Political writer Matt Bai (LA '90) arrived at Tufts last night to respond to critics of his recent profile of Democratic candidate John Kerry in The New York Times Magazine.
In the profile, written just a few weeks ago, Bai quoted Kerry as saying he wanted to see a time "where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they're a nuisance."
The Bush campaign immediately picked up on the quote and Bush has inserted it into his stump speech as an example of how Kerry does not take terrorism seriously.
Bai is also facing criticism from Democrats on the piece, who say he gave the Bush campaign ammunition in the final weeks of the race, and possibly gave him the presidency.
But Bai is standing strong. "I reject the idea that it was wrong," he said last night at an event called "Partisanship and the Media," which was sponsored by Education for Public Inquiry and International Citizenship.
"That's pretty much the polarized moment we are at," where news consumers are only concerned if information hurts or helps their candidate, Bai said.
Instead, Bai said he wants to challenge his readers' preconceptions, "and more importantly, to challenge our own" as journalists.
Asked whether he would ever change an article because of how it may be perceived or affect current events when published, Bai's answer was an emphatic "no."
Referring to his own controversial article, Bai said, "If a quote damages a campaign, then there is something wrong with the campaign."
The problem with the Kerry campaign, Bai said last night and in his New York Times Magazine article, is that it attempted to keep the policy debate as vague as possible.
Bai said the duty of being a journalist is to explain political actors and issues - not protect the campaigns that try to avoid them.
He did acknowledge that if an inflammatory quote distracted from a piece's "multi-faceted" analysis, causing the article to be misunderstood, he could see removing it.
However, he said that political campaigns - especially when there are only two candidates - have an obligation to tell the public their policies and their opinions. Without that debate, whoever wins the election will not have a mandate to lead the country and democracy will suffer, Bai said.
The increased partisanship of the news media over the last 10 years only panders to the public's preconceptions on issues, and does nothing to foster debate in the country, Bai said.
"I understand that's not what people are looking for in this environment, but we need to try," he said. "We fail and endanger democracy when we choose sides and only give people what they want."
Recent criticism of the media's role in lowering public debate has focused on the lack of substantial policy investigation and its focus instead on the "horse race" aspect of the presidential race.
But Bai does not think that the media is to blame for the lack of substantive debate. "The truth is, the horse race is all there really is ... we can't cover a debate that doesn't exist."
Bai assigned part of the blame for the lack of debate to the Bush administration's tendency to frame issues in black and white that require a more in-depth policy conversation. "It's putting people in boxes they won't be able to get out of," Bai said. "It will make it harder to have that conversation."
Bai said the media has changed so much in the past decade, with the advent of new cable stations like Fox News and the additions of online blogs, that the public is starting to lose track of the source of its information.
"What I do is not the same as Fox, People Magazine, talk radio," Bai said. Since news consumers still read the same major national newspapers as they did 30 years ago, Bai said the problem lies in the public's lack of media literacy - citizens do not know how to interpret different media formats, such as a newspaper article versus a blog.
According to Bai, the term "media" is not descriptive enough, and there needs to be a breakdown of what constitutes news and what constitutes opinion.
Bai finished his talk at Tufts with a brief discussion on when the system would change. According to Bai, it will take several more presidential elections before a candidate with a well-articulated long-term policy vision will be able to step forward and change the tone of the discussion.
