Hey, Remember When the News Wasn't Fun?

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO)

Scandal this week has enveloped Lauren Boebert, the Freshman Representative from Colorado, not for the first time. I won’t repeat the uncorroborated accusation, because it’s needlessly salacious, bordering on character assassination. I’ll say, however, that America’s organized Left has embraced this story with amazing alacrity, because they want the poetic symmetry. Boebert, who endorses using legislation to enforce sexual morality, is accused of exactly the sexual transgressions the usually inveighs against.

The accusations against Representative Boebert coincide with three other news stories: the televised January 6th Committee hearings, the ongoing war in Ukraine, and the recently closed Johnny Depp/Amber Heard trial. News sources haven’t treated these very different stories interchangeably. But in all cases, the response has been driven by how journalists, and the news-buying public, perceive the narratives. We aren’t looking for the facts, we’re looking for the story.

Each story holds different narrative forms. The Boebert proto-scandal relies on the parallelism of her being accused of the exact behaviors she wants to proscribe. Left-wing critics, in recounting the story, feverishly remind audiences that they don’t condemn the sexual actions of which she stands accused; they only condemn the hypocrisy Boebert shows in wanting to legally forbid anyone repeating the acts she (supposedly) committed. They’re looking for moral continuity.

From the beginning, coverage of the Ukraine invasion looked for the Freytag’s Pyramid in the story. Mass-market coverage created a charismatic protagonist in Volodymyr Zelensky, and a Snidely Whiplash-like villain in Vladimir Putin. Multiple op-eds predicted the coming climax any minute now—and, when that climax and subsequent resolution weren’t forthcoming, their coverage went quiet. Without the melodrama, apparently, there wasn’t much of a story.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky

The less said about Depp/Heard, the better. During the trial, audiences announced their loyalties like superfans dividing into Team Edward vs Team Jacob, or maybe Team Captain America vs. Team Iron Man. After the verdict, commentators began scolding America for taking sides and supposedly overlooking the important issues underlying the case. But seriously, the underlying issues were no deeper than typical YA romance novels or Marvel movies.

And January 6th? Nobody disputes what fundamentally happened. The only controversy is which narrative we use to understand what happened: were the Capitol rioters merely peaceful protesters and harmless tourists? Were they equivalent to sansculottes storming the Bastille? Or were they more like Taliban looking to execute dissidents and heretics? The unifying narrative, more than the facts, define how we want to handle the rioters, and the politicians who abetted them.

Please understand, I appreciate why we need narrative unity to follow a story. Even under ideal circumstances, humans think in narrative; but these aren’t ideal circumstances. Today’s social media-driven news landscape encourages short attention spans, a tendency worsened by so many catastrophes happening simultaneously. Without the story guiding us, we’d be incapable of comprehending these massive, possible world-changing events. The narrative keeps us grounded and attentive.

But I seriously fear the narrative has overtaken the facts. Journalists have been swayed by the spectacle of storytelling: gleefully recounting every time Amber Heard’s attorneys biffed courtroom procedure, for instance, or treating Zelensky walking the streets of Kyiv like a celebrity sighting on Rodeo Drive. News audiences, meanwhile, race ahead of the facts, as they’re currently doing with Representative Boebert, to pronounce moral lessons we ought to receive.

Nostalgia for bygone days is obviously useless, here and elsewhere, but it bears recalling that journalism was once perceived as a moral good, not a commodity. During the Cold War, journalists stuck with stories that unfolded over the course of years, with no hope of forthcoming resolution. Serious-minded newshounds like Walter Cronkite and Ted Koppel kept Americans informed, not entertained, by stories with potential to steer their lives.

Walter Cronkite

News sources could perform this diligence for various reasons. A well-informed public was considered a national asset, and TV networks willingly lost money because they considered it their patriotic duty; most newspapers were owned by rich dilettantes willing to break even at best, to be seen as responsible citizens. Today, FaceTube and InstaTwit demand returns that would make cocaine kingpins blush, and long-term investment in stories is a non-starter.

I acknowledge that entertaining stories with a through-line and pat moral resolution are tempting. I enjoy reading novels that ascend, reach their point, and resolve neatly too. But citizenship requires commitment to stories that aren’t necessarily fun, or complete. Sometimes people we disagree with don’t receive their symmetrical comeuppance. Sometimes wars drag without clear heroes. And we need to stick with them anyway.