It’s well-known that conflict sells. That’s why many commentators focus on keeping the audience perpetually outraged about certain issues; and many newscasters focus on violent crime or car crashes or various other tragedies. But let’s consider something equally important in news coverage: “framing.” It’s a term that comes from photography— deciding not only what’s in the shot but what’s left out. In his 1980 book “The Whole World is Watching,” media theorist Todd Gitlin applied this to news: what we include in our reporting versus what we leave out (for whatever reason), who we cover, who we ignore, who we take seriously, who we trivialize, etc. He discussed how the media establish patterns and interpretations and ways of discussing events, and those interpretations are accepted as the truth (or become the common wisdom), even though certain perspectives may have been omitted.
Gitlin was not accusing reporters of intentionally misleading the public. Rather, he was observing how reporters are shaped by their culture; and without even realizing it, they bring their cultural beliefs into their reporting. For example, the men who reported on the women’s movement of the 1960s were usually traditionalists about gender roles: even the late great Walter Cronkite admitted he did not understand why women were protesting. Given that perspective, the reporting from these men about second-wave feminism was often dismissive, or even mocking. Similarly, given the many reporters who had either covered World War II or served in the military, reporting about the students who protested the Vietnam war was often scornful or negative.
Gitlin also noted that some predictable “media frames” were used when telling certain news stories. One common way to frame a story was to find a conflict: choose a good guy and a bad guy, a hero vs. a villain. Conflict frames are easier to understand, but they run the risk of over-simplifying complex issues. And yet, even today, we see some reporters, and lots of commentators, telling the story with one side being portrayed positively and the other negatively. Again, Gitlin wasn’t asking everyone to say nice things about murderers or to find “the other side” when discussing the Holocaust. He was simply noting that people like to know who they should root for. And by arranging the facts to eliminate any doubt about who the good guy is (or the good country, or the good ideology), reporters (often unwittingly) and commentators (often intentionally) make sure the audience comes away with the “correct” interpretation.
So, forgive the long answer, but it’s a complicated relationship between conflict and journalism. On the one hand, reporters are trained to be accurate and objective, and to report on the day’s most important events fairly; but on the other hand, ratings are always a consideration, and broadcasters need to find stories that will hold the audience’s attention, and they need to present those stories in a way that will resonate with the viewers (or the listeners). Finding a conflict of some kind, finding a story with one side versus the other, has been a popular way to frame certain stories for more than 150 years. And while not all news stories are told that way, we can find many examples of the “conflict frame” in today’s journalism, just like we did in previous generations. MBC
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