News media can be divisive and disheartening, but its consumers become bridge builders when they turn off the screens and decide to listen.
Jarring headlines and rampant negativity fuel today’s media industry, drawing people to the news even as they want to turn away from it. This phenomenon is the backbone of the “Outrage Industry,” which relies on media that is sensational instead of trustworthy, inflammatory instead of informative. Noticing this trend, Madeline Miles (English ’26, English MA ’28) took her Humanities Undergraduate Mentoring (HUM) Grant to work and to research the effects of negative news media in Charlestown, West Virginia. Her research helped her see that soothing the divisiveness fueled by today’s news begins with one step: developing empathy.
An Outrageous Industry
Miles moved with her family to West Virginia as a high schooler, and over the years she “fell in love with the tranquility and down-to-earthness of the people.” In 2025, Miles was drawn back to research in West Virginia’s unique political climate. She hoped that the qualities she admired in its residents would spark honest conversations about how news media impacts their view of news sources—and even of other people.
Miles interviewed 30 people on streets and front porches, asking, “What news do you watch, listen to, or read?” and, “What do you think about news media?” She received a number of different answers. Younger people, Miles says, felt they didn’t want to watch or read the news “because it’s too stressful” or “too much.” Older interviewees felt that news was a necessary evil but that it was untrustworthy and that it “perpetrated false ideas and immorality.” Their distrust extended to alternate news sources and people on the other side of the political spectrum.
But as Miles spent time talking with each West Virginian, she noticed the distrust and negativity softening. One woman opened the door with misgivings about Miles’s reasons for asking questions. The woman was hesitant to share at first, but, Miles says, “When I was just listening and talking to her, she felt free to talk about her opinions.” Despite the polarization that is fueled by the media, Miles found that interpersonal trust could be rebuilt by freely listening.
Lending a Listening Ear
Living in West Virginia for the summer, Miles took her questions about news media to her job at a local racetrack. Although the work was separate from her HUM Grant research, the racetrack became a perfect place to start honest conversations, and she was surprised by what happened when she listened to others without judgement.
While she and her coworkers monitored cars on the track for as long as eight hours a day, Miles took advantage of the “quiet” moments to ask them about themselves and how they viewed the news. Most had very different opinions from Miles, and she says the conversations were “really painful sometimes because what do you say in a situation where you disagree fundamentally?” Miles came to believe that listening with an open mind is a skill everyone should develop. “It’s the best kind of training ground, to listen to someone who you can barely find common ground with.”
This kind of conversation generated more than mutual respect. When one coworker spoke unkindly about Miles, another coworker with whom she’d had a positive conversation stood up for her. Miles felt that his act of kindness wasn’t a coincidence—it represented the connection made because of her willingness to openly listen.
It’s the best kind of training ground, to listen to someone who you can barely find common ground with.
Learning how to empathize with those who think differently may never make the conversations comfortable, but Miles came to see that when people listen as willingly as they speak, they combat the divisiveness and distrust that the Outrage Industry fuels. Miles’s experiences in West Virginia—both conducting on-the-spot interviews and connecting with her coworkers—taught her that when people are “willing to sacrifice time and their own opinion just to hear someone else talk,” they build on common ground they may not have known existed. She explains, “Even if our only common ground is being human, I think that it’s enough.”
Learn more about HUM grants on the BYU Humanities website.