A few days ago, the leader of the free world said, "Quiet piggy!" to a female reporter who was asking a legitimate question. I have some thoughts, but we're going to take the long way there.
Remember the 1988 movie "Die Hard"? Don't worry, we're not going to debate whether it's a Christmas flick (people still argue about that, right?).
Instead, I want to focus on the TV news guy who's at the scene of the heist/hostage situation throughout the film. He's played by William Atherton, who, for at least three decades, was the guy you went and got if you needed a character for the audience to hate. In "Die Hard," he plays the absolute worst, over-the-top stereotype of a nefarious talking head imaginable. He sensationalizes things, unwittingly helps the terrorists gain leverage and puts the hero's family at risk. Near the end of the movie, the reporter wants to interview the hero, but his wife, Holly, instead punches the reporter out cold. That's meant to be a "hell yeah!" moment. Put that smug, media leech in his place, Mrs. McClane.
Definitely paints a picture of how some people view the news industry.
On a more personal level, I remember I was in the process of buying a car the same week that 9/11 happened. When the salesman found out I was a reporter, he said, "Well, this must be a good week for you." I was legitimately shocked and assured him that the worst terrorist attack on American soil was not a "good week" for me. I was grieving and worried, just like everyone else was.
All that to say: The idea that all reporters or commentators are slimeballs who enjoy wallowing in muck and misery goes back a long way. In my experience, though, it's largely unfounded.
Granted, in the present day, there's a lot wrong with the news media, especially as it pertains to cable TV outlets and false information online. Commentators who clip their online shows or podcasts for rage-bait clicks have replaced the intrepid local reporter in many spaces. And, for about 10 years, we've been dealing with a guy who is openly hostile to a free press, dubbing it "the enemy of the people." I'll bet he loves "Die Hard." Probably watches on a loop as William Atherton gets punched by Bonnie Bedella.
I've been in newspapers for more than 26 years now and spent about half that time as a reporter on various beats. I covered my fair share of controversies from small-town city halls to the federal level. I knew how to do my job, but I never got excited by scandal or trauma.
I took my fair share of abuse anyway. Once, at a heated city council meeting in a town of about 1,500 people, a woman who looked like my grandmother told me to commit suicide. I also had a guy accuse me of being in some rich person's pocket after writing a feature about the county fair. That one was weird. Ever since I took over as opinion editor at the Gazette-Mail, people have written in or phoned me to call me all kinds of things. Even more have told me they hope I get fired. A few have blurred the line between telling me I suck and threatening me, though I will say the latter is pretty rare.
And you know what? It comes with the territory. Part of the gig. Not that I enjoy hearing those things, but you either grow a thick skin early or you crash out.
However, my experience is almost muted in a way because I'm a man. Not in the John McClane, throwing C-4 down an elevator shaft and shouting "Yipee kiy-yay, mother*****" sense, but rather, simply and technically, I'm a male.
My female colleagues in this business have it much worse. They're regularly the target of verbal abuse and violent or even sexual threats. That's not hyperbole. They get called "babe" and "b*tch" and, apparently, "piggy." It's a very quick way for someone to tell them they don't take them seriously, merely tolerate them and judge their worth based solely on their appearance. And it's not just sources who do this. I worked in a newsroom many years ago where one female reporter was put on a pedestal by our bosses because she was young and attractive and another was dogged because she was a single mom. It wasn't fair to either of them.
All of that goes back a long way, too, but it has resurged in a form that's both disheartening and disturbing.
Female reporters are way tougher than men who work in news, because they have to deal with so much more crap at just about every level. At the end of the day, they're just trying to do their jobs, and they're not reveling in scandal or on a personal crusade to wreck someone's life.
As such, the president of the United States saying, "Quiet piggy!" like he's on an elementary school playground, with no one in the media gaggle calling him out on it or sticking up for their colleague, is just depressing more than anything else. We've been told for decades this kind of thing is on its way out. I'm not so sure.
