Being mainstream is a good thing

Over the weekend, I found myself in a contemplative mood. I probably don’t have to point out the interesting place my profession will occupy in the zeitgeist for the next four years. It’s going to be a good time.

In a moment between loads of laundry, I wondered why we, the ink-stained wretches of the Fourth Estate, have let the term “mainstream media” become a pejorative. I know many among us, myself included, bristle when that phrase is used.

My first instinct is to object. “No, I’m not. I’m ... I’m ...” I’m what exactly?

For fun, I Googled the definition of “mainstream.” The internet proclaims it to mean “the ideas, attitudes, or activities that are regarded as normal or conventional.”

Well, that tracks. You get up in the morning, go to work, don’t kick puppies. Normal, acceptable behavior.

Sounds pretty boring, if you ask me. Mainstream things aren’t radical, exciting, coloring-outside-the-lines ventures.

Mainstream is boring and stodgy, typical and expected. It’s your uncle who’s an accountant and gives you a pocket protector every Christmas. He likes mayonnaise sandwiches on white bread.

Mainstream is the death knell of creative thought and colorful murals. It’s homeowner associations that declare your house can be any shade of beige you want.

The more I think about it, mainstream might be the worst thing ever. So it stands to reason, when we’re called “mainstream media” we push back. No, we aren’t normal or conventional or boring, right? We do cool, exciting, edgy, avant garde stuff all the time.

We go to city council meetings and county commission meetings. School board meetings. Planning and zoning meetings. OK, maybe the meetings aren’t a good example.

I mean, who really wants to know what their local government is doing? What taxes and laws they’re enacting, what that development next door to you is. Yeah, nothing exciting about that stuff.

Let’s see, what else do we do? Oh, there are always feature articles. Deep dives into the lives of octogenarians who climb mountains, prominent citizens battling rare forms of cancer, students who excel repeatedly in science and STEM. Yeesh, dulls-ville right?

Oh, I know — sports. Every week, dozens of contests on the gridiron, the hardwood, the diamond and the mats pit our young men and women against their peers in a battle of strategy, strength and wills. There’s the buzzer-beating, clock-stopping plays. The heart rending near-wins and the crushing blow outs, both given and received. Sounds like things you could nap through, right?

What else, what else? Well, there’s always crime. We’ve got everything from burglaries to murders. Drug deals and child abuse, petty larceny and stolen cars. A front-row seat to the destruction and agony of families and friends, a clear view of a community more and more suspicious of each other, distrusting and spiteful. I don’t know as I can say it’s dull but it certainly grinds a hole in your soul.

The form of media I work in — newspapers — has been around and evolving since the mid 1400s when Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press.

The newspaper I work for — the Valencia County News-Bulletin — has been in existence, continuously publishing since 1910, two years before New Mexico was a state. That’s a lot of spelling bees, wedding announcements, pictures of prize beef cattle, trials, obituaries and science fair winners.

We, as a small weekly paper in New Mexico, and we as the media writ large across this country, stand on tradition. We stand on a foundation laid by the authors of the Constitution, a bedrock ideal called out in the very First Amendment.

So yes, we are “mainstream.” A free, unfettered, robust press should be the most normal, typical thing there is in this country.