Industry that 'can't get no respect' shouldn't be issue

I told my psychiatrist that everyone hates me. He said I was being ridiculous - everyone hasn't met me yet.

- Rodney Dangerfield

OK, I admit it. I'm ready for the couch already, and the official political campaign season has barely begun. But I'm also dreading that my shrink's reaction will be much the same as that of Rodney Dangerfield's. In short: It's not going to get any better.

You might think that after three decades in this business, one would get used to being the ugly elephant in the room - the one that no one's afraid to talk about. I've sat against the wall in city council committee meetings and watched red-faced political enemies screaming at each other nose-to-nose with the only thing they could agree on being whether I was taking notes fast enough to make them look bad. Even when I've studiously avoided describing my own political views, I've listened to countless hours of angry telephone lectures from the left, right and middle about why they're wrong.

And, of course, I've shifted nervously in my armchair when an entire political convention greeted Sarah Palin's mere mention of the media with a chorus of boos.

These are not reactions one easily becomes accustomed to.

It would be nice to be able to respond, "At least the money's good," but, well, that would just bring more laughter.

And, of course, that's not the point anyway. Few people go into journalism for the glory, and fewer still for the money. Most of us do it because we like to be where the action is in life, engage each other and those around us with lively ideas, maybe make a bit of a difference in our world and our communities and, yes, I suppose, stir things up a bit from time to time.

But as I contemplate how "the media" has become an issue in this political campaign, I can't help but scratch my head a little.

Just what is this monolithic "media" that everyone hates so much? This mainstream media that has acquired the acronym MSM - usually intended pejoratively - in the electronic-conversation stream?

Is it The New York Times? The Wall Street Journal? The Rockford Register Star? The Washington Times? The Associated Press? Reuters? CNN? Fox News Network? WLS-AM radio, which carries Rush Limbaugh? WBBM-AM radio, which carries Charles Osgood? WIND radio, which once boasted "Liberals hate us?" The Daily Herald, which carries Cal Thomas? Time? Newsweek? U.S. News & World Report?

I know it's not The Onion or The Daily Show or The Colbert Report, though I do know that one reason those programs are funny is that they take their information from all of the above and more.

As we head into what could be one of the most interesting and meaningful presidential campaigns of the past 30 years - or one of the most petty and vicious - something I've said numerous times before bears repeating: We are not all the same, and none of us is one-dimensional.

If you want to be well-informed this political season, you won't rely solely on any one of us. You'll find some effective combination of all of us. You won't believe everything you read or see or hear - and you won't summarily reject everything you read or see or hear.

You'll no doubt find some outlets you love and some that you hate - but you won't lump them all into one amorphous media blob to be feared and reviled.

And maybe - although I'm not really counting on this one - I'll have one less thing to talk with the shrink about.

• Jim Slusher, jslusher@dailyherald.com, is an assistant managing editor with the Daily Herald.