awfulize and point out the obvious. Or wallow in a dystopia which has been around for more than a decade. And not everyone wants to wallow in misery. That is not healthy. If you are the smartest people in the room, do provide a solution. Or even something to give the readers hope. Because we live here and guess what? This is Detroit.
How about trying something different? If you travel while thinking, driving through the Midwest is educational. Don’t look for the random passing jackass. Everywhere has that. Even the progressive-filled enclaves. Maybe not an obvious neo nazi at the store, but there is stupid all over. If you lose the condescending big city attitude you might find out the rest of us have stories. And a reminder for all of us: we are part of a union of states as this song we sang as kids said:
Look, I get you traveling journalists live in places like New York or LA and visiting a small town (defined as anything not Chicago) is not your thing. But, please, just stop writing the awful. We live here. We drive by the closed factories every damn day. And we even read your stuff. Please don’t assume we are an Oxycodone-riddled mess. We are more than that. And if you want to see changes? How about presenting a solution. Not just spewing virtue-signaling or identity politics. Real news is that things don’t all suck. How about you report that for once?
Thank you. I am likewise sick of that attitude you describe so well. When my brother and I drove to 22 cities to interview folks who support progressive causes, I tried scrupulously to remember we were talking to our fellow countrymen and not some different tribe. Please consider looking at these when I start publishing the full interviews. https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCVF7gLVT7UchdiJjlfVNwxw
Josh says: I get a laugh from them. I mean, there are many educated people and well adjusted people in “flyover” country, yet they only focus on the bad. Many of these factories and jobs require degrees in business, management, engineering, physics chemistry, vocational skills and so on, and many of these degrees are difficult to obtain. Find me a journalist who can lay down a class 1 solid weld across a large sheet of steel, read a blueprint for an electrical layout, or has a patent and then will talk.
Jodi Giddings says: Exactly, Josh!
Bill M says: Nice story, I go one step farther and want them to stop showing up at all until they learn what objective journalism really is.
Ted says: Nice work. I actually thought about things a little differently after reading it. The media does profile entire regions as “individuals”, using the same template they use for interviewing a celebrity.
Scott says: They were never “interviews.” They were casting calls for stories already written, and only the dupes for fooled into talking to them. They were looking for racists, and if you weren’t one, then if you could play one, then that was good enough. Rule #1: Don’t talk to the media. Ever. Full stop.
Denton Salle says: And the worse of the bunch is “Republican like me.” Dr. Mead would be proud.
Jodi Giddings says: Thank you, Gail! Well said! I live in “Trump’s America” and this is what I see every day: It’s NOT what the arrogant, condescending elitists at the NYT et al portray it as. We are strong. We are loyal. We are educated and wise. And we are filled with diversity of thought from one end of the spectrum to the other, and yet we respect one another, and when one of us bleeds, the rest of us find bandages.
So pound sand, NYT. It is YOU who needs to look in the damned mirror.
The German Egyptian says: Thank You the articles are getting to be quite trite, written mainly to make the author feel like he has found something unique, just makes him or her look stupid
as a deplorable in west central Ohio farm country I have to laugh at these ass hats, The belief there is nothing beyond the coasts is the whole problem. Out here we still look down on welfare, we believe in work, has certainly not been great for the last 8 years no but locally there has always been work for those that look. now things are booming, employers are not near as picky, in my area we have the largest yogurt plant in the world, one of the largest lift truck manufactures, and one of the largest steel splitting plants all based in my home town, all booming, there are dozens of smaller plants and businesses that are going strong. HOWEVER agriculture has taken a dump especially dairy, even organic dairy which is my business is depressed, the hope is that as the economy picks up sales will rebound. WE are down but not out and the new tax bill will be a small help. Yeah we don’t wear designer cloths but the cows don’t care and neither does anyone else. We are those gun toting bible loving Catholics and protestants that the progressives fear
Oh and MERRY CHRISTMAS
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