State of the News Media and my blog

Big (HUGE) brands of news media

Last month’s release of the State of the News Media 2009 from the PEW Project for Excellence in Journalism made me realize that I have reached a landmark in my experiment in blogging on the transition taking place in the news world.

It has been more than a year since I first conjectured to “heat up the debate between old and new media”. I laugh looking back. I cringe at the thought of reading through posts from this period of naiveté! What a simplistic view of the growing pains being felt by an entire institution of society, the decline and fall of the great empires of the fourth estate, the inevitable loss of power as described by Ibn Khaldun.

During this year, the economy has collapsed, several newspapers have moved to online-only publications, legacy news organizations have threatened to close, and I wasn’t admitted into the Ph.D. program through which I wanted to study this crisis of journalism culture. If you think that’s hard not to take personally, just consider that the San Francisco Chronicle, where I did my internship, might shutter its doors after losing US$one million a week in 2008, and The San Diego Union-Tribune, where I had my first job, was sold to some private equity firm!?

But what has shocked me most is that the discourse on which direction news media should move does not seem to be based on any particular principles, forget a coherent conceptual framework for discussion and action! This is unacceptable for a social institution meant to mirror the processes of the advancement of civilization.

Speaking of action, in truth it is with deeds not words that industry leaders will be able to learn what economic model and structure of values will carry journalism into the future. Incessant and fruitless debate has done nothing for the fields of philosophy, governance and development, and it has paralyzed the news industry as well.

Perhaps we as news women and men are too afraid of making a mistake. That paranoia is so deeply ingrained into our being as reporters and editors–once you make an error, you can’t take it back; one small mistake can cost you your career–that it has crippled our ability to learn. How else can an industry in such dire need of change evolve and mature if a degree of mistakes are not tolerated? We need to challenge this fundamental assumption in our professional ideology.

This blog is about rooting out and examining this and other assumptions. A year into recording my thoughts on the future of journalism, I feel I finally have something to offer to this discourse. I hope there will be readers and feedback.

Reflections on unity, peace and the news

As I explained before, some of the content of my posts will feature assignments that I write for the FUNDAEC course on Constructing a Conceptual Framework for Social Action, which I am taking by distance learning. Below are a few paragraphs that I wrote based on a reflection exercise on the assertion that a lasting peace will not be attained unless and until the unity of humankind is firmly established; why is this so and in what way is unity the prerequisite of peace?

The text that precedes this reflection question quotes from the portion of The Promise of World Peace that lists the issues that are immediately relevant to the establishment of world peace. This reading led me to reflect on the role of the press in this process, whether its maturation would be reached upon the attainment of a lasting peace or as one of the steps towards bringing about the necessary unity for peace.

Bahá’u’lláh made reference to newspapers in several Tablets, calling them mirrors that reflect the deeds and pursuits of mankind and an amazing and potent phenomenon; even commanding journalists to approach their work with justice and equity, gathering all of the facts and setting them down¹. (As an aside, it interests me to note that there is no mention of “objectivity”.)

‘Abdu’l-Bahá elaborated on the how the press will operate in/towards a world of peace: “A newspaper must in the first instance be the means of harmony between the people. This is the prime duty of the proprietors of newspapers to obliterate misunderstandings betwixt religions and races and nativities, and promote the oneness of mankind”². For an industry that trades in adversarialism and prides itself in such idols as objectivity, “checks and balances” and freedom of excessive speech, it is clear that a complete reordering of the core values of this institution, so essential for governance, is needed. In case it wasn’t clear the first time, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá reiterated to the newspaper proprietor in Minneapolis with whom he spoke during his visit to America, “Newspapers must be the first means of amity and understanding amongst men. Newspapers must be the heralds of the oneness of humanity”³. Every journalist will find this statement to be a challenge to the fundamental belief of Western democracy that a reporter’s job is not to have an agenda or opinion, but simply to be an observer of events and to make sure that every “side” of the story is told.

I’m sharing these thoughts in answer to the question of why and how unity is a prerequisite to peace in case you might also see in this exercise an illustration of the need for unity in achieving peace: Reflect on the quotations above and then imagine how such a press will operate and how this transformation—from the “watchdog” of the ruling class to publications “of high thoughts” that are “the dynamic power in the arteries of life” and “the very soul of the world”⁴—will influence its readers. You can see that without unity (especially the shedding of corruption and oppression in the governments) this peaceful picture of the press cannot exist. Without leaders who are committed to the welfare of all the peoples of the world, without just economic and legal systems, without recognition of the oneness of God, religion and man, the fourth estate cannot, or at least will not agree to, do its job in a way that advocates amity and understanding, harmony and oneness.

The history of news reporting, however, is rife with tales of courage in the face of great challenges and opposition. Perhaps the proprietors of the news media will, indeed, have the foresight and maturity to be trailblazers to peace, taking an active role in attaining their destiny that Shoghi Effendi depicted in his letter The World Order of Bahá’u’lláh, “The press will, under such a system [a world commonwealth], while giving full scope to the expression of the diversified views and convictions of mankind, cease to be mischievously manipulated by vested interests, whether private or public, and will be liberated from the influence of contending governments and peoples.”⁵

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_{¹ Tablets of Bahá’u’lláh Revealed After the Kitáb-i-‘Aqdas, p. 39
² ‘Abdu’l-Bahá: the Centre of the Covenant, HM Balyuzi, p.273
³ ibid. p.275
⁴ “The Secret of Divine Civilization”, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, p. 109
⁵ The World Order of Bahá’u’lláh, Shoghi Effendi, p. 204}

Get out of journalism school

I wish I had finished this post draft, although I understand why I didn’t as I was busy the entire fall “semester” last year with applications to…that’s right! J-schools!

That is, what should students get out of journalism school?

The plight of J-schools to be relevant, let alone useful, in the shifting industry has been the topic of recent polling, musing and, of course, blogging.

To take a serious crack at this discussion, the first step is to throw out the idea of the journalism degree and to replace it with the notion of a multi-disciplinary discourse on the myriad aspects of the theory and application of the profession, institution and public service that is journalism.