I don’t typically comment on what goes on in the political world, at least not to anyone outside of my immediate social and family circle as I believe that who you vote for is a very personal choice. I could not tell you who my parents or grandparents voted for in the last election, or any other election before that.
Frankly, I have never really understood what motivates an individual to run for public office. I believe it takes a very special breed of human (with a healthy ego) to put themselves in the public eye and run a successful political campaign. I often wonder how far they’re willing to go to win. This is especially true in the U.S. political arena. Take the example of Paul Ryan, the U.S. Republican Party’s vice-presidential candidate.
According to an article on the CBS News website (and pretty much every other mainstream media website in the U.S.), Ryan and his entourage, which included his wife and three children, showed up at a soup kitchen in Youngstown, Ohio following a community town hall. During his visit, Ryan introduced his family and chatted briefly with the volunteers. At this point I should also mention that lunch had already been served, the kitchen was mostly clean (except for the dishes Ryan’s people asked be left behind), and only a handful of volunteers were still there. Then, Ryan, his wife and his kids got suited up in white aprons and Ryan proceeded to pretend to wash a sink full of pots and pans (which already looked pretty clean from what I could see) so that photographers and members of the media could take pictures and video. The photos and videos were then released under the guise of Ryan ‘pitching in’ at a local soup kitchen.
But there was one hitch that Paul Ryan’s advisers didn’t count on. Following their visit, the president of the organization responsible for running the soup kitchen complained to the media that the soup kitchen is run by a faith-based ‘apolitical’ organization that relies heavily on private funding. He added that he would not have allowed them to use the facility for a photo-op even if they had gone through the proper channels. Had this gentleman not complained publicly, I am sure that many people would have been led to believe that Paul Ryan was the kind of man that was willing to get his hands dirty in order to help the less fortunate, and it just so happened that a dozen cameras and journalists were there to witness his selfless act.
Why, you might ask, was I so compelled by this story that I felt the need to write about it? Here’s the thing – I learned many years ago through my job as a communicator that much of what appears in the media – be it on-line, on TV, on the air, or in print – is incomplete at best. The Paul Ryan story was an important reminder of what was once a hard truth for me to accept: that all news coverage should be taken with a very large grain of salt.
And with that, I’ll leave you with this – The next time you get all fired up about something you’ve seen, heard or read, ask yourself if there could be more to the story.
