I was not a model student in college. I showed up late for lectures, did all my assignments at the last minute, and promptly forgot just about everything I was taught. I truly embraced the credo that C’s get degrees, even sprinkling in a few D’s for good measure.
I regret all of that, especially now when I find knowledge such a precious commodity and the time and resources to gain more supremely rare. The nuggets I did pick up in college, scarce as they may be, are invaluable to me and I wish I had more to help frame the world around me.
One such insight came from an entry-level media class, literally Journalism 101, where I was introduced to the concept of media as a window or a mirror. As the lesson went, the media either functions as a window showing worlds beyond our own and stories we need to see, or it’s a mirror reflecting the world as it is.
My class of aspiring journalists debated at length which metaphor was accurate; eventually we realized that the media is both. So headlines like “CEO fires 900 employees over Zoom” and “Texas coach and girlfriend face lawsuit over alleged monkey biting incident” — well, those are either a window to someone else’s existence or a mirror of our own. I’ll let you decide.
Either way, those headlines don’t exist without you and me voraciously consuming them. The angler doesn’t keep baiting her hook with worms if the fish aren’t biting. How can we fault the media for giving us what we’ve proven we have an appetite for?
We need the window showing us the tragedies occurring around us so we don’t dwindle in ignorance and the mirror reflecting our flaws so we can eradicate them. But if we don’t want to sink helplessly into the quagmire of bad news, we should seek out and share the positive stories, too.
The good news is already out there, like this weekend’s Moscow-Pullman Daily News story “No red tape, just warm hands; Yarn Underground owner continues tradition of free hats, gloves for those who need them” which described how for six years Shelley Stone has been hanging hats and gloves to a tree outside her business for anyone to take for protection from the winter elements.
The good news can sometimes be embedded within the bad. “Hillcrest Motel closing; tenants seek new homes” — a somber headline and sad affair. But the subhead continues: “Moscow establishment has been providing long-term and emergency housing for years.” For 27 years, Roberta and George Branson have been here, behind the scenes, providing a housing option for members of our community who otherwise would find themselves in dire straits. What a testament that such a thing existed for so long.
Sometimes the good news isn’t in the news at all. It’s acts of kindness, big or small, that occur all around us. Those acts can impact many, like registered nurse Jeanna Wilson who already has two jobs but took on a third as a substitute nurse when she learned of the Moscow School District’s urgent need. Or even smaller, one-time acts, like sophomore Haily Oldham from the Vandal Swimming and Diving team taking time before a race to thank her 14-year-old lane timer for volunteering at the Vandal Invitational swim meet, then asking that girl (my daughter) about her own swim team experience, encouraging her to continue in the sport.
It’s sadly common to rail on the media, but now more than ever the media isn’t some faceless conglomerate that dictates which curtains are drawn and where the mirror is pointed. It’s us, the masses part of the mass media title, that controls those levers. There is so much good out there, and we as both the consumers and — thanks to social media — primary distributors of media are empowered to highlight it.
Test this theory out by using your own voice. Write a brief letter to the editor giving someone a shout-out for the good they do in our community. Broadcast through social media the positive stories that inspire you. Be someone else’s window or mirror in the way you want others to be for you.
Or passively wish the world were better — but fair warning: That’s how you earn C’s in life.
Stellmon set sail for a three-hour tour on the Palouse in 2001. She is now happily marooned in Moscow with her spouse and five children.
