The Media’s Savior Complex

By Becket Adams

Sunday, April 02, 2023

 

When it comes to the press’s many bad habits, there’s one that is often overlooked: its belittling savior complex.

 

Indeed, for all its efforts to correct the wrongs of the world by way of advocacy, the press still takes an extraordinarily patronizing, Rudyard Kipling-esque “white man’s burden” approach to its coverage of minority and marginalized communities. Corporate media don’t treat these groups as equals, fully capable of speaking for themselves. Rather, they treat them as delicate orchids to be meticulously maintained and coddled for fear of the slightest bruising.

One could even go as far as to say there is probably no industry with a greater savior complex than the news media. This is annoying in and of itself, but it’s made all the worse by the fact that the press reserves its saving powers for only select “victim” groups. Legacy media’s paternalistic treatment of preferred victims usually comes at the cost of other victims, sometimes even those that the press is attempting to defend.

 

Over the past 20 years, with the rise of the War on Terror and the prevalence of Islamic extremism, the press has operated under the apparent belief that it is responsible for shielding certain Muslim communities from “backlash.” Thus, the press has framed coverage of incidents involving Islamic extremism and Hamas terrorism by applying the questions, “How will this hurt Muslims?” and “Will this hurt the cause of the Palestinians?” Terrorist attacks in Israel continue to be presented as mere “clashes” or incidents between “sides.” Actual victims of Islamic terrorism too often fade into the background to make way for the greater cause: protecting certain groups or persons designated as “marginalized” from blowback.

 

The press’s framing of Islamic terrorism became so cliché, in fact, that the late comedian Norm Macdonald turned it into a punch line in 2016: “What terrifies me is if ISIS were to detonate a nuclear device and kill 50 million Americans. Imagine the backlash against peaceful Muslims?”

 

Muslims are not the only focus of the press’s self-appointed savior powers. We’re seeing this exact approach in the media’s coverage this past week of the mass shooting at a Christian school in Nashville, which claimed the lives of three nine-year-old children and three adults.

 

For the press, the real takeaway isn’t that a woman committed the slaughter (an extreme rarity). The takeaway isn’t that Christians were targeted. Rather, for the press, the real issue is this: Will the mass shooting hurt members of the trans community, considering the shooter was trans and identified as a man?

 

These newsrooms don’t worry so much about the victims, their families, or their communities but rather the way in which the perpetrator’s community may be affected. Remember, the press is here to protect marginalized groups from backlash. The people who were marginalized at the end of a rifle are not the focus. The press is here to help the other group, the one with the pronouns.

 

“Fear pervades Tennessee’s trans community amid focus on Nashville shooter’s gender identity,” reads the headline on an NBC News report.

 

They do know there are six bodies in Tennessee for which a self-proclaimed trans person is responsible, correct? At this pace, the Tennessee shooter will be declared a martyr by next week.

 

Elsewhere, Reuters published an article titled, “Trans Tennesseans face backlash after school shooting.” The opening lines read, “When Nashville police announced that the shooter who killed three children and three adults at a school this week was transgender, trans Tennesseans braced themselves for renewed vitriol in a state that has recently proposed a raft of anti-trans laws.”

 

ABC News published a story claiming, “Anti-transgender sentiment follows Nashville shooting,” adding, “Conservative political figures focused on the shooter’s reported trans identity.”

 

MSNBC, for its part, has flashed increasingly deranged chyrons all week, including “Transgender shooting suspect sparks outrage on the right,” “Transgender threats and violence on the rise,” and “Transgender Americans under siege.”

 

Remember, the only transgender individual who was physically harmed in Nashville this week was the one who put bullets into three children, a custodian, the head of school, and a substitute teacher. Six dead innocents, including children, and the story is somehow about the perpetrator’s community and how scary this has been for its members.

 

As certain newsrooms have worried this week whether trans people may be most at risk following the slaughter of six people at a Christian school, other newsrooms have attempted to pin the shooting on conservative legislators.

 

“Drag shows and gender-affirming care for minors were banned in Tennessee this month,” Newsweek reported, “while assault weapons remain legal.”

 

For the record, Tennessee has not banned drag shows. The state legislature passed a measure barring drag shows “in public or near children.” The state likewise did not ban “gender-affirming care” for minors. It passed a bill prohibiting cross-sex hormones and permanently life-altering surgeries for minors.

 

“The shooter identified herself as a transgender person,” ABC News anchor Terry Moran said, likewise going on to mischaracterize the state law: “The state of Tennessee earlier this month passed and the governor signed a bill that banned transgender medical care for minors as well as a law that prohibited adult entertainment as well as male and female impersonators after a series of drag show controversies in that state.”

 

At the New Republic, a headline reads: “Tennessee Made Gun Laws Looser, Focused Mainly on Attacking Gay People Before Nashville School Shooting.” Its subhead adds, “GOP Governor Bill Lee, who signed those bills into law, would now like to offer his thoughts and prayers.”

 

Yes, and? These headlines and commentary are obviously trying to draw a conclusion, so what is it? Are they suggesting that Tennessee legislators somehow pushed the shooter into murdering children, that the shooter is, when you think about it, a victim? Surely not.

 

Frustrating coverage, yes. Shocking, no. It’s just a rejiggered version of how the press has covered acts of Islamist terrorism and violence. There are certain groups the press believes require sympathy and protection, and if that comes at the expense of actual victims, then so be it.

 

This past week, Christian-school students and employees were victimized, but Christians aren’t a group the press feels compelled to protect. So, the reporting was flipped on its head according to the media’s priorities. In 2016, when a mass shooter slaughtered people in a gay nightclub in Orlando, the press rallied around the LGBTQ+ community. In 2023, a Christian school got shot up by a trans-identifying person, and the press . . . rallied around the LGBTQ+ community. There’s a script.

 

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Thursday summed up the media coverage when she said, “Our hearts go out to the trans community, as they are under attack right now.”

 

Many things can be said of the corporate press, few of which are flattering. It’s addicted to innuendo, the more suggestive of luridness the better. It’s small-minded. It’s beholden to groupthink. But of all these failings and bad tendencies, few are as noxious and insulting as its bizarre and extremely selective savior complex.