We’re embarrassed to admit that IHateTheMedia.com has been ripped off by Charles Davis, an Associate Professor at the Missouri School of Journalism. We’d feel a lot better about it if we’d been ripped off by a full professor, but alas, that was not meant to be. We were ripped off by a mere Associate Professor.
Davis thinks newspapers should create a “hate” beat.
Of course, the “hate” he’s referring to is that displayed by you angry Nazis who oppose ObamaCare:
The shrill incivility framing what passes for discourse on health care reform seems to have long ago crossed over into territory unrecognized by most rational citizens of the republic.
In the age of instant cable punditry, e-mail Astroturf campaigns left and right and made-to-order outrage, it’s easy to sigh, close the old browser and get back to the business of preseason football, but scratch a bit harder at the random news offered as so many one-off stories about unhinged denizens from the “town hall” meetings (has ever an honored democratic practice been so tarnished?), and a clear trend emerges.
Hate, shuffled off stage in the post-racial haze of the election of the nation’s first black president, is back with a vengeance. Hate, if it ever truly threatened to leave the political stage, is most definitely back, larger and nastier than ever.
As a near-absolutist First Amendment advocate, my prescription for hate speech is always more speech: Give the bigot a microphone as big as the hatred, I say, and watch as the marketplace of ideas works its magic.
Perhaps that’s why I worry, as I watch an emboldened mob grow more irresponsible with each passing day, that the mainstream media fails to give hate the coverage it deserves today.
My proposition is simple: Major news organizations need to cover hate the way they once did — as a standalone beat.
We hate that idea. We hate Associate Professor Davis. We hate the fact that he’s tenured. We hate his tie. We hate his pants. We hate his university. We hate its football team. We hate its cheerleaders. We hate its fraternities. We hate its lousy weather.
Back off, Associate Professor Davis. Hate is our turf.
Source: Columbia Tribune via Reason
