The Media and Other People's Children

One aspect of journalism that always troubled me was how journalists covered stories concerning Other People’s Children.

In my opinion, the journalistic practice of the “being fair” formula, which mandates giving equal space to both sides of a story, muddles scientific facts and does damage to children. An example is the anti-inoculation movement of a decade or so ago, when news organizations eagerly reported on self-proclaimed experts’ claims that the inoculations are the cause of serious health problems. Also, a reoccurring story that receives significant coverage every decade or so, is that circumcision will do lasting harm.

Both of these stories have repeatedly been debunked by health specialists but nevertheless receive prominent media coverage despite the absence of new facts because of the fairness mandate.

Today a major story is about the rights of transgender school children to use bathrooms. This is fairly new on editor’s assignment lists and will be with us for quite a while. That’s an important story that deserves major coverage.

But there’s also a less important story – the gorilla-killed-in the Cincinnati Zoo to save a child. It has been elevated from what should have been a one or two-day story to major coverage because of the “being fair” mandate.

Despite zoos from around the world agreeing with the actions that the Cincinnati Zoo reluctantly had to take, animal rights activists protests are all across the news spectrum, instead of being a small part of a follow-up story. My objection to this “he said, she said” journalism is that it clouds the important elements of a story – a child was saved from a gorilla that was dragging him around and that experts said trying to tranquillize the gorilla might have resulted in the child being killed.

But, of course, it wasn’t the animal rights activists’ child at risk, it was Other Peoples Children and by giving so much coverage to the protests the media is responsible for confusing the issue – saving a child.

Below are two examples showing how stories concerning Other People’s Children were covered - one important, the other that should have been relegated to a one-day story. They demonstrate that anything goes with media coverage of children, as long as it’s not their children.

The Important Story: It seems that both the print and TV media have been covering the 2016 election since 1916. Candidates have been asked immeasurable times, during the TV debates and on the stump, about polls, demeanor and remarks by other candidates. They have been asked the same questions as if they were on a loop recording – except for one topic that has received scant coverage: I’m still waiting for beat reporters to aggressively press candidates on the never ending wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and how best to combat the threat from ISIS. The norm is that one line rehearsed answers from candidates are accepted without follow up questions asking for details. (Of course, that is also true of all the q and a’s between TV anchors and candidates, with a few exceptions, notably Chris Wallace, Bret Baier and Megyn Kelly of Fox, Tamron Hall on her MSNBC program and Jake Tapper of CNN.)

Writer’s Take – Is the lack of hard nose questioning of candidates about our never-ending wars because they have gone on so long that the public and media accepts it as a way of life? Or is it because we have a volunteer army which translates to few people knowing those who have been killed in combat and how little coverage it gets when one of our soldiers is killed or injured? After all, because of our volunteer army, it’s “Other’s People Children” at risk.

The Not So Important Story: The Matt Harvey innings-limited controversy of last year, which is still be covered today because of his bad start, is a prime example of how people feel about Other People’s Children. A short recap: 2015 was the N.Y. Met’s pitcher's first season back after undergoing Tmmy John elbow surgery.

When it became apparent that the Mets would be in the playoffs, Harvey’s agent issued a statement that the pitcher should only pitch 180 innings, on the advice of the surgeon. This caused an outburst of derogatory remarks about Harvey and his agent, Scott Boras, from sports writers, radio talk show hosts and call-ins to the programs, more vitriolic than when NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and team owners said that they didn’t know how big a problem abuse of women was in the U.S.

Harvey and Boras were treated by the media and fans as if they were Attila the Hun and Satan, all because Boras tried to protect the pitcher from reinjuring his arm.

What we don’t know is how the tar and feather gang would have acted if their son was a pitcher in Harvey’s position. What we do know is that except for a very few sports writers who thought Boras was correct in trying to protect Harvey, as I did, the great majority wanted to add super glue to the tar and feathers.

The lack of concern that Harvey’s career might forever be ended by overwork in his first year back from surgery is just another example that when Other People’s Children are the subject, what happens to them is not a concern. For weeks the media played up the protests against Harvey and Boras with few putting it in context.

After all it wasn’t their child whose career was at risk. It was just another example of how the media covers stories about Other People’s Children.

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Arthur Solomon, a former journalist and senior vice president/senior counselor at Burson-Marsteller, is a frequent contributor to public relations and sports business publications, consults on public relations projects and is on the Seoul Peace Prize nominating committee. He can be reached at [email protected].