I found the song discordant, incongruous with everything that preceded it. The outro to Action News, not the familiar “ba-BA-ba-BA-ba-ba-ba-BA-ba-ba-ba-ba-BA-BA” intro. I’m talking about the lyric, the “Move closer to your world, my friend/Take a little bit of time/Move closer to your world my friend/And you’ll see” ditty that ended the telecast. Gentle, reflective, optimistic. It came after breathless, white-noise reportage, information to hold your attention, veneer-deep, that gave you little beyond anxiety and unprocessed emotion to form your understanding of the place where you lived. Empty calories served by powdered, super-coiffed caricatures whose vapid on-camera bonhomie and cartoon probity has since been parodied to death on the Simpsons and in Ron Burgundy films. It was “news” less explained than sprayed at its target: a shooting in West Philly; another two in Chester; a fatal fire in Cheltenham; a firehouse benefit for a victim of childhood cancer in Phoenixville; a chemical plume from a refinery beneath part of South Philly; a weather event that might or might not be apocalyptic; the Birds blow a 4th-quarter lead; “Whiz-wit” beats “Provolone-wit” in a 9th Street contest. End scene. Cue the music.
This style of reportage informed the world of my youth. Every day, sometimes twice a day, and for families across a three-state viewing area. But always at 11pm, thirty minutes, watched in bed by many, confirming that the city was a hell hole and our world incoherent and ruled entirely by chance. Society’s fabric fraying before our eyes, until - a station flip at 11:30 - and Carson arrived as an analgesic.
What a weird form of entertainment. Because that’s all it was. And still is. The Action News concept, along with its catchy song, was conceived in Philly. Ninety-second vignettes focusing mainly on the city but also strategically including counties and towns in the viewing area. No depth. No real study or explanation of causes underlying events or trends. Just a well-paced montage – alternating blood, pathos, and treacle - presented without context. Compelling content to pad the spaces between commercials. And was it ever successful. The model spread from Philly to other cities, and from ABC to the other major networks. It still dominates. News as entertainment, without real consideration for the long-term effect on the communities and democracy it putatively serves. The rot has spread to print journalism and dominates online. The effect has been toxic. On our understanding of the issues and perception of reality. And on our attention spans, our capacity to even absorb and process information, consider complex subjects.
How else to explain the irrational fear and hatred that grips so many parts of the country? Scared, angry people will believe whatever confirms their fears, biases, and worldview, particularly in an age of social media bubbles, silos, lairs, whatever you want to call the dark places they inhabit. Scared animals do stupid things. And this baseline level of dread informs our politics, empowers populist movements, pushes many to embrace authoritarian and racially- and religious-based nationalism. How else to explain the credulity with which so many of us greet the hateful rhetoric and political ads proffered by Trump and his party. None of it - not even whatever anecdotal fragments are culled from actual events - describes a broader reality.
Real data paints a different, more complex picture. Immigrants criminally offend at rates well below those of “Americans, born and bred.” And they always have. This has been true in studies for over a century. The most recent research (in September 2024 from the Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences) finds that undocumented immigrants offend at a rate 50% lower for violent and drug-related crimes than native-born citizens. Their arrest rates are 25% lower for property crimes. Far from being offenders, members of the trans community are instead at least four times more likely than cisgender people to be victims of violence (UCLA/Williams Institute). In Philly, violent crime is down by 12%. As of mid-July 2024, homicides were down 38%, shootings down 42%, and youth homicides showed a 50% decline. Crime rates are the lowest they’ve been in a decade, according to Police Commissioner Bethel. In fact, crime rates have been dropping for two years in most urban areas across the country, approaching pre-pandemic levels.
Do these numbers correspond with the picture painted by local news, social media, the GOP? The local press, including now what regional papers remain (tragically, also the “Inky”), focuses on violence: sensational and terrifying events to hold our attention, retain viewership, and produce clicks. Journalism enjoys an anointed place and special protections in this democracy as it is integral to producing the informed electorate requisite to a healthy republic. How’s it doing? What end does its most recent obsession serve - reporting to us how we feel (emotions often attributable to the hyperbolic horror show it itself presents), rather than telling us what’s going on, or helping us understand trends, developments, or legislation that will impact our lives? You know, information that might allow us to create informed opinions. If I can be frank: when I read or hear a journalist opine on the pessimism of many Americans, it’s like having a heroin dealer lament that his customers have the nods.
As for the sewage currently being peddled in campaign commercial after campaign commercial and rallies for the GOP and its would-be authoritarian leader? That’s another story. You have to want to believe some of that crap to take it seriously. If you’re not offended by a presidential candidate saying immigrants are “vermin” who are “poisoning our blood,” stuff directly from the Nazi playbook, you might believe that documented Haitian refugees (filling a local need for labor) are eating pets in Springfield, OH. That the GOP candidates misrepresent these immigrants as “illegal” (a term most decent folk eschew), is just par for the course. To paraphrase the former president (and possibly future dictator), they’re from “shithole” countries. If this doesn’t bother you (let alone the uninvited grabbing of female genitalia, rape, coup attempt, 34 indictments, intimidation of judges, jurists, journalists, election workers, etc., etc., ad nauseum), you probably didn’t need a sprayed and pancaked TV mannequin to push you over the edge.
I don’t recognize the Philadelphia some of you see on local TV news. The chaos, street warfare, “American Carnage.” It doesn’t correspond to my waking reality, the place where I live and work. (If you’re interested, I wrote about my neighborhood and its complexity). I’m not blind or indifferent to this city’s challenges and problems (they are, after all, also America’s), but my Philly bears little resemblance to the one I see described not just on TV, but often in local print/online media, articles, and comment threads. Shrill, often ignorant commentary that takes pleasure in the apparent pain and suffering of its subject, that offers neither remedies nor a hand in friendship. Since I’ve lived in Philly (nearly 30 years and counting), the media and especially a part of its audience have been tossing dirt onto what they believe (and sometimes hope) is this city’s grave. But the city - perhaps out of spite – persists, joyfully at times, dancing through trash-filled streets in celebration. It will not die. It’s more alive than the spectators who scrutinize and poke at it, whose relationship to it is often parasitic, ticks complaining that the dog is sick.
My city is far from perfect. Some of what I hear and see each day is heartbreaking. I don’t want to underplay the impact of violence, poverty, and drug addiction on the lives of far too many Philadelphians. There but for the grace of God. But this is true of anyplace in the US. News flash: you can be cut in half with an AR-15 anywhere in this nation (in schools, concerts, supermarkets, parades, nightclubs, churches); many of us are one to two paychecks (or, more commonly, a catastrophic medical issue uncovered by insurance) away from economic ruin and homelessness; and our opioid epidemic began and continues in rural areas (not an exclusively urban plague). The remedies most likely to address our problems - gun reform, improving access to healthcare (including mental care), day care, social services, housing, addressing income inequality, regulating the insurance industry and Big Pharma, etc. - won’t be touched by those proffering scapegoats and peddling racial animus, xenophobia, and bigotry. They’re fine with all that. Our precarity serves them. They like us frightened. And, for the most part and especially locally, these issues won’t be comprehensively covered in the news. Our press – mostly privately owned and so obsessed with ratings and monetizing the news, peddling to the lowest common denominator, offering entertainment, which is perhaps our republic’s fatal flaw - is complicit. And might even soon be complicit in its own demise.
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