journalism
Hey, MSM! Something to say? Just say it!
The flowery language. The academia polished until the shine is almost unbearable. The suggestion of an opinion. The metaphor, obscure references, and sardonic wit. These are all hallmarks common to most pundits, and it annoys me to no end.
Can we please just get to the point?!
In a piece published on the MSNBC site today, Irin Carmon discusses the hand gestures Bernie Sanders' makes while talking. This is how she sums up that piece:
Male politicians can face potential minefields of their own, at least when campaigning against a woman. In 2000, when Clinton ran for Senate in New York, the image of her male opponent crossing the stage during a debate and wagging his finger in her face, demanding she sign a campaign finance pledge, came to define the race. The gesture, which many saw as sexist, or as one of Clinton’s aides put it at the time, “menacing,” was credited with helping her win by 12 points.
There have been no such moments so far in the Democratic primary debates, as Clinton runs for president for a second time. Sanders has been careful to express his respect for the former secretary of state and to keep it professional and largely amiable. He’s also kept on his side of the stage.
Unless you're a political junkie and/or live in the State of New York, you might not recall this event. Back in 2000, when HRC was running for the open Senate seat in New York, her opponent, Rick Lazio, left his podium, walked across the stage, handed her a piece of paper, and wagged his hand. Hillary went on to beat Rick by 12 points because the HRC campaign machine pushed out the clip repeatedly, suggesting that Lazio was being menacing and that the act was sexist in nature. I don't disagree. It was a terrible mistake to make on Lazio's part, and he paid the price for it.
Now, read Carmon's conclusion again. She states a known fact, that Sanders has been respectful of Clinton, and then references the Lazio event. From 2000. From a state Senate debate. Aired on C-Span. So, why not state clearly that Sanders hasn't been threatening, tried to get her to sign some dumb pledge, or wagged his finger in her face?
Ego.
You've been educated. You did 4-7 years in college for just a degree or stuck around to get your Masters. You've penned a dissertation or two. You've been working as a journalist, analyst, and/or pundit for years. You are recognized as an expert in your field. Now you get called to go on MSNBC or Fox News or CNN once, twice, a dozen times. You have arrived. You are a nationally recognized leader in your field.
So, rather than face the difficulty of determining the awareness level of your audience, you just crank up the academia, pound in the complex terms, leverage your most obscure references, and lay down some deftly complicated metaphors and hope that your readers are up to the challenge. What you won't do, however, is just say what you mean.
This might surprise you, but being clear and excising complexity from your prose is not condescending. You won't talk down to your readers. They won't feel like you've abandoned your educational and professional background. To the contrary, they might just thank you. Life is difficult enough to deal with. We don't need Dianetics-grade journalism that requires a dictionary to read.*
Now, it's clear that Carmon's piece isn't anywhere near the L. Ron meter, much less high on it, but she remains unclear about what she's saying, all the way to the end. It's an opinion piece! You CAN make clear the points you want to get across. There aren't any rules, but that's the POINT of an opinion piece; share your opinion! Don't make people work hard for it.
The last thing we need in America now, at a time when class division is at an all-time high, the filters have been yanked off and tossed away, and both major political parties are embroiled in their own version of a civil war, is for our news outlets and primary voices to be unclear. We need to speak clearly, make our points crystal clear, and cut it out with the silly bits that fly over most people's heads.
* my own obscure reference to L. Ron Hubbard's Dianetics book which was famously difficult to read without an Oxford dictionary that I explain here because it's the nice thing to do. Not everyone recalls this.