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Title: Journo Whose Husb. Drives Garbage Truck: Media Need More Socioeconomic Diversity
Source:
Breitbart
URL Source: http://www.breitbart.com/big-journa ... on-diversity-husb-garbage-man/
Published: Jul 9, 2017
Author: Tony Lee
Post Date: 2017-07-09 09:38:53 by cranky
Keywords: None
Views: 3265
Comments: 12
Journalist Heather Bryant, a John S. Knight Fellow at Stanford, recently described a conversation she had with another journalist at a conference in which she was asked what her husband did for a living: “He’s a truck driver and a mechanic.” “While they didn’t explicitly say it, the person was very much thrown off by the nature of my husband’s work. I was left with a very strong feeling they were expecting a more middle-class answer than a garbage worker,” she wrote. “Journalism has a class problem. We know this. The best internships are for students with the resources to work unpaid or with low pay in some of the most expensive cities in the country.” Bryant wrote that the journalist’s surprised reaction made her wonder “how badly our industry really lacks for people with more diverse socioeconomic backgrounds.” “Our journalism would be better if we were a better representation of the backgrounds and experiences our audiences have,” she wrote. Bryant’s husband also seems conscious of the legacy media’s elitism because he worries that he might embarrass her in front of other journalists. “If that conference interaction is how a journalist responds to my husband’s job while idly chatting, how do they cover the sanitation worker that ends up in a story they are working on?” Bryant asked. “If talking about someone to that person’s spouse isn’t enough to cause one to mask aversion, how do they talk about people to whom they feel even more distance from? What does this mean for our audience’s ability to trust us?” Bryant then points out how when her husband goes on his garbage route in the liberal San Francisco Bay Area, he is treated the best in the “rougher neighborhoods and the working class areas” while “disrespected” and looked down upon in the wealthiest enclaves: There’s a recurring theme in the work stories he shares with me. His routes take him all over the Bay Area. Through the nice neighborhoods of the upper middle class and the extremely well off gated communities. Through the working class communities, the rougher parts of Oakland and the areas where the businesses are surrounded by the homeless. It’s fascinating how people treat him based on only their knowledge that he is the trash guy. The vast majority of disrespect, rudeness and condescension happens in what many would call the nicer neighborhoods. Kindness and appreciation, people giving him a cold drink on a hot day or just saying thanks happens most in the rougher neighborhoods and the working class areas. Bryan said that though her husband does “have a four year degree,” she would “wager that he has a hell of a lot better understanding of people than some of the journalists that I know.” Bryant’s piece indicates why so many journalists in the legacy media not treat working-class voters—and the issues they care about—with nothing but disdain and completely could not understand what motivated Americans who lived outside of their insular bubbles to vote for Trump in 2016. As NBC’s Andrea Mitchell recently acknowledged at the LA Press Club while receiving a lifetime achievement award, the legacy media were blindsided by President Donald Trump’s victory. “We have to better,” she reportedly said. “We never saw it coming.” It is worth noting that the late Tim Russert’s father was a garbage man. And perhaps that is why, for all of his faults, Russert was better able to earn the trust of average Americans than most of today’s smug and out-of-touch reporters in the legacy media. @mitchellreports to colleagues on the craft's coverage of the 2016 campaign "We have to do better…we never saw it coming." @LAPressClub — NPC President (@NPCPresident) June 26, 2017
The elitist legacy media need more socioeconomic diversity, according to a journalist whose husband, who is a garbage man, worries that his blue-collar job will embarrass her when she socializes with other reporters.
“…Oh.”
“Yeah, right now he drives for a trash company.”
“That must be…an interesting perspective to have around.”
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Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 11.
#2. To: cranky (#0)
(Edited)
She is so close to the problem that even she is missing the real "bell-ringer",which is: "EEEK! EEEK! One of our own is married to a ignortant,redneck,bluecollar worker! EEEK! EEEEK! EEEK! EEEEK! WE ARE BEING INVADED! WHO CAN I TRUST NOW? EEEK! EEEJ! IF IT CAN HAPPEN TO HER,WHO ELSE IS MARRIED TO WHITE TRASH! COULD IT HAPPEN TO ME IF MY PROFESSOR HUSBAND DECIDES TO DIVORCE ME AND MARRY A 22 YEAR OLD COLLEGE HOTTIE? THERE SHOULD BE LAWS AGAINST THIS SORT OF THING! EEEK! EEEK! EEEK!" I have met people who were shocked to discover I had been a career NCO in the US Army. All were 2nd or 3rd generation college grads who considered themselves to be open-minded intellectuals with no class issues,and every damn one of them said one version or another of "Why? You are a smart guy,and unlike most of them,you didn't have to join the army to earn a living. You could have gone to college and became a professor/lawyer/engineer,etc,etc,etc!" The underlying message being one that wouldn't recognize if you played a recording back to them,which is "Only stupid people do manual labor". The ironic part is I personally know people that only have a high-school education,if that,who are pulling in a 6 figure income each year by working as independent plumbers,carpenters,electricians,etc,etc,etc. They all work either by themselves or with one helper to minimize their paperwork,and they only take small jobs the contractors aren't interested in doing. On top of that,they only work 5 days a week if they want to work 5 days a week because they don't have a crew to keep working or contracts to meet deadlines on. The only guy I can find to do plumbing repairs at my house is not what anyone would call a brainiac,and nobody has ever accused him of working too hard,either. Yet he owns 3 houses that I know of,and goes to Florida several times a year to go fishing,and stays at the house he owns there when he goes. Not hard to figure out how he does this. He charges 150 bucks just to show up and tell you what the repairs will cost,and then charges you another 75 bucks an hour for his work,including the time he spends driving to a hardware store to buy the materials he needs to make the repair, and 75 bucks an hour for his apprentice,who he pays minimum wage until they learn enough they want a raise,and he fires them and hires another minimum wage apprentice. He also never takes on a job that he can't finish that same day and get paid that same day unless he considers you a friend and it won't take more than 2 days to finish it. Don't feel bad for his apprentices. By the time he fires them they have learned enough to get hired as apprentice plumbers at decent pay by one of the corporate plumbing companies around here that run several crews. And he didn't go to school to learn it,either. He learned as an apprentice with another jackleg plumber who was also self-taught that is now dead from old age.
Yeah. He has a real, marketable skill that produces output that consumers will pay for. A point sometimes missed by those etruscan arts majors striving for a phd.
Not only pay for,but NEED in the real world sense of the word. This just reminded me of of a episode of Frazer. Niles and his homo brother had to call a plumber to come fix the toilet in time for a dinner party they were throwing,and by chance the plumber ended up being a guy that used to bully them both and give them "swirlies" when they were in high school. Niles decided he was going to show the "thug with the menial job how well "eggheads" do after getting a "proper education" in order to get back at him,so he goes into the bathroom with Frazer and they both start talking about the new Mercedes they just got. It REALLY locked their jaws when the plumber mentioned,"Oh yeah! I was wondering how that model performed. I almost bought one myself,but decided to with the 450 model instead. It's really the wife's car and I wanted to make sure she was comfortable." Frazer and Niles looked like their heads were going to explode when they found out the "bully with the menial job and no education" actually earned more than they did.
And quite possibly took great pleasure and pride in his skill set and a job well done. It's fun to fix things.
Some people are even born to fix things. One of the names they are called is "inventors",and it would be a hell of a world without them.
Sitting here thinking about this thread. I was in college for 5 years. Paid for it myself, so I worked too. I'd been working since my paper route when I was 12. By the time I was 16 I paid for everything except a roof and food; clothes, haircuts, adventures, dates, etc. I remember seeing my buddies go up to their dad with their hand out when we were heading out on Fri. / Sat. night. If I tried that with my dad he'd of looked at me like I lost it. I had chores to do for him to "earn my keep", which included carpentry, wood splitting, yard maint., and so forth. I was on my own at 18. Put myself through school doing all sorts of jobs. Before I got out of school I had rebuilt a house from the ground up -- I mean jacking it up off the piles of rocks it sat on, putting in pier blocks and posts, sistering all the floor joists, gutted the interior, moved a staircase, moved the electrical service (got busted on that and had to pay the permit fee), and so on up to a new roof. I worked in the business world, but never stopped doing projects. It's therapy. I used to escape to the garage/shop in the evenings to work on something, cars or wood. My wife was forbidden to mess with anything out there (she once threw out my collection of wood remainders, so got banned). I am probably the only guy you know who regularly vacuumed the garage. Heh. edit - peer blocks (heh, wonder what those would be).
There are no replies to Comment # 11. End Trace Mode for Comment # 11.
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest“If that conference interaction is how a journalist responds to my husband’s job while idly chatting, how do they cover the sanitation worker that ends up in a story they are working on?” Bryant asked. “If talking about someone to that person’s spouse isn’t enough to cause one to mask aversion, how do they talk about people to whom they feel even more distance from? What does this mean for our audience’s ability to trust us?”
#4. To: sneakypete (#2)
Not hard to figure out how he does this.
#5. To: cranky (#4)
He has a real, marketable skill that produces output that consumers will pay for.
#6. To: sneakypete (#5)
Frazer and Niles looked like their heads were going to explode when they found out the "bully with the menial job and no education" actually earned more than they did.
#7. To: cranky (#6)
It's fun to fix things.
#10. To: sneakypete, cranky (#7)
(Edited)
#11. To: Anthem (#10)
Hats off to you!
Replies to Comment # 11.
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