Processing solitary ordeals is its own skill set.

I never intended to mention two Tom Hanks projects on my blog, but I’ve long felt the scene in the film Castaway, when the actor’s character is offered ice – of all things – on a commercial flight post-rescue, describes so perfectly the feeling of being completely misunderstood after an isolating challenge. After being trapped or abused for a long period and unable to talk about it, how does one respond to being offered pepper for one’s salad or a kind apology for a mutual understanding from a politely deferential stranger before offering one’s own in return while never having such a serious earlier experience ever even be addressed?

Although, eventually, I believe everyone learns that even unacknowledged truths are sufficient frames of inward reference, I believe there is healing in acknowledgement and relationship-building.

An Example

This week’s Justice Department oversight hearing, while imperfect, of course, perhaps sadly felt like a picture of what at least an improved degree of accountability, dialogue, and, especially, acknowledgment, look and sound like; and it served as a reminder that points of reference, like mutually-understood words, enabling communicative traction do exist.

Although there certainly seemed to be frustrating – and frequent – stonewalling in the meeting, there were also numerous collaborative exchanges and, more importantly, the dignity of acknowledgment.

Repeatedly, I noted during this week’s hearing, people breathed in, made sounds that corresponded to ideas in the English language relating sensibly to the topic at hand, and then other people, having heard these, themselves breathed in and made sounds corresponding to ideas in the English language relating to the previous sounds. Having spent so much time in recent months pondering and responding to problems observed in the corporate media industry’s business model, this felt, to me, like a miracle.

Notably, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse acknowledged in this hearing a danger of delay being “despositive” and endorsed what was termed the “old doctrine of follow the money.” Why are ideas this reasonable not applied by or to problems within news organizations?

In his remarks, Attorney General Garland said that “to succeed and retain the trust of the American people, the Justice Department must adhere to … norms … Those norms of independence from improper influence, of the principled exercise of discretion and of treating like cases alike are what define who we are as public servants.”

Are journalists public servants or not?

I believe it is important to make a more public and unambiguous declaration regarding which organizations are and are not in the public’s service and to hold those in the former category accountable in formal ways while labeling the latter clearly. Even if what appears more and more like a partiality that practically resembles cronyism across media corporations is sometimes well-intended, there is a need for some form of checks and balances for a for-profit and for-power media bloc that is, at this time, answerable to no one.

Many have focused in recent months on protecting kids from what they consider to be media corporation indoctrination in schools, and, while I believe they are following conscience, there is a great deal of nuance to consider. It is possible to support the African American social justice movement wholeheartedly without adopting the approach of those who would allow it to be abused in exchange for the ability to co-brand. (I believe there is a difference between acknowledging that survivors of bigotry or abuse need to be heard and pretending that survivors’ proposed solutions must always be adopted uncritically and as a whole. Being heard and being deified are two different things.) New momentum for the African American rights movement in recent years has been needed, important, and natural, obviously. And I hope everyone supports its continuation. Still, I still believe the media sector’s role, to the degree that it has been co-optive, may be problematic.

While I had not anticipated it, one of the greatest challenges for me in watching this sector dominate far beyond classrooms has been watching and considering its effects on older generations, among others. More and more I find myself feeling galvanized to speak about media culture when I consider how important it will be for all to see our public affairs dialogue infrastructure restored.

I believe one of the most helpful tools we could possibly employ to achieve this end would be to moor the sector to some sort of standard for protecting human rights internally. This is as, in my observation, those who overlook or stifle safety and equality within media organizations seem to include both women and men, both African American and non-African American people, and both homosexual and heterosexual people. While many fixed characteristics like these have historically served, and arguably still serve, as very reliable proxies for vulnerability, vulnerability itself and power itself need to be considered, too, in evaluating media organizations’ fulfillment of their obligation to uphold constitutional values in my view. Being tethered by the gravity of such a requirement would, I believe, help prevent individual organizations from drifting forever away from the principles undergirding the American system of governance.