On a day of division, and beyond, a challenge to remain fair
Part of political division comes from ignoring others’ perspectives. What’s the answer? Serving facts without prejudice, and letting readers think for themselves.
Nothing in recent history has underscored American divisiveness as emphatically as the events of Jan. 6, 2021.
The specific aims and motivations of those attending a protest-turned-riot at the U.S. Capitol surely varied. There were those who wandered the mall and marched to the Capitol, but didn’t go in. There were violent factions – those who sought to thwart a peaceful transition of power that they and a sitting president maintained had been wrongfully earned. That has brought calls for accountability. Hearings by a congressional committee have generated their own controversy.
Into all of that stepped a veteran Monitor reporter just a few days into her new assignment as congressional correspondent. Christa Case Bryant spoke to the Monitor’s Samantha Laine Perfas about the special challenge of the work, and about how the Monitor’s commitment to fairness in covering the news continues to guide her.
“The No. 1 thing you need to do if you want to be fair,” says Christa, “is constantly evaluating: Where are my blind spots? What am I missing? What perspectives am I not understanding or including?” Her sense of her contribution, and the Monitor’s: Work the space in the middle in a really thoughtful way.
“That brings out the best plausible arguments on either side of an issue and doesn’t prejudge what the reader should think about those,” says Christa, “but [instead] just pulls together the best thinking, the best, most relevant facts, and then [trusts] the reader to make an informed decision themselves about what they think about that. I think people are really yearning for that. And I think the Monitor is striving to do that.”
Episode transcript
Samantha Laine Perfas: A huge turnout for President Trump’s speech. An attack on the Capitol. Emergency evacuations. Congress’ counting of Electoral College votes interrupted for six hours. More than 150 police officers were injured, a rioter shot, and several other rioters left dead that day, as well as five officers in the coming days and months. That was January 6th.
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Welcome to Rethinking the News. I’m your host, Samantha Laine Perfas.
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As the January 6th House select committee wraps up a round of hearings, the US public is still learning details about what happened in 2021, when rioters attempted to stop Congress from officially declaring Joe Biden the president-elect. Our reporter Christa Case Bryant was there that day, and is now covering the congressional hearings. She’s worked for the Monitor for 18 years, and has reported in the Middle East and all across America. Today, she talks about her experience, and offers her perspective on covering such a complex issue.
Back in January 2021, she had just begun her new job as congressional correspondent. Here’s our conversation.
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Laine Perfas: It was your third day on the job. What was it like from your perspective?
Christa Case Bryant: Well, I had been aware of this potential scenario for about six months because of some previous reporting that I had done, and I was prepared for January 6th to be a confrontational day. From the very first moment I stepped outside, something definitely felt different. And when I arrived at the Capitol, there was already a significant crowd gathered outside. And I asked a police officer at the edge of the Capitol what he thought, and he said, "Oh, this is nothing, I've seen much worse before." And as the day went on, I kept an eye on the crowd outside, when I could. And I remember walking toward the joint session as it was about to start. I was in an upper hallway and I could see out onto the East Front and the large crowd gathered there and I could hear their voices mingling with the echoes in the hallways of the Capitol, which was really surreal. And it was just as I was coming out of the Senate that I found out about the breach and was held with a bunch of other journalists and evacuated about 20 minutes later. Interestingly, I think for most of the people who were in the Capitol that day, we didn't get as full a picture of what was happening as people who were at home watching on TV. Because, for example, I was in the Senate. Journalists aren't allowed to use any electronic devices in the Senate. And so we weren't able to track what was happening outside.
Laine Perfas: Well, now you're covering the hearings that have taken place. And how are you doing that? You experienced it yourself, how does that shape your coverage?
Case Bryant: You know, the hearings obviously are televised and you can get a pretty good sense of what's going on there. But you always see things at the margins when you're in the room that you don't necessarily see on TV. So, for example, when Cassidy Hutchinson, a White House aide, was testifying about what was happening behind the scenes, things that she had personally witnessed, as well as conversations that she'd heard or had been relayed to her. There were four police officers who have attended every single hearing this summer and also testified at last summer's hearing about their experience battling the rioters on January 6th. And I just remember looking over and seeing one of them with his head in his hands. And there was a man who had participated in the riot. He said he felt very misled by the president, who didn't end up coming himself like he said he was going to. And this individual at the end of the proceedings walked over to these four policemen and embraced each of them. And one of them told me that he had come over to apologize. And not all of them accepted that apology. Some of them felt like he should’ve apologized on national TV or that any apology just wasn’t enough to compensate for what they’d been through. But it was still an interesting moment of him extending an olive branch, at least. And I think that there are things like that on the margins that you pick up being in the room.
Laine Perfas: You told me that you started reflecting on the role of journalism in American democracy even as the attack was unfolding on January 6th. Could you talk a little about what you were thinking?
Case Bryant: I think a thing for me as a journalist, especially one just starting that new beat in Congress, is what is the role of the media in all of this? You know, both leading up to January 6th and all of the underlying reasons and motivations that brought all of those people out. Why was it that they came and to what extent have the media coverage of a Trump presidency played into the frustrations or resentments or susceptibility to misinformation that led to that boiling over of frustrations?
Many news publications see themselves as existing to hold people in powerful positions to account. And I think that’s a really important part of the media. But then there’s another part which has grown in recent years of trying to explain the thought currents in the society and that obviously is much more subjective and there are things that aren’t necessarily based in fact that are still influencing a lot of people. And I think it can be dangerous to ignore that because it’s not based in fact, but on the other hand in covering it you don’t want to confuse readers about what’s true and what’s not true, you want to be clear about what the facts are. And so that presents an increasing challenge for journalists as there is more misinformation, disinformation swirling around and being promoted on social media and things like that.
Laine Perfas: When we were talking a few days ago, you mentioned that you've actually gotten a little pushback on some of your coverage. Could you talk about how you approach it and how you strive for fair coverage even when it is such a complicated issue?
Case Bryant: Well, I think it's always really important to be open to feedback from readers, even if it's not composed in a very thoughtful way or feels unfair or whatever. Because the No. 1 thing you need to do if you want to be fair, is constantly evaluating: Where are my blind spots? What am I missing? What perspectives am I not understanding or including? But I think one challenge is, you know, there's a lot of different aspects to thinking about how can I be fair in an article. For example, with my most recent article, the angle I chose was how people who worked on the Senate Watergate Committee see the January 6th hearings. One source of criticism oftentimes is, "Well, you didn't even say anything about X, Y and Z." And sometimes that's because the reader didn't understand that within topic X, you need to choose a certain part. So, for example, if you think of a topic like January 6th as a cheesecake, right, you might say, okay, this story, I'm going to examine how good the cheesecake filling was, you know, so we're going to talk about what kind of vanilla beans they use and what kind of cream cheese they use and how well it was blended together and whatever. And then you have someone say, “But you didn't even mention that the graham cracker crust was dry!” You know, and it's like, well, this isn't the story about the graham cracker crust. This is a story about the cheesecake part. So I think that's something that I try to do as clearly as possible, indicate at the top, like which part of the cheesecake we're looking at in the story, if that makes sense. And then within that, try to be as fair as possible. So I have an expert on vanilla beans who thinks these were the best kind of vanilla beans. And then another kind who said, "Well, actually they taste good, but, you know, there are fair trade issues," or whatever. So you can have balance and a variety of perspectives within the thing that you've chosen to look at.
Laine Perfas: Would you say it makes a difference reporting on these events as a Monitor reporter, how does that make your stories different than other publications one might read?
Case Bryant: You know, the Monitor was founded by Mary Baker Eddy with the object to injure no man but to bless all mankind. The Monitor comes from this tradition of covering the news in a way that's respectful and thoughtful and fair. What I see the Monitor and myself being able to contribute is there's this largely empty space where there's very few articles that will tackle controversial questions but do it in a really thoughtful way that brings out the best plausible arguments on either side of an issue and doesn't prejudge what the reader should think about those, but just pulls together the best thinking, the best, most relevant facts, and then trust the reader to make an informed decision themselves about what they think about that. And I think people are really yearning for that. And I think the Monitor is striving to do that. And there's a great need for that. And that's where I see myself and the Monitor being able to contribute the most.
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Laine Perfas: Thanks for listening. This story was hosted and produced by me, Samantha Laine Perfas. Edited by Clay Collins. Our studio engineers were Tim Malone and Noel Flatt. Copyright by The Christian Science Monitor, 2022.
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