Journalism and Democracy: Letter to a Newspaper Intern

I wanted to take some time to think, before responding to your heartfelt impressions as an intern on an intense assignment.

Most of my career is behind me, so my perspective has a long, rear-view lens.

My father worked as a circulation supervisor for the Free Press for many years, retiring well before you were born.

My sister and I are both English majors whose careers benefited greatly from knowledge of and usage of words — hers, in law; mine, in information technology.

In high school, I took a journalism class. My first impression, walking in that first day, was what my teacher had placed in large words above her blackboard:

“I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

Voltaire. (Well, almost.) (1)

Voltaire lived at a time when people were feeling the stirrings of Enlightenment; indeed, his works helped define what Enlightenment would become. This was a time when men and women in this country were intent on discovering for themselves what self-directed government could be, breaking away as they did from the British yoke.

Their early writings are experiments in forming constitutions, culminating at that time in both the Declaration of Independence (Lincoln’s “golden apple”) and the Constitution.

From its inception, America has been divided. Not everyone desired the revolution. “Patriot” was, in some people’s eyes, a slur, describing those who dared defy authority. For others, it was what I call a “badge of dishonor” — a name inflicted by others upon you, that you wear proudly, even defiantly.

If you would wish to learn more about this, look up “Sea Beggars” in Dutch history. (2)

We hear a lot about patriotism. We often see it expressed in colors, stars and stripes, fireworks, guns, big trucks and all the rest.

There is a quieter form of patriotism as well. Many people live that quieter form. They love their country in less demonstrative ways.

In neighborhoods. Schools. Workplaces. Universities. Gathered on the lawns of government to protest for something better. Asking — and working — for a fair shake. More opportunity. Equalization, and all that that word may mean.

The world is unequal. It has to be. Some are driven by the lure of innovation, invention, exploration. To some come the big rewards these offer. To most others, failure, disappointment, trying something else.

But just because the world is unequal, we don’t have to encourage that inequality. We can work to root it out, replace it with opportunity. Hope. Healing.

It’s work. But good work, nonetheless. Some would say it’s the only work.

What does this have to do with you? With journalism?

Journalism, simply put, is an expression of patriotism. Your first efforts — going out among the people, listening, taking in the raw stuff of real life and transforming it into something we all too often simply call “the news” — this is what it means to write, as was famously said, “the first rough draft of history.” (3)

It can be hard.

The toughest thing is to develop just enough of a thick skin that you can manage to sort through the grief, the emotion, the anger and all the rest, and in so doing pin down and write that story that will connect the experiences of hurting people with the vast, often disinterested humanity that picks up and reads — or, frankly, ignores — what you write.

Just enough of that thick skin. But not so much that you become numb.

Writing is hard, because — as Toni Morrison reminds us — writing is a way of thinking. And Carl Jung said, “Thinking is difficult, that’s why most people judge.”

Judgment is necessary, but must come only after sufficient information has surfaced so that judgment can wisely be made. All too often, due process is buried underneath judgment by social media.

Newspapers — print, digital — are a tough place to be. They are the front lines of history. They also compete in a digital world dominated by electronic surveillance, clickbaits, monetization, tiny attention spans, and other distractions.

That makes your patriotic job that much more challenging. How will you ensure that your voice is heard, coming through the news itself, even as you strive for neutrality, presenting as best you can the who what where when how — and, ultimately, why — of what’s happened? How can you thread that needle?

The easy way is to become loud. To outshout. We have plenty of that today, in our political rantings on both sides.

Much harder is finding that still, soft voice that speaks to you from your core and thus through you to others.

I am thrilled for you, taking a job with so much responsibility. Starting with the people — that foundation of a republican government. Where “small r” republican means, from its Latin roots, “of or concerning the people.”

If you decide to stay in journalism, you are embarking on that long journey of what Volodymyr Zelenskyy described, early in the Ukraine conflict, when responding to a question as to how his role had changed:   “I am learning what it means to be a citizen.”

Journalism is the lifeblood of a free republic. It can be the most democratic of our forms of expression, because it can — at its best — reflect the day-to-day experiences of people. Much of the work may be disagreeable. After all, some people are disagreeable. And some are disagreeable until we learn more about them.

Caught up as we are in the push and pull of book bans and expressions of “wokeism” (if that’s even a word, by the way — plus it’s been appropriated and misused (4)), of narrow definitions of patriot, and fear of people whose skin color differs from our own, or whose religion or gender expression may be different, it’s easy to forget that our founders wrestled with the same things.

They worried about the free expression of religion. About a free press as the foundation of a free society. Of the limitations of government, as well as the need for its authority.

They wrote eighty-five essays in defense of the Constitution (and perhaps as many arguing against it) because they knew, deep down, that they could do so. That no one would clap them in irons simply for debating a better way to live well together.

In today’s world, it’s easy to mistake misinformation for truth, to judge before we think.

In journalism, you balance the pressure of the scoop against understanding and truthfully reporting what you’ve scooped. There is a great deal of pressure to get there first. Getting there first the right way is by far the greater — and so necessary — challenge.

I wish you well in your endeavors. I look forward to hearing more from you. You are finding your voice in a world full of voices. It is, and will remain, uniquely yours.

Best of luck in all that you do. 

____________________________

(1) It turns out, Voltaire didn’t write this well-known quote. It was written by Evelyn Beatrice Hall, who placed it in her biography of him and said it expressed his sentiment. Sigh. Another myth busted: https://checkyourfact.com/2019/09/17/fact-check-voltaire-disapprove-defend-death-right-freedom-speech/

(2) Or go here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geuzen

(3) Another one of these quotes made famous in The Post and widely attributed to Phil Graham (a tortured soul if there ever was one), Kay Graham’s husband. Unfortunately, this one goes back a ways, too, surfacing around 1905; you’ll find it here:   https://www.readex.com/blog/newspapers-rough-draft-history

(4) This just came across my desk - Interesting explanation of the term from Khafre Jay - if the post doesn’t work, look up Khafre on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/khafrejay_woke-africanamerican-blackcommunity-activity-7084374592185663490-oG2n