for healing across a very bitter partisan divide. Concern over the ways RW media was fueling hatred of liberals led me to read everything I could get my hands on about media issues. I sensed the changed media policy would lead us to a very bitter "divorce" even way back then.
That led me into activism, testifying in FCC hearings, attending conferences on media reform.
Eventually I went back and got a Master's degree in Mass Communication, intending to write and persuade others of the importance of the right media policy for a healthy democracy. Sadly my writing skills were not good enough – but I ended up spearheading the founding of a community radio station after none of the fires in my community were covered by the major media market in the next county, and my town only had a weekly newspaper behind a paywall. Some 436 fires started in a single day in 2011, some quite near. The media focused on bigger ones. Nothing about ours. Those conferences and going back for a master's gave me tools, even though I had no radio station experience.
I kept praying for the nation's healing of the partisan rancor, but it kept getting worse. In 2016 with the election of Trump, the explosion of anger led to the creation of a nonprofit using marriage and family counseling techniques to get the sides talking (carefully) and to begin overcoming the barriers to relationship. Braver Angels has spread rapidly to every state.
Last summer I was recruited to a Braver Angels pilot project to work on media issues with the goal of finding common ground between conservatives and liberals to push for media reform (I was too busy but it was potentially an answer to three decades of prayer, so I couldn't say no). We'll have our 5th Zoom event this Saturday. We hope in February to brainstorm and begin to develop plans for action. People from across the country have gotten interested in starting a similar project in their Braver Angels Alliances.
Day before the insurrection, out of the blue I was asked if I'd be part of a very small group (two Reds, two Blues) to discuss why we have now such different realities about the election. That's supposed to happen tomorrow. Two of them are from the national organization. I'm a little nervous, two have taught academically at the college level. But it's one of those opportunities I couldn't refuse. Rebuilding a media policy in which democracy can survive and thrive is my hope and prayer. I've found tremendous yearning on both sides of the political spectrum to get beyond this bitter partisan divide, so I pray that this will be a beginning of understanding in conservatives of the deeply harmful media they consume and how it has led them to this precipice. Those of you who pray, please pray for that discussion and open hearts and minds, and my ability to communicate in a way that will be heard.
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