I am a journalist but I like music. This makes for some awkward moments.

Music, whether it is from the underground or the shiny surface of the mainstream, often appeals to the rebellion complex of the masses. The average consumer has just enough class consciousness to distinguish themselves from a capitalist elite they scrutinize, including the so-called “mainstream media.” I could delve into a much more serious topic of the widespread aversion to journalism as a whole and what manufactures that aversion. However, I am a bit tired. But my point is this: popular culture, especially popular music, reinforces this distaste for journalism.

Bob Dylan, Green Day, the Kinks, Michael Jackson and even Charli XCX all have songs targeted at journalists. This is not to say that they are not justified — Green Day calls out the bigwig news heads that propagated the wars in the Middle East and Charli XCX complains about the dismay of when a journalist misquotes her. Most of these anti-journalism songs are really in response to privacy-invading paparazzi and negative reviews from music critics. The fan nods along to the lyrics. Do they somehow empathize with these problems? Or out of ideological priming, do they sympathize with the singer’s hatred toward journalists?

You would have to ask them yourself. Really, I would like to list some of the few songs about journalism and the media that do not resort to venting against “the lamestream media.”

“Shane” by Liz Phair. From Phair’s sophomore record “Whip-Smart,” this song talks about a journalist friend who learns about the government declaring war and writes a story about people’s reactions. He realizes that he is susceptible to the draft and tries to get in touch with a pacifist group to avoid getting sent to war. Phair encourages him that regardless of what he does, “You gotta have fear in your heart.”

“I know that it was the night/That the war broke out/Because you and I were driving around/You were doing a story/About if people understood/What had happened to their world/Tonight, in bed/Sleeping.”

“Program” by Silver Apples. This song is more about the media as a whole and specifically the radio, but the connection to journalism still stands. From the ‘60s pioneers of electronic music, “Program” evokes the fascination with the media by sampling the sound of dialing left and right across radio stations. Static noise flows between voices and music passing by like radio nomads.

“I heard a man in a voice low/And sweet with circumspection/Say innocent listener, don’t you know?/The flame is its own reflection.”

“Reuters” by Wire. The essential post-punk band weaves a tale about a journalist who finds themself in the midst of a violent riot. The reporter runs out of tape before finishing their coverage of gunfire, looting and rape.

“Our own correspondent is sorry to tell/Of an uneasy time, that all is not well/On the borders there’s movement/In the hills, there is trouble/Food is short, crime is double.”

“Newspapermen” by Pete Seeger. Seeger penned both a folk ode to journalists and a tongue-in-cheek mockery of their egos. Interestingly, while most anti-establishment artists malign journalists as agents of the elite, Seeger takes a different approach. He voices solidarity with journalists’ labor unions and the working-class people who report the news while meeting interesting people.

“They used to work like hell just for romance/But finally, the movies notwithstanding/They all got tired of patches on their pants/They organized a union to get a living wage/They joined with other actors upon a living stage/Now newspapermen are such interesting people/When they know they’ve got a people’s fight to wage.”

“Turn On the News” by Hüsker Dü. Like Seeger, the punk band reverses the trope of rejecting the news and encourages the listener to actually “turn on the news” and educate themselves away from bigotry.

“If there’s one thing that I can’t explain/It’s why the world has to have so much pain/With all the ways of communicating/We can’t get in touch with who we’re hating.”

“A Day in the Life” by The Beatles. Whilst not exactly about a journalist, the Beatles’ classic artsy finale to “Sgt. Pepper” reacts to actual news headlines about a car crash and 4,000 potholes in Lancashire. Hopefully, the two stories are not related.

“I read the news today, oh boy/About a lucky man who made the grade/And though the news was rather sad/Well I just had to laugh/I saw the photograph.”

Image from Wikimedia Commons by ECarterSterling