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Only White Males Need Apply:
Construction of Heroism in U.S. Newspapers Before
And After the 9-11 Attacks
Abstract
A content analysis was conducted of news stories describing heroic acts found in 14 daily newspapers during the years 1986, 1996, and 2006. White males are featured most often as heroes in newspapers. It also helps if the hero is young – in his or her 20’s or 30’s. Newspapers infrequently cover heroic actions by women, or by members of other races and ethnic groups. Individuals who hold unpopular or controversial ideas, or who are activists for unpopular causes, are nearly absent. Newspaper editors are now more likely to treat a heroic act or acts as a human interest story, and ask their reporters to describe them using a feature writing approach. The stories they create, however, are now more likely to end up in the main news section – and ran often during the years studied on or close to the front page. The story of heroism told by U.S. journalists is an incomplete one that continues to privilege whiteness and being male. Readers can thus can only turn to a narrow range of people for hope and comfort or when they look for someone to emulate.
Introduction
Lucy Van Pelt: What has Beethoven got to do with Christmas? Everyone talks about how "great" Beethoven was. Beethoven wasn't so great.
[Schroeder stops playing]
Schroeder: What do you mean Beethoven wasn't so great?
Lucy Van Pelt: He never got his picture on bubblegum cards, did he? Have you ever seen his picture on a bubblegum card? Hmmm? How can you say someone is great who's never had his picture on bubblegum cards?
Schroeder: Good grief.
-Excerpted from A Charlie Brown Christmas, 1965
Our connection to our heroes goes beyond simple admiration. By following their actions, we learn about ourselves, our wants and desires, and our core values. We use heroes as models for our behavior. As Warner (1959) explained, “abstract principles, precepts, and moral judgments are…more easily felt and understood, and more highly valued, when met in a human being endowed with a symbolic form that expresses them” (p. 14). Further, exploring changes in the type and range of heroes we embrace provides valuable clues about shifts in society’s values and beliefs. As Lubin (1968) noted, a hero should be recognized “for whatever qualities significant groups of people esteem” (p. 3). Celebrated Scottish lecturer and author Thomas Carlyle (1840) contended that a hero “can be a poet, a prophet, king, priest, or what you will, according to the kind of world he finds himself born into.” A hero can have one of “a thousand faces,” as famed author Joseph Campbell argued in 1949.
Journalists are one of several groups of people – educators are perhaps another – who exercise the cultural authority to select and highlight the “faces” discussed by Campbell. They play a key role in defining heroism. Descriptions of heroic exploits are quickly, widely, and repeatedly disseminated by the news media. The journalist’s appetite for stories of heroism, combined with the public’s love of celebrities, has led some to argue (e.g. Boorstin, 1962) that we now haphazardly throw around the word “hero,” applying it to actions that are not impressive or impactful. It is now enough for a hero to be familiar. It no longer matters to us if heroes are memorable; all that we demand of them is that they capture and hold our attention. But by equating heroism with celebrity, Daniel Boorstin argued, “we come dangerously close to depriving ourselves of all real role models. We lose sight of the men and women who do not simply seem great because they are famous but who are famous because they are great.”
Writing in the early 1960s, Boorstin blamed the degradation of heroism on the mass media. Explosive growth in the number of media outlets has heightened an already strong demand by journalists for compelling narratives of heroism. As a result, people can earn extensive media coverage for an expanding range of at times dubious achievements. It is no longer possible, Boorstin’s work suggests, for an individual, even one who meets the previous definition of “hero,” to stand out, for their actions to truly be memorable. Heroes, like so much of what we receive from the media, have short shelf lives, no matter what they achieve. This may stem from the fact that we are now capable, thanks to advances in communication technology, of knowing something about nearly everyone, famous or not. We only become familiar with the mediated public personae of our heroes and feel less inclined to exalt them – not to mention more willing to discard them if they act inappropriately.
But as Jack Lule (2001) explains, while heroes are perhaps becoming less memorable, journalists continue to base stories about them on an entrenched mythic structure; we typically learn that a hero has had a humble birth and upbringing, is tested, passes that test, and returns triumphantly to his community (Campbell, 1949, p. 30). So while heroes may no longer be “superhuman” (Robertson, 1980) or resemble a “god-like creature with superhuman ability or strength” (Winfield & Hume, 1998, p. 79), it is important to examine, Lule argues, the fascination that stories of heroism still hold for us. Exploring changes in the conditions for entry into the mediated world of heroism provides a compelling opportunity to learn a bit more about the qualities we now value, as Warner suggested in 1959. Thus, the selection and anointment of heroes by the nation’s journalists are the focus of this research. But before examining the composite picture of the “typical” American hero emerging from their work, we briefly review a shift in what the public looks for in a hero, followed by a discussion of how and why journalists continue to present their stories.
Seeking “Idols of Consumption”
In 1954, Marshall Fishwick neatly summed up sweeping historical changes in the qualities we look for in a hero: “In classic times heroes were God-men; in the Middle Ages they were God’s men; in the Renaissance, universal men; in the 18th century enlightened men; in the 19th century self-made men. In our own time we are seeing the common man become heroic” (p. 4). By the middle of the 20th century, Lowenthal (1943) explained, we had shifted our gaze from accomplished and productive individuals (“idols of production”) to popular entertainers, sports figures, and media figures – “idols of consumption,” as he called them. Lowenthal argued that idols of production are heroes of a society that admires the “productive human being” (p. 512). Idols of consumption, on the other hand, are “qualitatively and quantitatively removed from the standards of the past” and represent “sphere of leisure” (pp. 515-516). Lowenthal contended this shift represented “hidden processes and interconnections of social phenomena” (p. 545). The move to idols of consumption was the result of the development of the culture industry and its manipulation by and with capitalism. Idols of consumption “corrupt the educational conscience by delivering goods which bear an educational trademark but are not the genuine article,” he claimed” (pp. 545-546).
Fishwick would later argue that “the hero is not disappearing in America, he is simply getting a new look” (p. 231). After World War II, heroes emerged from a very different and changed culture. Schlesinger (1968) believed that between the world wars, Americans had come to have their fill of traditional heroes. Because most of those heroes were born amid violence and the new world was peaceful, new heroes had to be created to reflect this change. We had turned inward and began to praise the “common man (sic) hero” who embodied human equality and democracy, Schlesinger claimed. Belief in the strength of the common person generated distrust of previous heroes. We had grown wary of finding too much virtue in our leaders and attributing too much success to their actions (Boorstin, 1961). Schlesinger and Boorstin believed that the bureaucratization of daily life, the decline of the working class, and the expansion of suburbia led to greater homogenization, collectivity, and anonymity. The media, which tend to present content designed mainly to reach the masses, heightened our need for common heroes, Boorstin argued. Thanks to the media, we experience “a vastly larger list of names, faces, and voices than any earlier period or in any other country.” As a result, he wrote, “the titanic figure is now only one of a thousand” (pp. 53-54).
By the 1960s, we began to embrace the celebrity as a new kind of hero, even though, Boorstin claimed, they were really “an artificial new product – a product of the graphic response to our exaggerated expectations.” We required a steady stream of new heroes, even if they were less “worthy of our admiration.” It is easy to make someone famous, “but we cannot make him great,” Boorstin wrote. And by confusing “celebrity-worship and hero-worship,” the public ends up short oftrue role models. “We come closer and closer to degrading all fame into notoriety,” he argued (pp. 48-49). Boorstin went so far as to assert that “celebrity has entirely superseded heroism” (p. 57). We now latch on to individuals “known for [their] well-knownness,” thanks to our tendency, carefully nurtured by the media, to confuse “the signs of greatness for its presence” (p. 47). Our confusion, Joshua Gamson (1994) suggests, “is a sign of cultural emptiness and groundlessness” (p. 9).
Fishwick (1982) agreed that the media creates synthetic heroes, but he also feared the media give us flawed heroes. “Because no highly publicized figure can hide contradictions, shortcomings, and recorded blunder, the old-one-dimensional hero or paragon is finished,” he claimed (p. 107). Our newer heroes come with a clear expiration date, and are often ready to self-destruct. Meyrowitz (1985) labeled them “one-shot” heroes. Meyrowitz contends we now confuse private life with public life, a state quite uncomfortable for the “old-style heroes” judged on achievements rather than on persona. The media breathlessly recount scandal and reveal secrets. But this only serves to highlight the “`ordinariness’ of everyone,” as Meyrowitz claims. “The unusual becomes the usual; famous stars who abuse their children, Presidents with hemorrhoids, Popes who get depressed, congressmen who solicit sex from pages” (p. 311). After having our fill of information, we quickly move on to the next hero. The media move on, too.
The “rebel” hero is also a recent phenomenon. It is logical that if we no longer admire or have traditional heroes or sometimes choose heroes with faults, we might also sometimes choose heroes that are opposed to the dominant culture defended by traditional heroes. They are recognized for their rebellious acts, not for their talents or achievements. The rebel hero is not the same as the “anti-hero,” which is the hero’s enemy. The rebel hero represents an unpopular sub-culture, while the anti-hero “represents an entire group opposed to a separate society or culture,” as Hakanen (1989) notes. The rebel tries to exist outside the dominant culture; he or she does not try to fight or change it. We rarely tolerate challenges to hallowed concepts or core value; thus, true rebels are unlikely to be seen as heroes. For example, it is probably safe to conclude that only a small number of Americans consider anti-war protestor Cindy Sheehan a hero.
How (and Why) Heroes Make News
To properly understand the news media’s role in creating heroes, we must recognize that the journalist’s pursuit of heroes is “purposeful,” as Winfield and Hume (1998, p. 83) assert. This pursuit has been going on in the U.S. since the period immediately after the founding of our republic; it did not begin in the second half of the 20th Century, as Boorstin believed. Biographical sketches were published in early magazines “to give testimony to the Americans as a separate nation and to quell self-doubts about the quality of a new people” (p. 85). This testimony came despite our discomfort “with the idea of heroes in a democracy.” The advent of the penny press in the early 19th century saw a move away from “traditional heroic characteristics” and an embrace by journalists of the “every man” hero. Stories of the “everyman” were more flexible; they could “explain values, lifestyles as well as social trends,” as Winfield and Hume explain. Introduction of a hero by a journalist “could make any news story more engaging” (p. 85). Coverage was no longer limited to the exploits of the elite. “Meritocracy was highlighted, despite human fragilities,” the authors note. Human-interest stories described the impressive achievements of individuals who had overcome their “humble beginnings.” Interviews allowed the “every man” to use his own words to help the journalists tell his story (p. 86). With new tools and a new focus, journalists were able to create heroes. Readers soon wanted to know as much as possible about the hero’s background and what drove them. “With so much news coverage,” Winfield and Hume conclude, “the ‘known’ and the genuine hero have meshed and belittle the hero designation” (p. 94).
A hero’s exploits make for compelling copy. Stories about heroes typically contain one or more of the elements (timeliness, relevance, conflict, novelty, prominence) sought by a journalist or editor in determining whether a story is newsworthy. “The news picks up the exceptions more than the rules,” Schudson (2003, p. 37) notes. Acts of heroism are atypical, even if we concede that society now overuses the term. These acts break through the routine. At times, journalists reach beyond newsworthiness; heroes often arise as society endures a time of war or upheaval. For example, the so-called “Golden Age” of sports journalism in the 1920’s saw the rise to prominence of Grantland Rice. Rice gained national notoriety for his colorful, optimistic, unabashedly worshipful portrayal of athletes, athletes with whom he maintained close relationships – an ethical breach in the eyes of journalism professors. But more important for this research is the fact that sports journalism took root in American society at a time (post World War I – later, the Great Depression) when the nation needed heroes.
The recognition of this need is one of the actions that occur as a heroic act moves, or is transformed, from being a “mere occurrence,” as Molotch and Lester (1974) argue, to a “public event.” Fishman (1997) notes that public events “are those occurrences about which accounts are constructed for the consumption of some wider public, the widest public of all being the audience of mass media news” (p. 211). While all journalists may not have internalized Schudson’s (2003) contention that news is “a dominant force in the public construction of common experience and a popular sense of what is real and important,” (p. 13), they still make this decision to transform based at least in part on the potential of the story to unite, or galvanize, or at the very least, attract, readers. Accomplishing this under intense pressure to meet deadlines and to please editors and publishers means that journalists “depend on reliable shorthand, conventions, routines, habits, and assumptions about how, why, and where to gather the news” (p. 34).
Of particular relevance for this research is Jack Lule’s idea that news “comes to us as a story” (2001, p. 3). The day’s news is composed of what Lule believes are “enduring, abiding stories.” In covering what goes on in the world, journalists tap “a deep but nonetheless limited body of story forms and types.” This reliance on certain story forms is no surprise, writes Lule, given our (the audience’s) love for stories and our tendency to use them in order to understand our lives and the world around us. Perhaps more important, Lule contends that familiar myths – “the great stories of humankind” (p. 15) – regularly come to life in news reporting. Lule defines myth as “a sacred, social story that draws from archetypal figures to offer exemplary models for human life” (p. 17). Myths empower society to express its “prevailing ideals, ideologies, values, and beliefs.” They are, Lule writes, “models of social life and models for social life” (p. 15). Myths are not evident in every news story, as Lule cautions, but in many instances journalists draw upon “the rich treasure trove of archetypal stories” to revisit those shared stories that help us navigate the world in which we live.
Lule’s analysis of news produced seven “master myths” – the victim, whose life is abruptly altered by “the randomness of human existence”; the scapegoat, deployed in stories to remind us of “what happens to those who challenge or ignore social beliefs”; the hero, there to remind us that we have the potential for greatness; the good mother, who offers us “a model of goodness in times when goodness may seem in short supply” (p. 24); the trickster, a crafty figure who usually ends up bringing “on himself and others all manner of suffering,” thanks to his crude, boorish behavior; the other world, which enables us to feel good about our way of life by contrasting it, sometimes starkly, with ways of life elsewhere; and the flood, in which we see the “destruction of a group of people by powerful forces,” often because they have “strayed from the right path” (p. 25).Lule’s typology supports Gans’ (1979) contention that values in news coverage are “rarely explicit and must be found between the lines – in what actors and activities are reported or ignored and in how they are described” (p. 40). Coverage of individuals, he writes, is a way to keep tabs on the “nation and society – their persistence, cohesion, and the conflicts and divisions threatening their cohesion” (p. 29). But as Gans recognized more than three decades ago, journalists report only on a stubbornly narrow range of “actors and activities,” despite our growing recognition as a society that more women and members of minority groups clearly deserve the “hero” title. If, as Lule contends, journalists deploy the hero myth “to instruct and inform society” (Roessner, 2009, p. 44), the quality of that instruction, and of that information, would seem to be lacking. Our research attempts to confirm this assertion.