Confound journalists; deviate from the script

Reason's Kerry Howley offers an interesting insight onto the workings of the press by way of a panel discussion on donating ova for cash.

The panel discussion is just the set-up (although it deals with an interesting subject). The payoff is that, because Howley steadfastly refuses to regret or be traumatized by her experience, journalists find her useless.

I spent my allotted time explaining that my emotional response does not seem to conform to the acceptable cultural script. Reporters call and ask “How painful was it?” and “Do you regret it now?” It wasn’t painful, I reply, I’m quite happy to have had the experience. Awkward silence. They ask whether I know someone else they can talk to. I’m never quoted.

The reason, of course, is that many journalists have already written their stories about contentious subjects before they save the first word to a file; they're only looking for pithy quotes to fill in the blanks. Quotes that don't fit in those blanks, and tidbits that contradict the theses of the pre-written stories, are discarded.

When journalists do react to Howley -- or, more to the point, when Huffington Post writer, Melissa Lafsky, reacts to the participants in the above-mentioned panel, it's with a howl of rage that they deviated from the approved script.

But when it came to the messy internal aspects -- whether or not it felt exploitative to sell a piece of their genetic material, whether or not it was humiliating, frightening, or painful to manipulate their bodies with constant drugs and surgeries, whether or not it bothered them to produce genetic offspring that they'd never know or raise -- there was nary a word. ...

[I]t sure would have been comforting if at least one of these brilliant, self-possessed women had admitted, "Yeah, I've been conflicted. I've had strong feelings, and sometimes I wonder if I did the right thing. But I chose it, and that was my choice, so if I burst into tears at the memory of the pain, or the thought that my child could be walking around the world never knowing me, well, I deal with it. And I find a way to laugh."

Howley does a better take-down of Lafsky's presumption than I ever could, and that's not the point of my post. Let me just add that I think a key part of the maturation process is coming to understand that other people are independent creatures who experience life in ways that we don't, and who have different feelings, values and reactions. Some people just never make it to that point of development.

Lafsky's reaction is one of the more self-unaware examples of predetermined outcomes that I've seen one the part of a journalist. Note that one of the tags on her post about women's reactions to egg donation is "Rape." Having already determined that this particular medical procedure is a physical and spiritual violation, she sets out like a legislative whip to browbeat strays into line. The "right" position is the party position, so let's not hear any dissent.

Bus if bias plays a part in the process of tailoring data to fit pre-written stories, so, I suspect, does laziness. It's much easier to rewrite the same received wisdom over and over again than to approach a subject from a new direction. That's especially true if you're just plodding through your day at a media job and don't especially relish the thought of the Melissa Lafskys of the world descending on you like a visitation from the Inquisition for some heretical thought.

Unless you're especially motivated, it's easier, by far, to erase nonconforming interview notes and go looking for subjects who better fit the script.