West Virginia Bashing

Jon Stewart gets in on the action:

The provincialism of the national press corps, when it comes to reporting on anything outside major metro areas in the Northeast, gets quite absurd. Just once I would like to see a major media outlet go to South Philly or outer borough New York or one of the mostly white towns outside of Baltimore and see what the working class whites there think about Race in America.

Comments

[Toast]

The provincialism of the national press corps, when it comes to reporting on anything outside major metro areas in the Northeast

Really? I see things in quite the opposite way. The political media, at least, seems to spend an inordinate amount of time telling those of us in the decadent coastal enclaves (e.g. major metro areas in the northeast) that we're not part of "real" America; that we're somehow morally and culturally inferior to our country cousins. That being the case, I rather enjoy seeing hickville mocked for a change.

[Nicholas Beaudrot]

But there's something vaguely condescending about all the "real America" posts. First of all, "real America" is narrowly defined as working class whites in the Midwest and maybe the Upper South. People in the Southwest are never part of "real America" stories, nor people in Inland California.

Second reporting on these sorts of places tends to treat visiting there as though they're visiting a third world country that's packed with rubes. The NYT did a piece on the Utah primary in 2004 and the only quote from a local was someone who said they were voting for John Kerry because he "had a nice head of hair". Do you really think that's a representative quote?

[Nicholas Beaudrot]

Nor, I should say, are working class whites in the Northeast, or you know, any minorities, ever considered part of "Real America.

[sujal]

I find it funny that Jon Stewart is held up as an example of the national press corp.

[ikl]

This is a bit unfair as the NY Times was all over Levittown before the PA primaries. Racial attitudes were definately an issue there according to their reporting.

[nimh]

The Levittown report in the NYT was really good. But it was very much the exception.

Count me in as one of those who's exasperated at how the national media make it sound like they're exploring the dark inlands with their exotic natives, on those rare occasions that they venture out to actually report from outside Manhattan and the Beltway.

(As opposed, of course, to having pundits like Tim Russert bloviate about what heartland Americans really think from his cosy news show perch, and that's where you most of the stuff Toast is talking about comes from).