On Digging Deeper

Many a news article isn't simply timely reporting. We think of news as "new", because that's literally its name. The problem with timely reporting is that it's often shallow reporting.

For example, I just read an article about the guy who was called "macaca" by George Allen. At the time, the reaction was "how could he make a (bizarre) racial slur like that"? And it said something about Allen's past, and possibly about the state he came from. Not much was said immediately about S.R. Sidarth, the person whom the slur was aimed.

Before getting into the article, I should note that "macaca" is, as slurs go, a bit unusual. Apparently, it's a slur in some parts of Europe, which would lend some credence to Allen saying he made it up (maybe not then and there--perhaps he used this term when he was a kid and it's only specifically regional).

In any case, who was this guy?

He recently wrote a report to the Washington Post. He had been on Webb's campaign, and had been following Allen around to listen to what he was saying. The Allen campaign should have been more than aware who he was, and with a little research, what his background was. Of Indian descent, he was born and raised in Virginia. He had nothing but positive things to say about the hospitality he received, even from the Allen campaign.

In other words, he wasn't particularly offended, though he was puzzled why he was used as political fodder when Allen should have known better. But perhaps that is trying to make political hay of the situation. If you're in hicktown, maybe you play on the fears of foreigners, or at least, perceived foreigners, since Sidharth claims that he's about as native as he can be (at least, by birth, if not by deep cultural ties).

Is this news? Of a sort. It reveals detail of something that was reported. True, Sidarth himself was the one that gave a first person report of the situation, and he may be able to vault himself into an initial job because of it. Allen's comment may do more for Sidarth's career (and his gaffe more to hurt his own) than anything Sidarth would have done on his own. To be fair, Sidarth was already doing the work of a foot soldier in a campaign, so who knows? With time, he may have been successful anyway.

The point is, Sidarth's career aspirations aside, that this kind of article digs deeper at something most of us only had the most rudimentary information about.

It's the kind of journalism that was missing from what I would read in India, which seemed to me, filled with all sorts of lazy journalism. It's not to say Americans aren't filled with its share of lazy journalism, where briefings from the White House is considered "news" and the content of what's said is often analyzed, if at all, at some later point.

This is the kind of journalism that people should crave for, and the kind journalism should provide. The best papers do this in the US, and certainly NPR is good at this kind of trend news that pokes deeper at things people may soon care about. It's not always new, or politically relevant, but it's socially relevant.

These articles, to me, form the bedrock of a free society. I was going to say a democratic society, but I think, democracy equated to freedom is far overstated. Many societies claim to have democracy, but really, it's other civil liberties that matter as much, and it's the government's ability to remain free of corruption that matters, because they can control the level of freedom we have.