Journalism

Before Mike Serazio was a professor at Boston College, he was an investigative journalist. He loved the work, but the persistent and heated interpersonal conflicts that journalists face took a toll on him. 

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Transcript

Michael Lee: [00:00:00] When We Disagree is a show about arguments, how we have them, why we have them, and their impact on our relationships and ourselves. Rhetorical devices use specific patterns to make words, phrases, and sentences stand out. Coca Cola, Best Buy, Lululemon, and many other companies use alliteration. And just as is the case with these alliteration examples, many rhetorical advices use repetition to draw attention.

Michael Lee: There are quite a few rhetorical devices, but whether it's a repetitive consonant sound in Krispy Kreme doughnuts or something else, it's mostly a matter of cataloging the repetition and figuring out which kind of repetition works for which kind of message in front of which kind of audience. Some of these rhetorical devices actually oppose one another.

Michael Lee: They're the opposite of each other. Anaphora. The repetition of words or phrases at the [00:01:00] beginning of successive clauses or sentences. This is the one that Martin Luther King Jr. was so fond of. Is the opposite of epistrophe, the repetition of words or phrases at the end of successive clauses or sentences.

Michael Lee: With epistrophe, the repeated lines placement at the end of the sentence adds weight to the thought, weight to the sentiment. The repeated words are like additional punctuation marks, bringing the thoughts in that sentence or clause to a memorable close, think of the defiant repetition of, you should have put a ring on it.

Michael Lee: In Beyonce's Single Ladies, or the somber repetition of And I Love Her in the Beatles song of the same title. Think of this thoughtful contrast about age in 1 Corinthians. When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child, but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

Michael Lee: Some of the most important words in American history, [00:02:00] words millions of us memorized in school. Are so memorable precisely because they are an example of epistrophe that in just a few short clauses, frame the American civil war as a fight between freedom and unfreedom and generally capture the entire spirit of democratic government.

Michael Lee: Lincoln said at the end of the Gettysburg address that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom. And that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. I'm Michael Lee, Professor of Communication and Director of the Civility Initiative at the College of Charleston.

Michael Lee: Our guest today on When We Disagree is Mike Serazio. Mike is a professor of communication at Boston College. His latest book is The Authenticity Industries. He has also written books on sports and advertising, and his larger research focuses [00:03:00] on media production. Mike, tell us an argument story. 

Mike Serazio: First off, thanks so much for having me here.

Mike Serazio: So let me go back to, uh, an early point in my career where, uh, growing up I always thought I wanted to be a journalist and that was sort of a starting point for my career. I had gone to journalism school and then I landed as a magazine writer in Houston, Texas, uh, for an Alt Weekly. And, uh, For me, being a journalist just seemed like a terrific way to make a career.

Mike Serazio: It seemed like a noble way to pursue, you know, pursue life. I also really wanted to just be able to be paid to write for a living. However, what I quickly realized was that, um, a key facet of the journalistic process involves inevitable conflict, which is to say that the journalist's job is to go out and try to find truth about the world.

Mike Serazio: The folks who are involved in those stories want their lives represented as best as possible. So there's a [00:04:00] kind of inherent conflict in between those two things. This simmered over the years in terms of different stories that I did, but it came to a head most acutely when I did a story about a woman who ran a wolf sanctuary north of Houston.

Mike Serazio: It's where Wolves go if they're sick, or they're abandoned, things like that. And through either, um, incompetent negligence or outright criminal negligence, all of the wolves died under her care. We investigated the story. I wrote it up, put her on the front page of, uh, of our magazine, our Alt Weekly. She called me up the day that it ran, and she said to me on the phone, You've ruined my life forever.

Mike Serazio: Now I'm 21, 22 or so, 23 maybe at this point, and I really didn't want to ruin anybody's life. Certainly not at that age, certainly not at the age I am now. Right. That's a [00:05:00] tough one to take, that's a tough call to take. A good journalist in that moment should say to that subject or that source, you ruined your own life because of the decisions that you made, but that's not my temperament.

Michael Lee: Sure. So the old adage about journalism is, and I want to see if I can get this right, is that you afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted, is that right? That's correct. And to what extent, just taking 22 year old Mike into account, to what extent did you follow that adage? Was that part of your practice?

Mike Serazio: Yeah. For sure. This is, I mean, that is the classic adage. I believe that's the correct ideal for journalism, but I believe it requires a personal disposition that I did not myself have. A 

Michael Lee: disposition towards 

Mike Serazio: Towards afflicting people Towards conflict. Right? Conflict, yeah. Yeah. I'm very comfortable with the con, with comfort, the afflicted part of that anecdote.

Mike Serazio: Sure. It's the afflicting, the comfortable, which is journalism's tendency [00:06:00] to journalism has a reformist impulse, it has a progressive impulse, not in a kind of liberal left sense, but in the sense that something is wrong with the world and that journalism, one of journalism's jobs is too. Expose those problems to try to correct injustice.

Mike Serazio: There's a long and distinguished tradition of this within journalism, but it requires a mindset and a disposition that's comfortable with that conflict because It requires exposing problems and it requires again afflicting those who are comfortable particularly if they're undeserving of that comfort And I just didn't have that within me.

Mike Serazio: I realized that early on. 

Michael Lee: And just on a, on the ground level, I mean, this means if you're afflicting the comfortable, you need to be willing to, as a human being, go up to somebody who you think is hiding something that sunlight could disinfect and ask them anything, uh, search their property, perhaps talk to people they know, um, kind of Russell, a lot of leaves around [00:07:00] them in a way that they're not going to particularly like.

Michael Lee: And then publish something, perhaps on the front page, that they're going to call you up and cuss you out about. And then do it again, and then do it again, and then do it again, and make it almost into a lifestyle. Yes. If you think about a human who could function, even thrive in that environment, that might not be all of us.

Michael Lee: And you realize at 22, this was not you. 

Mike Serazio: Yes. And the best journalists have A personality that is inoculated from those things, I think, impacting them deeply. Although, I mean, you know, I've encountered many journalists over the years, close friends, you know, uh, famous people that I've had the occasion to, you know, have sit downs with.

Mike Serazio: Okay. And these can be the absolute loveliest, most humane of people, but the best ones are able to follow truth wherever it leads them, even if it means Uh, a real conflict with the sources of stories who think that they should be represented in a more positive light. 

Michael Lee: [00:08:00] How, and it's tough to psychoanalyze people who aren't here, but you have a lot of experience in this industry and talking to folks.

Michael Lee: How do they do that? How do they continue to thrive? And maybe even enjoy the process where some woman who's just killed a bunch of wolves calls them up and says you've ruined my life. 

Mike Serazio: Yeah, um, it's a good question in terms of what the, uh, what the psychology is that, uh, is able to do that. Well, look, you know, I think some people are Um, some people, I think, thrive on conflict.

Mike Serazio: They're comfortable with it. 

Michael Lee: Sure. 

Mike Serazio: Um, other people, and, and again, this goes to my own disposition, which is, um, conflict avoidance to a fault. Uh, and I think that, you know, the, the, the best journalists that I've, I've known, um, are, um, Comfortable with that combativeness. Uh, I think that it's not just journalism as an industry that necessitates some of that I think politicians maybe also fall into the [00:09:00] same category of encountering conflict in a lot of their daily dealings But also needing to be fluid and sort of socially adaptable so that you know They're they're able to balance those two sides of that personality but you know, I I I respect the heck out of people who have that ability to um To, to, to turn off that personal side, right?

Mike Serazio: But yet at the same time, I want to point something out too, which is that as a journalist, what you're trying to do is you're trying to get sources comfortable with you. So you can't go in and be a real abrasive, conflict seeking person because that's going to turn off your source in terms of them being able to give you a good interview or, you know, tell you about their lives, open themselves up and they're into, you know, inviting you into their homes.

Mike Serazio: That's right. You need to be able to get people to open up to you, which means you have to be likable, but you also have to be willing to be disagreeable at the same time because ultimately what you have to have faith in, I think this is what gets a lot of journalists through this, is you have to have faith in the process and faith in the ideal that you're there to pursue [00:10:00] truth and truth.

Mike Serazio: Truth doesn't care. Um, about your feelings, as a source, you know, as a subject. Truth cares about truth. And that may require breaking some eggs along the way. I'm going to put that on your headstone. 

Michael Lee: Truth doesn't care about your feelings. Yes, exactly. How quickly after the wolf incident did you exit journalism?

Mike Serazio: Yeah, so I spent about two, three years working in daily journalism as a magazine writer. Okay. And as it evolved, what I came to realize, I came to realize two, two or three things, um, that, that, that nudged me toward the exits. One was this fundamental personal aversion toward conflict that was necessary in any story.

Mike Serazio: If, even if I'm not ruining someone's life. You know, every source and subject that I called up wanted me to reflect, portray, and represent them in a positive fashion, which is not my job as a journalist. That's public relations. So there was that. There was also my sense that the news business was, this was the mid [00:11:00] 2000s.

Mike Serazio: Really at that time, it was kind of on the precipice of what would be two decades of economic contraction and a sort of business model that's imploded in slow motion. So I had a bad feeling about the industry as a whole. 

Michael Lee: Yeah. 

Mike Serazio: And thirdly, I realized that my favorite part of the process was when I got to call a professor somewhere and ask them and interview them for within the journalism business.

Mike Serazio: It's called the cosmic graph. It's like the paragraph in a given story where the journalist gets to say, this is what it all means in the big picture of things. And I loved having that conversation. I loved talking with professors about ideas. I loved the way in which, you know, ideas guide our world in a really powerful way.

Mike Serazio: And I just thought, you know, maybe if I could be the other person on the other end of that call and I could be the one doing a journalism of ideas, which is sort of what I set out for my career after that. 

Michael Lee: So the cosmic graph, just for my own edification, is, uh, you as a journalist are writing a story about these poor wolves north of Houston, and then you get into the trees, so to speak, of these poor wolves and this woman, [00:12:00] and then you need to kind of situate this within larger conservation efforts or the wolf population.

Michael Lee: And so you call some professors who might know this stuff, and then they They talk about the forest while you have set up the trees. Is that right? 

Mike Serazio: Exactly. And in any, you know, in a kind of daily newspaper story, you might not get the cosmic graph, but I was doing magazine features, and so most magazine features will have a cosmic graph at some point that takes the specifics on the ground, those trees, and puts it in the forest context to make big sense, you know, big picture sense of it.

Michael Lee: And when you would feel this conflict, the wolf story is one example, but you sound like it would happen over and over again, just on a less extreme level. Oh 

Mike Serazio: yeah, yeah. Is 

Michael Lee: that your, your ideological commitment towards truth seeking would butt up against, and I might be putting words in your mouth here, would butt up against an emotional feeling that to feel comfortable, you would need to behave more like a public relations professional.

Michael Lee: So your ideology and your emotional relationship to the job were in 

Mike Serazio: conflict? Absolutely. Absolutely. [00:13:00] Ideologically, I believe deeply in what journalism tries to do, right? I think that I tell my students this 'cause I teach, you know, students who wanna go into journalism, to me, wanting to go into journalism, I think has a similar calling that perhaps like Catholic priests or people who are religious feel in some way.

Mike Serazio: Okay. And I feel that ide ideological calling deep in my bones. I believe deeply in journalism, uh, and I believe deeply in supporting journalism and what journalists do. And, and at the same time. my personal, um, just personality was disinclined to the pursuit of that larger ideological goal. 

Michael Lee: It almost sounds like a little, maybe it's over dramatizing this and lifetime movie networking this, but it does sound real to me as I'm hearing you tell the story, which is You had to admit to yourself that you were not kind of dispositionally cut out to pursue this dream.

Michael Lee: Yeah. In other words, you had to give up a dream and start a new one. 

Mike Serazio: Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. And I felt [00:14:00] grateful that I was able to segue from that earlier career and what I thought was gonna be, you know, my, my career for life into this world of being a professor where I get to do a kind of similar thing, um, but it's just, it's just, It's much less conflict oriented.

Mike Serazio: I'm so grateful. I, I, you know, I, I, I tell my students this all the time. I tell anybody who'll listen to me, I somehow hit the jackpot in life. I get paid to be a professor, which is extraordinary because I do it for free if I didn't need to pay the mortgage and buy groceries for my daughter and stuff.

Mike Serazio: But, um, you know, to be a professor is to encounter a world that, you know, It's kind of like a journalism of ideas in some way for me, and it doesn't require the same personal combativeness that That we tend to encounter as journalists, right? Like yeah, you get students will fight grades sometimes and that's unpleasant and yeah, you know and Certainly people feel passionately about their theories and their ideas and their research, but it's [00:15:00] not someone's life on the line in quite So no quite so raw way You 

Michael Lee: I have, I have experienced to share just a bit and I want to get your take on this, that there can be a little bit of an overcorrection amongst academic literature and certainly amongst academics where they've become such micro experts on a very small section of society or history or science, that there's maybe four or five people or 50 people on earth, That can actually falsify what they're going to say.

Michael Lee: And so it's led to a kind of seclusion from the realm of conflict. and the march of ideas that it can be difficult to actually introduce conflicts. In other words, so much of it is so conflict avoidant that I would, I would prefer there to be more conflict. 

Mike Serazio: Yeah. Well, I think probably, um, to some degree, the march of knowledge tends to, at least the, I don't want [00:16:00] to put this, perhaps like the business of academia, the business of trying to get a job as professor necessitates that you're going to pick some microscopic niche that you can specialize in and really know about, right?

Mike Serazio: And that, that, that incentivizes against, Floating across disciplines that incentivizes against making big claims making big claims Cross pollinating from across fields, right? You're really kind of especially in grad school. It's sort of they sort of beat that out of you, right? Like beware beware big claims because some you know Someone can come at you with evidence or theories or history that will disprove that in some way But yeah, I mean, I think you know the more that We are, as faculty members and as scholars, um, able to traverse those domains, I think the more rich our ideas become.

Mike Serazio: Yeah. Because, you know, the other thing about conflict, I guess this sort of goes to where, to where a lot of your conversations on the show might go, but, um, I constantly find [00:17:00] myself, uh, reminding myself and being reminded that I really probably am wrong about the things that I believe. Uh. And. It's a constant process of humility that You know, that, that, that I, I, I find whether it be me observing the political landscape, and I, I follow politics as closely as I do sports.

Mike Serazio: Okay. Um, and just, you know, just, just feeling though, you know, I, I, I could be wrong about this. I just, I, for me, there's a, an intellectual humility that I try to always carry with me that I could be wrong about this. And I find that, like having that sensibility. Both opens me up to consuming a lot of, consuming a lot of news content that provides cognitive dissonance, right?

Mike Serazio: Like I don't, I try not to silo myself and just reading the same stuff that already reaffirms what I believe. Um, but I think it's a good exercise and it's what I try to inculcate in my students as well. 

Michael Lee: So I'm struck with a kind of fascinating irony here [00:18:00] as you talk about exposing yourself to different ideas.

Michael Lee: Exposure to different ideas is a kind of embracing of conflict. that you purposefully got away from. And so where does that, where does this kind of continued need to embrace conflict, but in a very different environment come from? 

Mike Serazio: How do I square that circle? Yeah. So to me, it's, it's all in the distinction of abstract ideals versus abstract ideas versus people's personal lives.

Mike Serazio: Right. I love nothing more than watching And thinking through the collision of abstract ideas and theories and, you know, look, is it, is it, uh, economic materialism that explains everything about our lives? Or is it some sort of, you know, uh, Durkheimian, you know, community oriented, you know, I just, I, it's like, what, what's the thing?

Mike Serazio: I mean, you know, and I can, I can come at it from different angles and I, I have my own certain biases in this way, you know, do, do people have agency? Is it, you know, is there a free will? Is there [00:19:00] determined, you know, structural determinism at the level of abstraction? I love the collision of ideas. I think it's fascinating when it gets into people's personal lives, which is what journalism operates at because journalism operates on the ground, right?

Mike Serazio: It operates at the level of someone did this wrong, this, this, you know, did this wrongdoing, right? Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's a conflict that I'm averse to, but at the level of kind of airy abstraction, just find those things fascinating. 

Michael Lee: I'm going to ask a question that I'm just ripping off from therapists and curious to see how, how you answer it.

Michael Lee: But when you, when you feel the kind of personal conflict over the ideological or abstraction capitalism versus socialism, Adam Smith versus Marx arguments, how does that show up for you? In other words, what, where do you feel it? The kind of discomfort over I've, I have covered something up and you're going to write a story about it.

Michael Lee: That makes you feel [00:20:00] how?

Mike Serazio: That's a good question. Um, well, it makes me feel complicit perhaps in pain that might result from an individual. 

Michael Lee: A guilty? 

Mike Serazio: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So when that woman calls me up on the phone and says I ruined her life, I can't help but feel some guilt, right? That even though it was her actions that did it, I was the one that brought it to light, right?

Mike Serazio: Like, if not for me, 

Michael Lee: her 

Mike Serazio: life wouldn't have been ruined. And granted, correlation's not causation, right? But like, but like, it was me who turned over the stone. And I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It is that sense of, yeah, that sense of guilt for sure, for sure. Um, you know, uh, 

Michael Lee: You feel no righteousness there? 

Mike Serazio: No, no, righteous, I don't, I don't have much, I don't place much value in 

Michael Lee: righteousness.[00:21:00] 

Michael Lee: And that was the last question I wanted to ask you and kind of stemming off of Your discussion of intellectual humility, both in your own life and what you teach the students, the way you practice in your writing, too. A kind of, maybe deceptively simple question. Why do you think you're wrong?

Mike Serazio: Because, oh gosh, that's a good one. Um, well, because I've been wrong about many things over the years, uh, on many different levels, and I think that You know, uh, past performances is guaranteed future returns in the, uh, you know, investment commercial, uh, discourse. Um, no, I, I think that, I think that I'm wrong because to be, to be, to be human is to be wrong, you know, like that's, that's, um, that's our fundamental fallibility.

Mike Serazio: And I also feel as though when I look out [00:22:00] at the world and I see people who are so sure of themselves. This is true, particularly in politics, but it's true in other facets of life. When I see people who are so sure of themselves, and sure of what they know, and sure of what they believe, I just think, read some more stuff.

Mike Serazio: Expose yourself to some more possibilities, you know? You just can't be, you know, it's funny because it sounds, it probably makes me sound like I'm a person of, you know, of, of, of little faith, I guess, but like, I, I'm actually a, a very, uh, devout, uh, Catholic and, and, um, and, and yet even whether it's religion, whether it's politics, whether it's whatever thing that people pe believe passionately, when I see someone really thinking that they're sure of themselves.

Mike Serazio: We're sure of something. I just think they need to be exposed to more to sort of take some of that confidence away. 

Michael Lee: Read some more stuff. Sounds like something a college professor might say. [00:23:00] 

Mike Serazio: For sure. For sure. This is why it's, you know, it's, it's, this is why this career and this lifestyle is just perfect.

Michael Lee: It sounds like you made the right choice. I got lucky. I got lucky. Mike Siraggio. Thanks so much for being on When We Disagree. Thanks very much. It's been a great conversation. When We Disagree is recorded at the College of Charleston with creator and host Michael Lee. Recording and sound engineering by Jesse Kunz and Lance Laidlaw.

Michael Lee: Reach out to us at whenwedisagree at gmail. com.