In some European communities, Christians sought to avoid or mitigate plague with processions of men whipping themselves bloody as they moaned through the narrow streets.
Those unfailingly ineffective attempts to appease a loving God came to mind as I followed the comments of today’s penitent political journalists.
One after another, reporters and commentators whipped themselves through the news media and blogs for under estimating Donald Trump’s presidential aspirations.
Until recently, the possibility that this vulgarian might speak for the Grand Old Party of Ike, Taft, George I and II and Ronny was so remote that it wasn’t a story.
Trump was so absurd that The Huffington Post wrote, “After watching and listening to Donald Trump since he announced his candidacy for president, we have decided we won’t report on Trump’s campaign as part of The Huffington Post’s political coverage. Instead, we will cover his campaign as part of our Entertainment section. Our reason is simple: Trump’s campaign is a sideshow. We won’t take the bait. If you are interested in what The Donald has to say, you’ll find it next to our stories on the Kardashians and The Bachelorette.”
HuffPost wasn’t unique. Too many journalists ignored vital political stories rather than stray from mainstream news media’s serial conventional wisdoms.
Eventually, huffingtonpost.com relented, returning Trump to the politics pages, saying, “Now that Trump, aided by the media, has doubled down on the cruelty and know-nothingness that defined his campaign’s early days, the ‘can you believe he said that?’ novelty has curdled and congealed into something repellent and threatening — laying bare a disturbing aspect of American politics. We believe that the way we cover the campaign should reflect this shift. And part of that involves never failing to remind our audience who Trump is and what his campaign really represents.”
Will Bunch, writing on philly.com, said, “Nowhere are there more recriminations — and more self-flagellation, much of it deserved — than among the news media. … One thing is clear. The major news outlets did a lousy job anticipating and understanding the Trump movement because of a toxic soup that is partly our lack of time/resources but more often just elitism and snobbery, larded with some laziness.”
• During a recent holiday in Rome, BBC World Service kept us up to date on a wildfire ripping through the Canadian province of Alberta and city of Ft. McMurray.
Now, I’m following the disaster in the Enquirer, on BBC World Service overnight on WVXU-FM and on the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. website.
It’s personal.
My folks lost their home and escaped with charred clothes when a California wildfire unexpectedly changed directions and roared more than 10 miles into their neighborhood.
I recently went fishing at our remote cabin in Northern Ontario. En route to the landing where I park and get into my boat, there is a provincial sign saying whether it’s too dry even for outdoor cooking fires. We take forest fires that seriously.
It’s our good fortune that CBC-FM from Sudbury is first-rate when it comes to hazardous weather. Last Fall CBC began frequent marine warnings about imminent storms with very high winds. Our village and lake were going to take a hit.
I left a day early while it was still relatively calm; my 16-foot fishing boat would not survive predicted winds if I waited too long to start my planned trip home.
If there is a wildfire in the forests around us, CBC will let me know. Cabin owners don’t fight fires. We flee. I’ll grab my car keys and passport and head into the middle of our large lake.
That’s where it could get ugly. If the fire is coming from the south along the only road from the Trans-Canada Highway to our lake’s car park and landing, I’m doubly screwed. My car’s probably toast, but if it’s untouched, the only road out is... south.
Finally, news from Alberta should suggest a reboot to Reaganites. Remember when he said, “Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem?”
Tell that to the almost 90,000 residents of Alberta who relied on authorities and communal ties to safely evacuate their homes as the wildfire advanced.
When residents couldn’t drive out, about a third of them were airlifted to safety from the oil field facilities where they’d taken shelter north/upwind of the fire zone.
However fiercely partisan, Canadians tend to respect and trust their governments — territorial, provincial and federal — in ways that we do not. I’d like to think this reflects the absence of a national Canadian party devoting decades to undermining confidence in government.
• The Alberta disaster recalled stories of the great 1894 fire that destroyed rural Hinckley, Minn., part of the history on which I was raised in the Land of 10,000 Lakes. There was no big government to help, and no one knows how many people died.
• Based on the post-fire experiences of my parents and their friends and neighbors in California, I expect that CBC and dailies in Alberta will still have their hands full when the immediate fire danger ends.
Every level of government will be stressed to provide support to families who lost everything. Canadian tax revenues already are suffering from steep declines in oil prices and foreign markets for its mining products.
The financial disaster will be worse if the fire reaches so-far-untouched tar sands oil facilities. Even temporary Ft. McMurray housing won’t help if returning residents have no jobs.
News media will be able to find individual tragedies and collective problems among displaced Ft. McMurray residents: suicides, increased alcohol, drug and child abuse and domestic violence. Hospitals and physicians will face unprecedented demands from tens of thousands of evacuees, and the provincial government might have to help refugees recreate their personal health records to assure access to care.
Related stories will follow attempts of nonprofits, religious groups and social agencies to cope. Even if the oil patch survives and prices revive, journalists will have plenty to do as Ft. McMurray local businesses decide whether to rebuild. Just as some residents won’t return, some businesses won’t reopen.
This is a story that won’t end soon if the news media have the staying power.
• BBC did a fine job of covering primaries leading to Ted Cruz/John Kasich surrenders. It was our go-to news source for a couple weeks in Rome. As I’ve written before, I prefer to follow American elections on foreign news media, whether online, in print or broadcast. Less bullshit, greater variety of sources.
CONTACT BEN L. KAUFMAN: [email protected]
