The media has higher virtues to uphold than balance

Unceasing criticism should be replaced with empathy and celebration of people who try to do good

This quote has been sticking in my head. It's about the unfairness of balance. How neutrality or impartiality can be unjust. It's about how unceasing criticism creates false equivalence.

It’s this very Washington elite mindset that you get from people in government, that you get from the media, that we saw in 2016. The problem is not just that everyone assumed Hillary would win. The problem is because everyone assumed Hillary would win, the political and media elite decided they would be extra tough on her. To prove how non-partisan they are — because they celebrate balance as the highest virtue. More than truth, more than anything else , they must be balanced.

— Jon Favreau, Pod Save America

The quote is about how 2016 media coverage of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump was equally negative, despite the fact that the media knew Trump to be less qualified, less temperamentally fit for office, and to have less integrity. Adherence to value of neutrality usurped the importance of keeping nuclear weapons out of the hands of someone obviously incapable of wielding them safely. Or the importance of upholding the norms of liberal democracy.

When appearing impartial matters more than preserving human life on Earth, or preserving the institutions of democracy, the outcome is bad. Unceasing criticism does not improve things.

I’ve been thinking about this quote particularly as it pertains to media coverage of Elon Musk and Tesla. There is this perverse thing happening. Porsche execs' homes are raided by German police as a result of their role in circumventing regulations designed to limit human carbon emissions. Tesla is six months late ramping production of the world’s most popular electric car. Which company gets more criticism?

The company literally committing crimes to deceive regulators about how much pollution it is creating? Or the company that has a chronic problem with Hofstadter's Law: "It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law"? Apparently, we believe that it is worse being overoptimistic in doing a good thing than to committ crimes that do material harm. Because that is what our behaviour indicates.

There is a cycle:

Do good things that inspire people ---> Get a lot of public attention ---> Get a lot of media coverage ---> Get unceasing criticism from the media

Contrast that with the alternative:

Do nothing remarkable ---> Get little public attention ---> Get little media coverage ---> Get little media criticism

The incentives are aligned against doing good things and toward herding — toward sticking with the same old patterns that create problems like climate change and road deaths. Doing good gets criticism. Doing nothing new or different gets no criticism. Neither gets much in the way of praise or gratitude.

To put it another way, the media has an emotionally abusive relationship with the subjects it covers. Coverage is 85% negative and 15% positive. And the ideal mix isn’t even 50% negative and 50% positive. It’s actually 15% negative and 85% positive. That’s true in business. It’s also true for relationships.

In American media, the valence of coverage often isn’t static, but cyclical. This applies to individuals like Elon Musk and companies like Tesla. There is an initial honeymoon phase, then a phase of outrage, blame, ridicule, and gaslighting. Then maybe there is a return to the honeymoon phase: a “forgive the sinner” phase. In relationships, psychologists and social workers call this the cycle of abuse.

I think the antidote to the prevailing negativity of the media is having values that you focus on and celebrate. The media should celebrate failure — which really means celebrate trying.

Coverage of Tesla, for example, could use the latest IPCC report or the Paris Treaty to frame the story in terms of an effort to mitigate climate change. Even if Tesla abjectly fails, the public should know that the goal is worthy. It isn’t enough for the media to raise the alarm about a problem like climate change, and then disparage every effort to solve it. It needs to celebrate attempted solutions, not just create fear and despair about problems.

Another absolutely fundamental value is empathy. Do you know what it feels like to put your heart fully into something — a job, a relationship, a project, an event — that doesn't work out? I'm sure you do. Empathy for people who try and fail is not a stretch.

Let’s ask ourselves what kind of world we want to live in. One where people continue to put their hearts fully into things that matter, despite how terrifying the prospect of failure is. Or one where people timidly stand on the sidelines, deterred by judgment and ridicule.

We should remember the humanity of people who fail, and remember that we value the act of putting yourself at risk of failure. In response to failure, instead of schadenfreude or cynicism — or clinical detachment — what if we felt empathy? How might that transform our way of being in the world? How might that transform the world we’re in? And if empathy creates transformative positive change, then what is more important: empathy or neutrality and unceasing criticism?

Society is what we make it. What if we could, in the words of Brené Brown’s, “craft love from heartbreak, compassion from shame, grace from disappointment” and “courage from failure”? Why is that not our attitude toward struggle, rather than to grind our boot into the face of the struggling? What, in the end, do we believe? What is our goal? What are we trying to do with our lives?

Be neutral?