O
ver
the
past
year,
I’ve seen a dramatic
shift
in
reputable
journalistic outlets’ — like
The New York Times, the
Wall Street Journal and The
Washington Post — coverage
of the presidency to what
individuals might perceive as
being more partisan than in the
past. In many ways, this shift
can be seen as a response to
the pages of lies that PolitiFact
has noted over the course of
President
Donald
Trump’s
presidency and his campaign.
Put yourself in the shoes of a
journalist: How do you cover
a lie while making sure that
A) your article isn’t seen as
inherently partisan and B)
your information establishes
that the lie is, well, a lie. The
New York Times has been
grappling with this problem
ever since Trump announced
his candidacy for president.
Despite the lies that Trump
has told over the course of his
presidency, newspapers still
have
difficulty
explaining
these
kinds
of
falsehoods
from a political official. In
NYT Public Editor Liz Spayd’s
article addressing The New
York Times trying to grapple
with these falsehoods, Spayd
actually suggests using the
term “lie” sparingly, something
that should seem incredibly
concerning. Because of Trump’s
tendency to lie throughout his
presidency, mainstream print
journalism has yet to adapt to
the era of Trump and has failed
in many ways at effectively
communicating
how
the
normative values in American
democracy are being broken.
I
see
Trump’s
successful
campaign
as
coming
from
this journalistic hesitancy. In
attempts to ensure an article has
a lack of partisan slant, the news
will proceed to use language
that seems distanced from the
facts. This is normal, and many
communications and journalism
scholars would say this is critical
for the news to do its job. With
that said, this logic doesn’t
quite acknowledge how this
can be perceived by an average
person reading the news. In
attempting to make something
feel “objective” — and many
individuals, including myself,
take serious issue with the idea
of objectivity as a realistic goal
— mainstream outlets can also
make the news feel normal and
ordinary. These stories can feel
as if something that might be
seen as “breaking the norm”
as being an event that should
happen in how we understand
American democracy. Trump
has broken so many norms that
it’s hard for mainstream outlets
to ratchet up the rhetoric when
there are already so many
values that are different from
past presidencies.
To think of an example, recall
the Access Hollywood tape.
The New York Times decided
that the article about the tape
would be titled “Donald Trump
Apology Caps Day of Outrage
Over Lewd Tape.” The Times’s
attempt to be impartial can
appear as if this were ordinary.
The word “outrage” can have
some serious implications and
connotations,
but
it
doesn’t
mention the comments Trump
made on its own — quite literally
why the story exists. Stories like
these exemplify how the actual
event has deviated from the
norm within the article itself,
but this sort of language in the
title doesn’t do the article justice,
and a casual reader may leave
without fully understanding its
importance. What it doesn’t tell
the reader is that a man running
for president said that he could
sexually assault women. These
horrific moments need to be said
and written in ways that allow
the reader to understand the
gravity of what is happening in
the political sphere, something
that I don’t see happening in
mainstream news outlets.
However, there is still hope
in
the
journalism
industry.
Journalists are changing the
way they present news, and there
have even grown unlikely news
sources that can help individuals
interpret what is actually going
on. When we think about the
news, we think of the CNNs
or The New York Times of
the world as the only spaces
where individuals get their
news. Comedy shows rarely
addressed politics even 10 or 20
years ago, excluding The Daily
Show and The Colbert Report.
Now, however, more and more
night shows and comedy shows
are addressing serious topics
in funny ways. Vox writer
Carlos Maza, has had his finger
on the pulse of TV political
information for a while now,
but his argument about how
comedians
have
improved
political awareness has become
particularly salient: Comedians
have the ability to call out
ridiculous arguments and do
so in comical ways, and it has
started permeating into TV
journalism as well. CNN’s Jake
Tapper has increasingly become
tougher in his questioning and
statements, and it has garnered
him millions of followers.
Print journalism needs to find
outlets that can allow for the
same sorts of interpretation —
and, frankly, it needs to be done
in ways outside of the opinion
column. As we see print news
employing more multimedia in
their articles, these companies
need to continue to evolve and
change if they want to be able to
inform Americans and call out
events as normatively “breaking
the rules” in our democracy.
Read time for articles are
dramatically lower, and this
means that news stories need
to be aggressive in getting
important information in ways
that a reader can interpret
and take with them. Print
journalism isn’t going to die,
yet, but it could if the era of
Trump permeates too far into
the journalism industry.
Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
4 — Tuesday, January 30, 2018
DAYTON HARE
Managing Editor
420 Maynard St.
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
tothedaily@michigandaily.com
Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890.
ALEXA ST. JOHN
Editor in Chief
ANU ROY-CHAUDHURY AND
ASHLEY ZHANG
Editorial Page Editors
Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily’s Editorial Board.
All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors.
EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS
Ian Leach can be reached at
ileach@umich.edu.
Megan Burns
Samantha Goldstein
Emily Huhman
Jeremy Kaplan
Sarah Khan
Lucas Maiman
Jason Rowland
Anu Roy-Chaudhury
Ali Safawi
Kevin Sweitzer
Tara Jayaram
Ashley Zhang
Ellery Rosenzweig
Elena Hubbell
I
f you’re white, you may
not see it happening, but
I want you to know our
democracy is in a real crisis.
By definition, a democracy is
a government in which people
participate. People of color
are living with unimaginable
oppression, and while you may
say, “I’ve heard this before,” I
contend you may be mistaken.
I consider myself somewhat
aware,
compassionate
and
even active in trying to make
the world a better place for all
of us. I’m currently taking a
course on international human
rights, and our textbook is
“Human
Rights
in
World
History” by Peter Stearns. In
the textbook’s introduction,
Stearns writes “the United
States government regularly
produces reports on other
countries’
human
rights
record…” However, rather than
analyzing other countries, we
need to pause and, instead,
take a serious look inward.
On Jan. 19, I attended an
event hosted by the University
of Michigan focusing on the
“lived experiences of Black
Americans.” Rackham students
Steven Moore and Hakeem J.
Jefferson were the organizers
and shared information with
me regarding the panel on
mass incarceration, writing
in an email on Jan. 23, “We
hope (to) drive home the
massive impact this has on the
everyday lives of so many black
and brown people in the U.S.”
The news wasn’t hopeful.
Racism
continues
to
grow
deeply
while
almost
all
of
us
well-intended
white
people
continue
to
look
away — liberals, moderates,
conservatives,
even
many
activists who take on different
causes. Just ask Charnesia
Corley.
Andrea
Ritchie,
a
nationally-recognized expert
on policing issues, told us what
happened just two years ago to
Corley when she was a 20-year
old African-American student.
She was pulled out of her car
for failure to stop at a stop sign
and forced down to the ground
while a female police officer
pulled off her pants, forced
her legs open and probed her
vagina for 11 minutes in the
parking lot. This happened on
what started out as a regular
day in June to an innocent
young woman just going about
living her life. The unjust,
cloaked term for this is a cavity
search. Putting your fingers in
someone without their consent
is, by definition, rape. It was
done by the police, making it
state-sanctioned rape. I am
hard-pressed to believe this
would have happened if she
were a white woman in Ann
Arbor — if she were me. This
should concern all of us for the
obvious humanitarian reasons,
but also because of the impact
on our democracy.
I also learned just how
egregious Driving While Black,
or DWB, is. Again, you’ve
heard this before, right? But
Frank Baumgartner, professor
of political science at the
University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill, has analyzed 55
million traffic stops in every
way possible. He and his team
of researchers demonstrated
not only the incredibly high
number of times people of color
are pulled over, but they also
correlated voting behaviors
and outcomes of this kind of
treatment by the state. In the
study, the researchers found
that “a mere interaction with
a police officer (not resulting
in arrest) is associated with a
reduction in the probability of
voting of almost 10 percent.”
You
may
be
thinking
to
yourself
(because
you
certainly wouldn’t say it out
loud), “Yeah, this is all really
horrible, but what does it really
have to do with democracy?”
We
allow
skin
color
to
continue to be counterfactual
markers of social differences
and resulting life experiences.
White
people
need
to
acknowledge the word that
makes so many of us cringe:
privilege. I’m speaking here of
the specific privilege to simply
possess the desire to engage in
our government. A very real
outcome of state-sanctioned
discrimination is a group of
people who lack a desire to
engage in anything having
to do with that state. When
our state disempowers and
discourages civic engagement
of
the
Black
community,
we cannot claim to have a
functioning democracy. Why
would Charnesia Corley want
to participate in a government
that not only allows something
like this to happen to her, but
was the perpetrator?
Stearns has this to say
about revolution: “People in
various societies at various
times, had attacked reigning
governments
because
of
economic
deprivation,
injustice, corruption, unfair
property distribution.” I say,
make no mistake; we may just
require a revolution.
State discrimination threatens democracy
HOLLY HONIG | OP-ED
Holly Honig is an LSA Junior
T
he recently published
Campus Affordability
Guide by the University
of Michigan’s Central Student
Government
has
produced
understandable and justifiable
backlash.
Affordability
in
Ann Arbor is a structural
issue
and
will
hardly
be
solved by suggesting students
spend less money. One of
the biggest costs to students
is rent, which continues to
increase every year. As the
University continues to admit
more students and refuses to
build more housing for those
students, more are pushed
into
the
private
market.
Due to the high cost of land
and developers seeking to
maximize profits, the market
will
continue
to
supply
unaffordable luxury student
high-rises. Students, however,
need not be powerless as
consumers in the housing
market. One recommendation
of
the
affordability
guide
that CSG should pursue is the
reformation of the Ann Arbor
Tenants’ Union. The AATU
was formed in 1968 as the
coordinating committee of a
city-wide rent strike initially
protesting the poor housing
at a time when 90 percent of
rental properties failed to
meet city code requirements.
After
its
formation,
the
AATU
undertook
several
more strike and advocacy
actions
to
combat
failure
to meet code requirements,
privacy violations and sexual
harassment
in
cooperation
with women’s groups and anti-
racism efforts. In addition to
serving the whole of the Ann
Arbor area, the AATU received
most of its funding from
Central Student Government,
then known as the Michigan
Student Assembly. In 2004,
CSG
stopped
funding
the
union, despite 58 percent of
the student body voting to
continue funding the union
through a one-dollar increase
in tuition. CSG’s decision to
stop funding the AATU led to
its dissolution in 2004.
CSG provided funds to the
AATU as well as office space in
the Michigan Union because of
the benefits the AATU provided
to students. The vast majority
of students are renters in Ann
Arbor and renting for the first
time, making us particularly
vulnerable
to
predatory
actions by landlords. Due
to CSG funding, the AATU
provided
free
services
to students such as legal
advice when dealing with
landlord issues as well as
lobbying efforts on behalf of
the city’s renters. At the time,
CSG incorrectly claimed the
AATU was ineffective. While
students can get legal advice
from Student Legal Services
when dealing with landlord
issues, it hardly fulfills the same
advocacy on behalf of students
that the AATU once did.
A great deal of the need for
the reformation of the AATU
is the disempowered status
of students. Looking at the
wards of Ann Arbor, from
which City Council members
are elected, one notices that
they look like slices of pie.
They are shaped this way for
an explicit and by no means
accidental purpose. At the
height of student activism in
the late ‘60s, students wielded
substantial influence over city
council. When this activism
subsided in the ‘80s, the wards
were redrawn to weaken and
disempower students.
Additionally,
because
Ann Arbor is a Democratic
stronghold,
City
Council
members often run unopposed
in the general election, thus
making
the
only
election
of
meaning
the
August
party primary. Students are
often not on campus at the
beginning
of
August,
and
thus the average age of the
primary voters is mid- to late-
60s. Because students don’t
vote for the members of City
Council, the city government
has little electoral incentive to
represent our interests. While
Zach Ackerman, D-Ward 3,
was able to win a seat on the
council as a student, he is the
exception and not the rule.
He is also the only member of
the 11-member city council who
rents and is not a homeowner, a
significant underrepresentation
considering that 40 percent of
Ann Arbor residents are renters.
The
reformation
of
the
AATU would give students
political power as renters.
It would have the ability to
influence City Council year-
round when the students are
not here and be an institution
that represents our interests.
When the AATU existed, it
demonstrated its power and
influence by initiating rent
strikes and even suing the city
of Ann Arbor. In 2004, students
felt that the AATU should
continue its existence, and it is
unfortunate that CSG did not
honor the will of the students
at that time. While restoring
the AATU would not be a
silver bullet solution to fixing
affordability in Ann Arbor, its
return would be something
CSG could do to improve
affordability in Ann Arbor
and an effective use of student
tuition dollars; providing an
important service to students
that the affordability guide
does not. The tenants’ union
at the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign was used
by nearly 8,000 students in
2015 and assisted in writing
a
comprehensive
landlord-
tenant ordinance in Urbana.
If there is one thing that
comes out of the backlash
to the Campus Affordability
Guide, it should be for CSG to
take action on its call for the
reformation of the Ann Arbor
Tenants’ Union.
Christopher Olson is an LSA Junior
Reform the Ann Arbor Tenants’ Union
CHRISTOPHER OLSON | OP-ED
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Print journalism in Trump’s presidency
IAN LEACH | COLUMN
SARAH NEFF | CONTACT SARAH AT SANE@UMICH.EDU