As I listen to some of the divisive noise that passes for a national discussion, I come away at the end of this most polarizing year with a simple question. How many people with such strong opinions really take even a moment to consider why someone else has a totally opposite view of an issue? It's one of those "walk a mile in my shoes" observations, to be sure, but consider how we often we fail to follow that adage.
I noticed that in the local talk show at my radio station. The racial divide is so evident, and the callers were mostly oblivious to other views that we know are out there but were not being heard in that forum. No, don't jump to the conclusion that I'm calling all our callers racist. What is alarming is more what you don't hear: Why do "those people" feel and act the way they do? If a few more people would ask that question, maybe we'd actually get some answers from the other side. This lack of diversity on many levels is even more pronounced on syndicated talk radio.
Two of the more enlightening bits of journalism this past year came from Ted Koppel, one of the best veteran reporters to ever be on TV. For CBS Sunday Morning, he did one piece on the gun culture in Wyoming and how it seems to work in this rural landscape without big problems. In another segment, Koppel interviewed residents of an economically depressed West Virginia mining town who told him why they overwhelmingly voted for Donald Trump. This is the type of reporting that gets less noticed in a landscape dotted with talking heads full of agendas who don't prioritize facts. Koppel's stories were eye openers. Did they change my core beliefs? No. Did they make other perspectives more understandable and harder to demonize with a broad brush? Absolutely. Suddenly the gap between liberal and conservative, Democrat and Republican seemed less like a no-man's land. Happy New Year!
