The Nation: Where Are the Young Voices?

BLOG | Posted 02/27/2007 @ 1:41pm
Where Are the Young Voices?

Sam Graham-Felsen

Katha Pollitt has made the important point that women are grossly underrepresented on the op-ed pages of America's newspapers.

Here's another grossly underrepresented demographic in the media: young people. Millennials-- roughly defined as those 28 and under-- make up one-quarter of the population, yet we are nowhere to be found in the mainstream media.

Yesterday on TAPPED, Mark Schmitt acknowledged the phenomenon:

Here are the regular op-ed columnists for the New York Times and the Washington Post in ascending order of age:
Anne Applebaum, Washington Post, 42. (Does not live in the U.S.)

Sebastian Mallaby, Washington Post, early 40s, graduated Oxford 1986.

David Brooks, Times, 45

Nick Kristof, Times, 48

and up they go from there. And they wonder why young people don't read newspapers!

Young people don't follow the news for a variety of reasons-- but the fact that they don't see anyone from their generation reporting the news is a huge factor.

Especially on TV. I don't know about you, but as a young person, my stomach churns every time I hear Charles Gibson try to make a joke. And whenever people like the comparatively young Brian Williams do any sort of reporting on "what's going on with those crazy youngsters," I find it condescending and out of touch. .....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion?bid=15

who are now journalists on.

I've learned to hate them as they are all kind of alike.

Now, they aren't on the op-ed page much, that is true.

After all, we old boomers grew up with a succession of older reporters from Edward R. Murrow though Huntley/Brinkley and Cronkite. It was a time when both hard news and the objectivity and integrity of the reporter were prized.

They're getting turned of for the same reason we all are: content. The "news" has become equivalent to what you see at the checkout stand of the supermarket. Most younger people are online, so why the hell should they bother with the constant parade of rubbish on their TV screens?

I haven't bothered to watch any of those blow dried bobbleheads on local or national news since November 3, 2004. The unfairness of the press to Kerry and the pass they gave to Stupid finally did it for me. Enough.

I see the youthful turning away from corporate news as a hopeful sign, not one of despair. It may be that they've just spotted the scam sooner than people who have had a lifetime of a daily ritual of watching the evening news as a transition from afternoon to evening.

Charles Gibson blah blah blah Brian Williams blah blah blah Jon Stewart blah blah blah Matt Yglesias blah blah blah Ezra Klein blah blah blah Matt Stoller blah blah blah Mike Connery

Yes, Sam. Our media obviously has a huge diversity problem because we don't have enough young white males letting us know their perspective on world events.

That's a deliberately snarky salvo, but there's an apprentice system to journalism, and if you want to write op-eds, you need to start out covering the garden club and the crime beat.

Not everyone starts out writing op-eds. That's always been the territory of the fairly senior journos. Even Woodward and Berstein started out covering shit local stories (like silly little burglaries, for example) and the night beat, and they both were pushing thirty when they got assigned to a burglary that turned into Watergate--and they were HEAVILY vetted by the WAPO editorial board in everything they did.

Look, the fact of the matter is, that when Vietnam was churning along, Walter Cronkite was an OLD guy, so were Huntley and Brinkley, and so was Howard K. Smith. The relative youngster, Dan Rather, wasn't sitting on his ass behind a desk, he had a pot on his head and was ducking behind walls, reporting from Vietnam. The old people stay behind and pontificate, the young people get out into the field, or they write for Rolling Stone or the Boston Phoenix.

Back in that Vietnam era, young people were able to discern truth (like the kind old guy Cronkite pushed) from truthyness, even though we called it bullshit back then. And it didn't matter how old the person was who was telling us the truth--Cronkite didn't have to pass the "Don't trust anyone over thirty" test. And I don't think that every young kid today is so stupid that they'll only listen to their peers. There may be some that absolutely, positively need to hear it, and will only believe it, from a peer, but they're not the brightest bulbs anyway, if that's how they play it.

David Gregory is, what, 37, Anderson Cooper is 39, Campbell Brown is about the same age--I don't recall any 20-somethings doing any major reporting in the past, in either print or television media, as a rule. But that didn't stop me from reading the paper or watching the news, frankly, and to use THAT as an excuse is terribly lame and well, childish.

The writer kind of blows the argument by holding up "young" Jon Stewart as an icon for the young folks--he's what--FORTY FIVE???? Around the age of the OP ED writers that are the source of the ire!!

So I think what this writer is really saying is that young people can't take their news without a heavy side dish of comedy, dumbing down, and snark. If that's the case, it's an insult.

Those idiotic MTV and VH1 news programs could be a venue to train young reporters, but the emphasis seems to be on Britney/Anna/stick-with-music crap on those outlets, too.

Sorry, I don't think "youth" ought to be an affirmative action hiring point in and of itself. If a smart young person with the skills to compete and the perspective to write in compelling fashion comes on the scene, give them the platform because they deserve it based on their work and talent. But just because they're YOUNG? Hell, the Young Republicans were all over the place in the Nixon era, and they didn't have shit to say that I ever wanted to hear...their perky flips, conservative mini skirts, and for the fellows, not-too-too-long hair (but long enough to not be a total dork) notwithstanding. I didn't buy any 'package'--I went for CONTENT.