Guest Columns: One Thing Unites Red and Blue: the !*%#! Media

Another U.S. presidential election has come and gone. Not unlike four years ago, the country once again finds itself a divided nation.

This time, however, Americans in blue states are even more blue about the prospect of another four years under George W. Bush's cowboy government. And the red staters see more red as their bare majority is dismissed and derided by self-proclaimed intellectually superior Eastern-Northern-West Coast elites.

Radically different political views of radically different life experiences. Rural, small-town vs. urban, big-city. WalMart vs. Nordstrom's. Church on Sundays vs. Thursday evenings at the gym.

But despite our differences, there's at least one thing Red and Blue agree on: The media.

Blame the Media

Family values being destroyed? Blame the media. Bush's misguided policies getting a free ride? Blame the media. Too much sex and violence in schools? Blame the media. Don't have a true picture of the war in Iraq? Blame the media. Exit polls don't match the vote outcome? Of course, the media got it wrong; blame them.

Across all states and nearly all states of mind, “the media” have replaced “politicians” as one of our most reviled institutions. This united disdain and distrust of commercial media has been fomenting for several decades. The days when Woodward and Bernstein were folk heroes and Walter Cronkite was the most trusted man in America are long gone.

What happened? For one thing, media—particularly local media—got bigger and more distant. In an effort to homogenize content to make it appeal to broader swaths of audiences across multiple communities and lifestyles, U.S. media have dumbed down the news and sexed up the entertainment to minimize costs and increase sales and profits. (Sex sells; news doesn't.)

So both “red” middle America and “blue” urban America get bombarded with “Hollywood” entertainment values and “happy-talk” news values. Neither is satisfied, and both have a right to be angry about it.

Sense of Community

We live in an age in which sophisticated information technology can bring the world into our living rooms and vast libraries of knowledge to our desktops. We also live in an age when we feel more vulnerable and threatened because we have lost our sense of community. From New York City to Granville , Ohio , we're all searching for the lost security of our hometown.

Modern media could help lessen the anxiety. Instead, their corporate, consolidated nature more often than not feeds, rather than eases, our fears. Our media create a sense that the world as we know it is out of control and out of touch with our lives.

It doesn't have to be this way. “Big media” didn't get big because of natural selection. The consolidation and concentration of media ownership and outlets is a direct result of public policy decisions made in response to political and technological pressures (the former more so than the latter).

But the airwaves still belong to the public. And, as we have seen recently, the public is beginning to find its voice on this issue. More than a million people filed comments with the Federal Communications Commission against ownership deregulation. Thousands of people have shown up at FCC hearings around the country to voice their support for keeping local media local. Hundreds of thousands protested when Sinclair Broadcasting announced it was airing an anti-Kerry documentary on the eve of the election. And don't forget the millions of viewers who complained to the FCC about the famous Janet Jackson flash at the Superbowl.

Record numbers of “red” and “blue” voters turned out to cast ballots in Election 2004. Just by showing up, they—divided as they were—made a powerful statement about our democracy. Just think how powerful they would be if those citizens united and committed their votes to restoring public interest values, localism and democracy to U.S. media.