Newsweek national correspondent and Tufts Alum Matt Bai (LA '90) spent his two-hour campus lecture dissecting the good, bad, and ugly in US media coverage of politics, and exchanging political stories with students before answering questions about his experiences in the industry.
"People are cynical about the press because they think we like to talk more than we like to listen," he said. "I fear they are right."
The press is accountable to its readership, he said, but he emphasized that media outlets should not follow public opinion too closely. Instead, the press should play its part, along with politicians, in leading the American people. "We have fallen down at critical times and it hasn't been clear until later," he said.
Bai said the press should be a watchdog for civil liberties. Its coverage of the 800 Arabs being held by US authorities in relation to the Sept. 11 attacks should be far more aggressive, he said, comparing their detainment to the internment of 120,00 Japanese Americans during World War II.
In other criticism, Bai called the press "lazy and timid," often avoiding complicated subject matter.
The lecture was sponsored by United Leaders, an organization founded by Tufts students and housed in Harvard's Kennedy School of Government that encourages youths to become involved in political service. Bai said that public disinterest in politics, something United Leaders combats, can be blamed on media coverage of political issues.
Readers need to get under the skin of politicians and see the human side, just as they can with professional athletes. "We're not being successful at showing compassionate portraits," he said.
Bai is taking a year off from his job at Newsweek to lead a discussion group at the Institute of Politics at Harvard University's Kennedy School. The Institute tries to forge a connection between Harvard's renowned graduate school and undergraduates.
United Leaders Programming Director and senior Erin Ross said Bai was invited to address the connection between politics and the media.
"United Leaders is very focused on making politics more accessible to the people and the media is a very important instrument in that," Ross said. "Matt Bai agrees with our idea that politicians and the media can work together to improve the political system," Ross said.
Because students barely filled the first three rows in the Braker Auditorium, the talk took an informal tone. Bai, an avid Billy Joel fan, repeatedly offered Newsweek internships to any student who could secure him tickets to Joel's upcoming Tufts show.
He also recounted many anecdotes from his years covering politics. After spending time with candidates ranging from Bill Clinton to Jesse Ventura, the Minnesota governor, Bai said that the politician he most enjoys covering is Arizona Senator John McCain
Bai, who graduated in 1990, said he "wasn't the world's best student" when he came to Tufts. He entered the University on academic probation for failing physics during his senior year of high school.
A former editor of the Observer, Bai said he and many former Observer editors now working in media jobs exchanged a flurry of e-mails upon reading of the newspaper's downfall in a Tufts Daily editorial.
