The picture says it all. A pair smiling women face the camera. It’s obvious the two are on friendly terms; this isn’t a stiffly formal picture of work colleagues.
One of them is Gabriella Giffords, former member of Congress and founder of the hard-core gun control group Giffords, the other is Colorado Politics Deputy Editor Thelma Grimes. What makes this picture remarkable is not so much who is in it, but the fact that it follows on the heels of a couple of pieces about Giffords authored by Grimes. The first is a Q & A with Giffords and the second could loosely be described as an essay where Grimes reflects on covering Giffords being attacked and shot in 2011.
From the essay, it’s clear that Grimes respects and likes Giffords. It’s clear that there is a connection–a relationship–there due to sharing a life-altering experience. It’s clear too that this pretty obviously influenced the tone and tenor of the Q & A.
Trust us, we’re professionals
As Colorado College journalism professor Corey Hutchins wrote in a recent edition of his media newsletter, relationships matter: “No news organization is perfect, including the one you’re currently reading. It’s actually very hard for a news outlet or independent journalist to treat everyone the same without fear or favor — even if they say that’s what they do. Relationships matter among humans and they complicate things.”
Hutchins said this (of course) about a news outlet he considers to be conservative, not Ms. Grimes, but the principle stands. Relationships matter. They matter here, they matter when friends Ross Kaminsky and AG Phil Weiser sit down to talk on Kaminsky’s 850 KOA radio show, and they matter when progressive nonprofit news organizations write about issues that their funders care deeply about.
One of the standard arguments you hear from the news media to counter accusations of bias–in this case meaning a reporter’s perspective and/or life experience influencing their coverage–is some variation of what I might term “journalistic exceptionalism.” This is the idea that somehow a journalist’s training and experience enable them to do things ordinary humans simply can’t. Things like turning off their biases and blinders.
You see this laid out in Grimes’ essay: “As a journalist, I call it ‘reporter mode.’ We set aside feelings and emotions as we get the facts, write them all down, and inform the public about what they need to know.”
It’s also alluded to in many of Hutchins’ writings, including a recent newsletter: “One important element of journalism that sets it apart from other forms of communication, like public relations and advertising, is independence [from influence].”
Acknowledging the bias
My experience as a teacher, where relationships loom large, has shown me that experience and training can indeed make one better. Knowing how to run a classroom, how to treat people fairly, how to get across to another are all skills that can be learned, practiced, and improved.
Still I’m not so naive as to think my experience or training can negate my humanity.
Thus, I don’t buy for a second that Ms. Grimes can faithfully pull off an interview of Ms. Giffords and have it carry the label of journalism. If, as happened here, Gifford gets interviewed by a fan, or a friend, what kinds of questions are left on the table?
Don’t misunderstand me here either. The opposite is also a concern. It’s just as fair to ask what we’d get if Ms. Giffords got interviewed by someone who holds some animosity to her anti-gun rights politics. What kinds of questions would be left on the table then?
I’m not sure I have a firm idea of a way around this tendency other than perhaps pointing to what I know to be workable as a teacher. Students need to have a variety of educators as they progress through school. This washes out the good, bad, or indifferent experience they’ll have in any individual classroom.
Likewise, we should have this in journalism and media outlets. For every interview of a gun control advocate by a friend, how about an interview of a gun rights advocate by a friend? This is something, incidentally, I emailed to both Ms. Grimes and Colorado Politics editor Luige del Puerto.
To Mr. del Puerto’s credit, he did ask for suggestions, so perhaps we will see it.
In the meantime, do not wait for others to do what ought to be done. Take responsibility for your own media consumption and make sure that you are consuming news from a variety of outlets across the ideological spectrum.
Cory Gaines is a regular contributor to Complete Colorado. He lives in Sterling on Colorado’s Eastern Plains and also writes at the Colorado Accountability Project substack.
