The image of Obama, a Democrat and the nation’s first black president, and Boehner, a Republican from working-class Midwest roots, tackling a package that would affect government benefits for millions and the progressivity standards of the whole tax code is extraordinary.
The above sentence frustrates me. It contrasts “the nation’s first black president” with “from working-class Midwest roots” as if they are mutually exclusive (or at least a dichotomy similar to Democrat and Republican).
The Midwest has black residents, too, Politico. Barack Obama is one of them. Or did you mean to say “a white Republican in Congress, which is not a first at all”?
The way journalists frame issues and people has a profound effect on the way the public (readers, listeners, viewers) perceive those issues and people. We have a responsibility to our audience, just as much as to our subjects and our profession, to use fair and accurate language.
On a related note, one of my brilliant WWU journalism professors, Carolyn Nielsen, tweeted a while back about widespread media usage of the term “gay marriage” (instead of the more fair and accurate term “marriage equality,” or even just the more accurate “same-sex marriage”). She wondered, in the tweet, when the shift would happen. Soon, I hope.
Today’s media risk becoming a feedback loop rather than reporters of substantive information. But that’s a larger topic for another day.
Rough draft of history 