An Open Letter to Diane Sawyer

Dear Diane,

We need to talk.  One Kentucky native to another.  Come to the cafe, we’ll have coffee and a little chat about your Feb. 13 20/20 special, “A Hidden America: Children of the Mountains.”

Look, I know you meant well. As someone who grew up in the hills of Eastern Kentucky, I do appreciate your giving national exposure to the problems facing a part of the country that most Americans don’t give much thought. And lord knows, I’ve personally criticized the area more than a few times myself.

 But Diane, you committed some grievous sins. You claim you spent two years reporting for the show.  Did it take you that long to uncover every possible negative stereotype about the region?

You included the drunks, the drug addicts, the people selling Oxycontin tablets to pay their bills, the folks in trailers, the parents who didn’t support their children’s ambition for an education and a better life.

 You included the young man who won a football scholarship, but struggled with grades and college costs before dropping out to move back to his family’s mobile home.  You made room for the 18-year-old who wanted out of the coal mines, but took the $60,000-a-year job after his girlfriend became pregnant.

 You even managed to include dental problems, caused in part by “addiction” to Mountain Dew soda.

 But really, Diane, the brother-sister incest? That was the last straw.  How long did it take your film crew to find that little tidbit? Did you have to spend the two years waiting to dig that out from under a rock?

Granted, you did mention “heroes in these hills – teachers, social workers, mentors.”  But did you talk to any of them?

 Sure, you had the report on 81-year-old Eula Hall, who runs a mountain clinic.  But you had to include the fact that she carries a gun to protect the clinic.  Yet another stereotype.

 And yes, you included Dr. Edwin Smith, the traveling dentist. But you added a gratuitous statement about “people who sometimes pull their own teeth with pliers, that stereotype rooted in a fact.”

 And of course that led into the whole bit about people using Mountain Dew, with its high caffeine and sugar content “as a kind of antidepressant.”  Give me a break.

Where were the teachers, social workers, mentors, people working hard to bring the children of the mountains into the 21st century?  We certainly didn’t see any of them on camera.

 I know the troubles of the area are real. I have seen firsthand the poverty, the illiteracy, the devastation caused by drugs and alcohol. I know the doctor in Hall’s clinic was correct when he  said there was more poverty in Mud Creek than in the part of India he came from.

 People whose own education is limited sometimes don’t see the value of education for their children.  And yes, poverty and a lack of jobs force some people into desperate circumstances.

 But there’s a lot more to the region than your program showed, Diane. There are hardworking, middle-class people in that area, some who work in the mines and some who work elsewhere, even in white-collar jobs.  There are people who make sure their children go to school, who support their kids’ extracurricular activities and encourage them to go to college.

 There are people there who don’t drink or abuse legal or illegal drugs.  And there are people who keep their guns – not their medications -- locked up.

 People like my parents and grandparents.

 There are high-achieving students in local schools, with dreams of doing big things. They are smart, articulate, sober. They are future leaders of Eastern Kentucky, possibly of the nation.

 But you didn’t talk to any of those people.  Why? Maybe because  stereotypes make better television?