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Something I read today in a newsletter from Columbia Journalism Review about the students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School just didn’t ring true.
“Almost every journalism textbook,” wrote the authors of the CRJ newsletter, “says activism and journalism are incompatible. But the students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas are busy ripping up that textbook and writing a new one.”
I know what those textbooks mean. A reporter can’t be objective if he or she is taking sides. If the journalist is actively advocating, it taints his credibility and opens him to criticism that he is being unfair. It’s the journalist’s role to be an unbiased observer, recording the passing events.
That’s the goal. But the practicality is much different.
First, many journalists get into the profession because of a youthful passion to bring about change. That’s exactly what we’re seeing from students at the Florida school as well as classrooms all over the country. Journalism has a purpose and a goal in society: Inform people of the truth.
It’s not a passive endeavor. Diogenes didn’t sit on a rock and hope an honest man would walk by. Journalists carry their lanterns into the shadows to find out what lurks there. Some will describe the overwhelming darkness, while others focus on a glimmer of hope. Both can be accurate.
These grand notions play out every day, from the newsrooms of the hometown weekly newspapers to the corporate towers of media giants. Journalism and activism may be incompatible, but they’re also inseparable.
The divide, of course, is supposed to be between fact and opinion — what the newsroom reports and what the editorial board espouses. But truth — the ultimate goal — comprises both. Opinions are empty without facts, yet facts alone have limited value unless put into context and subjected to analysis.
It’s when this process is applied to a specific topic — gun control, a property-tax increase, an epidemic of opioid abuse — that people tend to lose perspective. Are you arguing for the public good, or are you arguing for your own personal benefit?
But journalists and the institutions they work for need to be leaders in their communities. They must challenge the status quo, and they must ask the tough questions. It doesn’t necessarily follow that what they write will be one-sided, unfair or inaccurate.
Simply choosing which topics to cover is, in most respects, an overt act. We would prefer the impetus come from readers themselves, saying this is the most important issue in our community. It’s then up to the journalists, their editors and their publishers to recognize the value of dragging these issues into the light. It comes from being in touch with your community.
Newspapers do this every day. Maybe it’s literacy, or homelessness, or drug abuse. Maybe it’s the downtown improvement project, or the new bus schedule, or the cost of soccer fields. Maybe it’s a campaign to bring a doctor to town, or attract a manufacturer or vote out a corrupt politician.
Find out what matters to people, then enlighten them on the costs and benefits, the history and context, the consequences and potential. Tell them the truth as it is being discovered.
A quote from Marjory Stoneman Douglas, the environmental activist for whom the Parkland, Fla., school was named, has become a rallying cry for the survivors as they take on their own cause.
Speak up. Learn to talk clearly and forcefully in public. Speak simply and not too long at a time, without over-emotion, always from sound preparation and knowledge. Be a nuisance where it counts, but don’t be a bore at any time … Do your part to inform and stimulate the public to join your action ….
Be depressed, discouraged and disappointed at failure and the disheartening effects of ignorance, greed, corruption and bad politics — but never give up.
I find a lot there to recommend to any journalist, as well.
