This is How Media Works

On Tuesday night, President Trump delivered his first State of the Union address with no less than twelve anecdotes involving American bravery and fortitude. Each of the stories were met with special guests and largely unknown faces. He talked about how Ashlee Leppert saved lives in Texas. How Seong-Ho traveled across Southeast Asia on crutches. How the Holets family adopted a heroin-addicted baby.

But as a research librarian, I found myself predictably suspicious. Not of the people or their stories. But of the origins that led to their invitations. An exercise in critical thinking. Where did Trump, or his team, for example, find these stories of ordinary people overcoming extraordinary obstacles? What was his, or their, source? Surely these were not individuals, couples, and families who had the direct ear of the president.

So I decided to backtrack on several of the stories, focusing on one in particular.

Preston Sharp was the 12-year-old boy who Trump praised for laying flags at the graves of every unidentified veteran he found. Preston has been doing this since the age of 10 and has, rightly, been praised by his community in Northern California for most of the last two years. As a middle school teacher, I have the utmost applause for Preston’s ingenuity. He has been running GoFundMe accounts since the beginning of his efforts, raising money to lay those flags in more states than his own. And all of this information I discovered while reading through original articles from local affiliates and national venues from ABC to CBS to NBC. Below is the abridged version of that rabbit trail.

On February 17, 2016, a local ABC News Affiliate in Redding, California first reported that Preston had a GoFundMe account and was looking for support. He got some. Then he went back to being a normal kid. Nothing was reported again until CBS News picked the story up in early June 2017 (just ahead of Flag Day), almost a year and a half later. At this point, CBS sent reporters to Preston’s home, speaking with him and his family directly. Later that month, Fox News ran with the story, but simply reiterated the information already reported originally by ABC and then CBS, sending no reporters of their own to cover the story. When Preston decided to take his mission to Oregon in early January 2018, NBC got involved and, again, sent reporters to speak with him and his family. And that was when the story picked up steam, earning Preston an official invitation to the president’s State of the Union.

And this, my friends on both sides of the aisle, is how the ACTUAL media works.

President Trump far too often decries every ounce of media he hates, arguing that this outlet and that outlet are nothing more than fake news (ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, NYT, WP, and on and on). He then peddles that nonsense to his base who then peddle it to their communities and their children and their online forums. But what Trump and his followers fail to acknowledge is that stories like Preston’s do not see the light of day without media. That kids like Preston do not get opportunities to meet the president, or garner the attention of the world, without someone first reporting the story.

Media, as a means of mass communication, comes in many forms, but the two most dominant are social and news. And kids like Preston benefit from both. Social media is how we tell each other about the things we see and hear. The things that concern us, fascinate us, or entertain us. News media is how we learn about the things we may or may not have known or otherwise thought to consider. Reports of a local hero, a recent death, a case for the courts. Preston tried a GoFundMe account (social) and got $100. Preston was then discovered by ABC (news) and his story went viral.

We only know about kids like Preston because people talk. And when people talk, the media listens. And when the media listens, the media talks. And when the media talks, people listen. It’s a circular process that involves human imperfection, human bias, and human prejudice as much as it involves truth, integrity, and justice.

The media is not fake. It’s just human. So let it be.