Project Vision 21

Francisco Miraval

After the recent incidents in Baltimore, actor Morgan Freeman questioned the media, asking why the media only covers violence and not, for example, peaceful marches or community dialogues trying to prevent violence from happening.

With all due respect to Mr. Freeman, it is not possible to assume that those media outlets that like to cover violence are the only important media outlets, not even if those media outlets are the biggest and the best known ones.

Obviously, violence is reported because it is unusual. It will be a tragedy for violence to become so common that there would be no need to report it. Also, the normal is not reported. If a plan doesn’t crash, there is no story. If a plane crashes or a man bites a dog, then there is a story. Only when something uncommon happens then we have a story tell.

Mr. Freeman, of course, already knows that obvious truth. I also hope he was not trying to blame the media for creating or promoting violence, a simplistic yet dangerous approach used with increasing frequency.

Whatever the case, this reporter have covered many times all kinds of community events where dialogue and peaceful coexistence have been explored and promoted, not to forget about the challenging problems we face, but precisely to solve those problems.

I have attended meetings at schools, churches, libraries, recreation centers, and many other places to write about all kinds of meetings about education, the environment, health, immigration, homelessness, the police, hunger and many other topics. In many cases, I am the only reporter there, or one of the very few.

If other reporters don’t attend those events, it is not because there is no story to tell. After all, once the story is written, it will be usually published by many local outlets and, in many cases, also by dozens of national and international outlets. That is, there is an interest for good, solid community-related stories.

I understand Freeman’s questioning of the media. The “big” outlets will be there with their big cameras, colorful trucks, and huge antennas only if they anticipate some kind of controversy or violence. And, as it is known, the presence of the cameras will change the behavior of the people.

At the same time, if several police officers and local residents are having dinner together, if a legislator and a homeless man celebrate the approval of a new social project, or if four people from different backgrounds and nationalities cooperate to open a new community center, those media outlets Freeman has in mind will probably not cover those stories.

There is, however, a troublesome problem. I have covered many of those stories and then I found out that those organizations regret that “no media” was present at their events, even if I was there. They assume that only certain media is truly media. And if one of those media outlets happens to cover the event, it will get all the credit, as if I have done nothing.