Pulitzer winner urges editors
to demand more thoughtful commentary
By Mark de la Vina

Leonard Pitts Jr., winner of this year's Pulitzer Prize in commentary, had a succinct but powerful message for journalists at AASFE's 58th annual convention on Friday: Lose the labels and listen to what real people have to say.

At the Hilton Riverside, the syndicated columnist for the Miami Herald disputed the idea that America is marked by an ideological chasm separating the blue and red states. Tags such as "conservative" and "liberal" are useless to anyone aiming to present a principled argument, Pitts said.

Armed with statistics illustrating how the public opinion on abortion, gun control and capital punishment have remained relatively stable for 30 years, Pitts suggested that what had changed is the way news organizations and political commentators address the issues today.

"My point is not to deride or celebrate conservatism or liberalism,'' he said. "It is only to say that American people are smarter and more pragmatic than the architects of political extremism on both sides, and the news media who amplify them, would have us believe."

Pitts' measured but critical assessment of the way the media covers public opinion slammed the use of "bumper sticker" journalism and sound-bite political commentary that demonize the opposition.

"Instead of attacking the merits of the argument, they caricature it until it is not my argument at all,'' Pitts said. "Then they attack the caricature. Thus, making a principled argument against the war entitles some people, in their minds, to call you a traitor."

In spite of the sobering message, Pitts, a former Herald pop music critic who became a general columnist in 1994, also joked that the chance to speak to a group of editors was also a rare opportunity to sell his syndicated column to more newspapers.

But Pitts never strayed far from his point about sticking to a even-handed political discourse in this country. He exhorted editors to run measured, thoughtful articles and commentary, even when it's denounced by political extremist as too "middle of the road."

"We are not the middle of the road,'' he said. "We are the road."

Mark de la Vina is an arts and entertainment writer for the San Jose Mercury News and a 2004 AASFE fellow.