To the Editor,

It’s not often that you laugh reading an Op-Ed on Russia, but that’s precisely what I did when I read Marc Bennetts’s Don’t Blame Journalists for Bad News Coverage on Russia, (Op-Ed July 3). Bennetts pokes fun at western media, its consumers, and its critics, while showing how the image we have of other countries gets negatively skewed with stories of natural disasters, humans rights violations, and political concerns.

Not all of the blame falls on the heads of journalists. It’s hard to produce positive stories that grip us in the same way that more grave ones do. As Bennetts puts it, there are “only so many articles that can be written on the transformation of Gorky Park.” He suggests that for a more palatable view of Russia, we turn to travel guides, but I disagree. We should be able to get this type of coverage from the media, and we can—if the public demands it. In a media environment where clicks determine revenue, responsibility for balanced coverage falls equally if not principally on viewers. Ask and you shall receive. If we really wanted to read about art exhibits in Kazan, such articles would be on the front page of the Washington Post. Yet the front page remains mostly devoted to politics.

Coverage dominated by hurricanes, war, and famine is more a reflection on our society than it is on the media. Instead of revealing a media industry that lies to us, coverage paints a picture of a society that is somehow both globalist and isolationist. The attention we pay to longer-term issues in other parts of the world lasts about as long as a news cycle. It’s we who maintain and foster the monolithic image of other cultures that is so prevalent. If we want more nuanced coverage, we have to demand it and consume it where it is available.

While there is no simple solution to this matter, the information is out there. There are publications that don’t foster the mentality that “if it bleeds it leads”, and that offer nuance and depth to their coverage of other cultures. Find them. Support them. Share them. The sustentation or destruction of the monolith is in your very capable hands.