The Legends Between the Lines

DAILY NEWS, ETERNAL STORIES:
THE MYTHOLOGICAL ROLE OF JOURNALISM
by Jack Lule
The Guilford Press.
245 pp. $35.00; $17.95 paper

BY CHRISTOPHER HANSON

After only a few months on the job, many reporters find themselves asking: Haven't I written this story before? After they've been reporting a bit longer, many sense that a small reservoir of standard narratives shapes the stories they write -- and that a tiny troupe of stock characters (heroes, villains, victims, knaves, wise men, buffoons, soothsayers) is type-cast repeatedly in tales of sport, crime, war, disaster, and politics. As the journalists sit at the keyboard, it's as if Ouija is forcing their fingers along worn pathways. Tornadoes inevitably sound like freight trains as they rip through trailer parks, nature punishing the poor and ill-prepared. Mass murderers must be quiet loners, living on tree-shaded streets with well-manicured lawns, where their neighbors describe them as polite young men who helped them carry in the groceries. Winners of the New Hampshire presidential primary (Tsongas, Buchanan, McCain, whoever) must be tagged as giant killers, whose stunning upset victories against front-runners' well-oiled political machines have upended the contest.

Most journalists who recognize the tendency to recycle old material probably chalk it up to professional routines, deadline pressures, the expectations of editors, and limited imagination. Jack Lule, a Philadelphia Inquirer reporter turned Lehigh University professor, goes further. He argues in Daily News, Eternal Stories that the journalistic imperative to tell old tales stems from a deep and abiding human hunger for narratives that reteach basic lessons, informing and instructing even as they entertain and titillate. Lule is the latest in a line of scholars who call such stories modern myths. "The daily news," he writes, "is the primary vehicle for myth in our times."

His use of the term "myth" is likely to raise the hackles of hard-bitten reporters who insist that their currency is fact, not falsehood. But Lule is not talking about falsehood. He is using a widely accepted scholarly definition of myth as a recurrent, archetypal story that purports to describe reality and offers "exemplary" models that "represent shared values, confirm core beliefs . . . provide examples of good and evil, right and wrong, bravery and cowardice." A myth, in this light, can in theory be true, or partly true. Its underlying function, however, is not to convey facts, but rather to reinforce some widely shared sense of the order of things.

Among the examples that Lule employs is the myth of The Flood. Once told by scores of ancient civilizations, this myth has found its way more recently into The New York Times (the book's main fount of journalistic examples) in a 1998 account of how Hurricane Mitch devastated Central America. In the ancient versions, including the Bible's tale of Noah, mankind strays from the right path and suffers divine punishment in the form of a terrible, cleansing flood. Far from giving a dry factual account, The New York Times retold this tale of human folly and holy retribution in very familiar terms. Lule summarizes the Times account this way:

"Impoverished people erected poorly built homes dangerously close to rivers or precariously perched on mountain slopes -- areas forsaken by the wealthier classes and corporations. The nations' leaders looked away. A hurricane came from the east. Rain fell for days. Floods and great mountains of mud swept away entire villages. Thousands of people died. The scene was a vision out of Dante, a deluge of biblical proportions, the Times reported. 'It's a punishment from God,' said an elderly Honduran carpenter on the front page of the Times."

On one level, according to Lule, the Times was providing accurate information. But on another, probably unconscious level, it was recreating a myth. By tapping into the ancient narrative structure of the flood, it retaught some old lessons: show foresight and compassion or you will suffer the wrath of the heavens, a "punishment from God."

Variations of this basic narrative have been used repeatedly in news accounts of natural disasters (including tornadoes in trailer parks).

Not all journalism derives from myth, Lule is quick to point out. A typical weather report is not The Flood. But he does find a range of myths lurking in human interest stories, accounts of sensational trials, crimes, and ceremonies. One such myth is The Good Mother, an archetypal nurturing figure, often portrayed making great sacrifices for others. Lule describes how coverage of Mother Teresa in the Times and elsewhere retells the myth in modern guise, painting the nun in shades of one-dimensional purity.

Another recurrent myth, he says, is that of The Hero -- the person of humble origins who ventures from home, overcomes prodigious challenges and then returns triumphant, a model for others. As a contemporary example, Lule cites the New York Times coverage of Mark McGwire, who broke Roger Maris's home run record in 1998. He was described by the paper as "Atlas-like," meeting "Herculean" demands with a "Paul Bunyan swing" while exemplifying such virtues as hard work, strength, and generosity. The media made him a living myth.

Lule's notion of news as myth seems plausible, but why should the working journalist care? Perhaps because self-awareness might make for better work. If we understand that eternal stories keep tugging at our sleeves, we might think twice before yielding to the tugs. We might stop to remember that when we pour new facts into an old mold, the facts that don't fit are spilled away. Thus, as the Times poured its Mother Teresa information into the Good Mother mold, the paper -- according to Lule -- all but ignored complaints that the nun's rigid opposition to birth control might actually have contributed to the plight of the poor. It all but ignored complaints that her rigid support of Catholic doctrine on the subordination of women undermined the struggle for gender equality.

And so it was with Times coverage of the 1989 murder of Huey Newton, according to the book. The former Black Panther leader was many conflicting things to many people -- bold dissident or dangerous radical; effective civil rights advocate or media hound whose efforts had no lasting results; "street thug" or up-from-poverty Ph.D. role model. According to Lule, the Times ignored this varied picture to focus on Newton's criminal record. Lule argues that the Times was in effect repeating the ancient Myth of the Scapegoat, which tells " in dramatic fashion what happens to those who challenge or ignore social beliefs."

The mythic treatment of Newton illustrates a larger point, according to the book: myths tend to reinforce the social order; when journalists retell myths in the news, they are usually coming down on the side of order against dissent and defiance. Lule bases his analysis on the writings of the social critic Kenneth Burke, who maintained that human life consists of perpetual "social dramas" that reinforce the prevailing order. Every day, for instance, there are countless dramas of sanction for those who defy the rules -- anything from breaching office dress codes to robbing banks. Those dramas are enacted not only in courts and bosses' offices but also in the news.

If Lule and Burke are correct, the implications are sobering for those who regard the watchdog function of the press as crucial. If the overwhelming pressure on media is to bolster the status quo, then it is difficult indeed for news outlets to challenge the powers that be in any fundamental sense. Reporters who do so are displaying more grit than one might have imagined, for they are running the risk of being sanctioned and marginalized in their own "social drama."

Daily News, Eternal Stories is so provocative and readable that I would recommend it to news practitioners and undergraduates -- but with some reservations.

For one thing, Lule's theory of news-as-myth is not a very precise instrument for explaining why a particular news story is written the way it is. Consider again the disparaging portrayal of Newton. The Scapegoat myth might help account for the coverage, but so might other factors: unconscious racism or stereotyping, for instance, or a prevailing newsroom ideology that does not tolerate violent or radical dissent. Lule acknowledges that these other, non-mythic factors must be taken into account, but his analysis leaves the reader wondering just how important, relatively speaking, is the power of myth in explaining the news. It is certainly possible that the choice of the Scapegoat narrative for Newton, rather than some other narrative (The Martyr?) was driven by prejudice or ideology. If so, then the power of myth in the news is subordinate to other forces and less determinative than Lule seemingly wants to argue.

Another problem is that the book does not hang together as well as it might, as often happens with one assembled from a series of journal articles. Lule attempts to unify those articles with an over-arching three-part argument that unfortunately does not jell. His first point is reasonable enough -- the news business is in crisis. The crisis is evidenced by public disgust with, among other things, "sensationalism, tawdry gossip, and lack of fairness" and a neglect of weighty subjects in favor of "tabloid drama, such as celebrity trials and the sex lives of politicians."

It is on his second point that Lule goes astray. He argues that the crisis stems from journalists' embracing "the notion of news as information. We deprecate storytelling. And now news has become less valuable, less central. News will survive if we truly recognize the significance and implications of storytelling . . . [N]ews will remain a subject of crisis and concern as long as we stray from story." These assertions are puzzling in that key causes he cites for the news crisis -- sensationalism, tabloid drama, etc. -- stem from the compulsion to tell good stories rather than from any impulse to avoid them. Indeed, Lule's second point is contradicted by the bulk of his book, which details the persistent power of storytelling in the news.

Lule's third point is that greater stress on the storytelling and mythic functions of news will help in quelling the news crisis. Here he is frustratingly vague, stating: "I don't know precisely how story and myth might ultimately be used to address the current crisis in journalism. I do know that any attempt to address the crisis that does not recognize the mythological role of journalism is destined to fail."

Daily News, Eternal Stories is best read by taking its introductory and concluding sections with a grain of salt and focusing on the case studies in between. The book's insight that daily news can derive unconsciously from myth should be empowering to any reporter who seeks greater control over the craft. If journalists are to retell eternal stories, they should at least make a conscious, considered choice of which models to use.

CJR contributing editor Christopher Hanson, a print journalist for twenty years, teaches journalism at the University of Maryland.