Much has been written about the media’s tendency to cover political issues by (1) Highlighting areas of turbulence and conflict rather than stability and agreement and (2) Treating the viewpoints they cover as broadly representative and of comparable accuracy. Thus, to cover the question of whether the city should build a new sewer system, a small amount of media attention is spent on the 90% of people who agree that the system is needed and can be paid for by a temporary surcharge on water usage. Instead the media is inclined to focus on the debate between the “equally valid” perspectives of a raging libertarian activist who thinks sewers are a government conspiracy and a loofah-and-sandals community organizer who says that taxes should be doubled but the resulting revenue spent, not on a sewer system, but on educational programs that teach everyone to compost their family’s feces in a sustainable fashion.
Less appreciated is that media often does the same thing in socio-cultural reporting. Here is a choice example from a few years back, an article that claims to assess the state of marriage. Five wives are interviewed, and each are given roughly equal space. They are:
A twice-divorced 59 year old swinger now in an open marriage
A stay at home mom in her second marriage
A teacher who has been married for four years and seems happy
A woman going through a bitter separation/divorce
A lawyer who is an immigrant and recently became married
The longest existing marriage mentioned in the article is 10 years! What happened to the millions of couples who make it past a decade? Boring, no drama to it. Does a swinger in her third marriage warrant 20% of the coverage on the state of the institution? Not really, but it adds spice and an angry letter from a clergyman would help fill out this week’s letters column. Is divorce really that prevalent (3 of 5 people divorced, the other two married a grand total of 6 years so too early to say)? No, but if it bleeds, it leads. Any widows and widowers out there who were married 30, 40, 50 years? Sure, but yuck, lonely old people are dull and downbeat.
One could argue that the poor reporting practices that bedevil political coverage are more damaging to the common good than they are in coverage of socio-cultural issues, and there is something to that (Although that view can devolve into an implicitly sexist stance that media consumed primarily by men should be serious, but that consumed primarily by women needn’t be). At the same time, while it is self-flattering to assume that your perceptions of Paul Ryan’s Medicare plan are of great weight and will profoundly impact the world, it is far, far more likely that your life and the lives of those around you will be influenced by what you think of, expect from and understand about marriage. For that reason the distorted view offered in articles like this is certainly nothing of which journalists should be proud.
If happy families are all alike but unhappy ones each suffer in their own way, then this helps explain why “the media” have a hard time doing what you ask, finding it much easier to focus on the aberrant or untypical than the typical. Recall that “the media” derive from what used to be the Press, which used to trade in something called news. Reporting on norms is sociology. Sociology is nuanced and complex, very unsatisfying if your job is to sell eyeballs to advertisers, which is the job of “the media.”. Complaining that “the media” is vapid and shallow is like complaining that the latest “Fast and Furious” Vin Diesel flick was loud and lacked character development.
Tolstoy knew more about unhappiness than happiness. I don’t buy his clever aphorism. I’m twice married, to two very different women (the first marriage ended in widowhood not divorce), and our relationships have been very different. It’s pathologies you would expect to be stereotyped: drinking, gambling, violence, nagging, sexual indifference. That’s how it’s easy to generate stories, everybody knows the templates. A really good relationship is permanent learning.
I think the swinger merits the coverage. Yes, few people go on the record and admit out. But many married people are not monogamous. They have arrangements, our one partner tolerates it, or does not want to know. That swinger is probably representative of huge numbers of people who will not speak openly about it.
Oops. Should be “or”one partner.
There are two ways of looking at a story like this – as a story about some broad trend, or as a bunch of narratives about people with interesting perspectives on an important topic. The Telegraph, unfortunately, encourages the former reading with its headline: Modern marriage: the state of the union.
But there is value in listening to the stories of people who aren’t typical. Taken as anecdotes and not data, I’m not bothered by this story. For one thing, one gets a sense of some peoples’ blinkered ideas about relationships. Regarding long-term marriage, Claire says:
If couples claim they’re blissfully happy it may be because the man doesn’t have a very high sex drive. When I hear about a golden wedding anniversary, I think, ‘Scratch the surface and I bet it’s a mess.’
In addition to the longtime married, this story excludes another group that has important views on marriage: Men. “If it bleeds, it leads” distorts a reader’s idea of the world, but I’m also annoyed by the implication that interest in the well-being of marriage is women’s work.
political football: In addition to the longtime married, this story excludes another group that has important views on marriage: Men. “If it bleeds, it leads” distorts a reader’s idea of the world, but I’m also annoyed by the implication that interest in the well-being of marriage is women’s work.
Amen.
Well, this may not be strictly on topic, but it reminds me of a feature story on Islam and women (I think that was the subject) in probably either the LAT or NYT a few years back. The women whose husbands were nice to them and let them have jobs or go to college thought Islam was just dandy. The ones whose husbands beat them or wouldn’t let them go to school thought it needed some adjustment. I thought it was good that someone went out and actually asked them. Not that the answers were surprising, but it’s good to ask.