Journalistic Manifesto Part 2

With all my talk over the past several weeks about what I question about traditional journalism, I think the time has come for me to define what I think journalism should be, which is appropriate for my last post on this weblog and for this class.

I call this conclusion a manifesto rather than a code or a principle because I believe those codes and principles are already well established. What I seek to do is to clarify how a modern journalist should apply those codes and principles.

In writing this post and its accompanying manifesto, I have leaned heavily on the Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics, the Project for Excellence in Journalism’s Principles of Journalism, and the Largemouth Citizen Journalism Manual. I agree with the ethics, principles, and ideas presented in all three places, and what I seek to do in this manifesto is describe how I interpret and, more importantly, how I intend to apply them.

Dennis L Hitzeman’s Journalism Manifesto

- Journalists must report the truth; however, there is more to journalism than reporting the facts.

o “It rained today” may be newsworthy, but it is not the essence of journalism. In my opinion, journalism is about shining the light of truth on the moral, ethical, and political issues that shape society. Certainly, reporting the facts is a part of the journalistic pursuit, but just as important is explaining why anyone should care and what can be done. This latter pursuit is the essence of journalism.

- Journalism is a storytelling art

o While journalism is concerned with the truth and the facts that form the truth, facts presented without context and emotion are easy to ignore. Part of the role of a journalist is to make the truth interesting and relevant. This does not mean abandoning objectivity for speculation, rather it means being objective in a way that makes people want to care.

- Journalism is a knowledge science

o Journalism cannot function without facts. Facts are empirical and knowable. By definition, it is the journalist’s obligation to know what he is reporting is true. If a journalist does not possess that knowledge, he should not report until he does, however long that may take.

- Journalists must report facts objectively, but that does not mean they need to report them neutrally.

o In my opinion, the best journalism comes from a well-articulated, well-informed, unambiguous point of view. I believe that a journalist can report more objectively about all of the facts, even different points of view, if he first clearly explains his own relationship to those facts and points of view. Such reporting eliminates the accusation of bias from the very beginning by revealing to everyone exactly where the

- Journalists must report facts independently, but independence does not mean freedom from influence.

o Just as a journalist can never really be neutral, I do not believe he can ever really be free of influence. We are all influenced by our faith, families, friends, employers and all of the other affiliations we have in our lives. Instead of ignoring those affiliations, journalists must admit their influence and explain how they affect his reporting. Such disclosure allows reporting to be understood in context.

- Journalists must remember they are part of their community; journalists are still citizens.

o I believe that a journalists first obligation is really to liberty, not the truth. It is from liberty that the freedom to report the truth originates, and without liberty, journalism is dead. Of course, even I began this manifesto with the truth, but beneath the truth lies the requirement for the journalist to act as the check to any exercise of power over his fellow citizens, be it governmental, corporate, or societal. As a result, the journalist must always be biased in favor of his fellow citizens and toward liberty against any other concern.

- Journalism is a means not an end.

o I believe that journalists must always remember that the check to their own influence is the liberty of their fellow citizens. Citizens are free to pick and choose from what the journalist reports to decide for themselves what the truth is. Whatever the truth may be, the will of the individual and of the citizens always trumps all other concerns, even the journalistic one.

- Journalists may be well informed, but they are not always smarter.

o Journalists have the advantage of a profession that requires them to be well informed, but this state does not make them smarter than anyone else. It takes the common wisdom of an entire nation to make republican democracy work, and journalists are just one part of that system. Journalists must always keep in mind that in the end, it is the citizens, not the journalists, who make the decisions.

Jobs for writers…

…are not always easy to find.

I accidentally graduated this quarter with my associate’s degree in creative writing. This fact along with other factors (such as the fact that I have changed my plans to continue directly into a bachelor’s degree program) mean that I need to start working in my field sooner than later.

Unfortunately, what I have discovered so far, at least in Dayton, Ohio, is that getting a job as a writer is more difficult that I first imagined. The problem seems to be two-fold.

First, professional writing seems to be pigeonholed by titles. Many people who are hiring writers want them to have earned credentials with specific names like “business’, “advertising”, and “journalist”. Is that a +1 in the journalism column? Perhaps.

Second, the problem is that people who are hiring writers have this weird issue of wanting people to already have experience. The problem is that no one is offering opportunities to gain that experience, so I am not sure how they ever hire anyone.

All of this has led me to view my pursuit of a writing job a bit more creatively than I first thought I would have to. I am expanding my view of what I considered a writing job to be and hoping for the best.

Journalistic Manefesto part 1

So, after all of my splitting of hairs about what I think about journalism, I think it is important to create a definition of what I think journalism should be. Before I can do so, however, I think it is important to identify my own assumptions--my bias--about how journalism should work. Below I deal with what I believe are several foundational issues that help inform the subject:

There is more to journalism than just reporting the facts

The most basic form of journalism is reporting facts. I do not argue that point. What I dispute is that reporting facts is all there is to journalism. I believe that society created journalism because it recognizes that not everyone is willing or capable of doing what it asks journalists to do: search out the facts, evaluate the facts against the norms of society, and reach conclusions based on the facts and those norms. Society wants to be presented with those conclusions from journalists in the same way they want diagnoses from doctors and rulings from judges.

Journalists are supposed to be a part of the community

I strongly believe that journalists should be a part of the community. This is a complicated issue that delves into independence and objectivity, nevertheless I believe that journalists should be responsive to their communities rather than to their editors and corporations. Journalists should know the places that they live, the people in those places, and what concerns those people. Granted, sometimes it is the journalists' role to reveal something the community may have missed, but this role never becomes telling the community what is news.

Objectivity does not have to be neutral

I do not believe that journalists have to be neutral in order to be objective. Objectivity means reporting the facts, even if those facts disagree with one's opinions or beliefs, but it does not mean that journalists have to set aside their opinions and beliefs in order to report. Certainly, there is a risk of failing to report facts because of one's already held opinions, but it is avoiding this risk that separates journalists from other writers.

Further, the simple fact is that no one deals with facts neutrally and journalists should deal with this fact effectively by being upfront about their position and by explaining why they think the way they do. This kind of reporting adds body to reporting that is otherwise missing.

Journalism is a means not an end

Finally, I believe that journalists must always remember that their profession is a means of keeping society informed, not the definition of information. Journalism functions in concert with the other aspects of a free society to help provide its citizens a complete picture. Citizens are free to pick and choose from among those aspects to decide for themselves what the facts are. While journalism may act as a check to government and corporate interests, journalists must never forget that the people act as a check to journalism.

Why does Dennis Hitzeman hate journalism?

Some people must be wondering why I hate journalism.

The short answer is that I do not hate journalism at all.

I do not hate journalism at all. Some the writers that I respect the most (Mark Bowden, Jules Crittenden, Michael Yon) are journalists. I respect the journalistic approach and journalistic ethics. So why am I so critical of modern journalism?

The problem is that I believe in a spirit of journalism that I believe is missing from most modern reporting. When I think of journalism, I think of a pursuit that is involved, activist, and passionate by its very nature. I believe in a journalism that believes its job is to do something more than just present facts; its job is to make people pay attention by showing them what is wrong and how it can be fixed.

I believe in a swashbuckling, privateer, bardic kind of journalism that is as much storytelling as it is objective reporting. I believe in a journalism that is active, energetic, and involved. I believe in a journalism that gets attention because it cannot be ignored as much because it inspires as because it tells the whole story.

So why am I so hard on journalism? Because I believe that what is missing from most modern journalism is the very kind of spirit I have just described and because modern journalism claims this spirit has no place in modern reporting.

Modern journalism was recently described to me as a sterile journal of what has happened--journalism as the first draft of history. As I see it, this description cuts to the heart of the whole problem: why so many people just do not care.

From my view, this sterile journal forgets the essence of the journalist. Journalists are humans just like everyone else. They are citizens just like everyone else. What separates journalists from everyone else is their desire to shine the light of intellect on the truth for their fellow humans and citizens.

This light is not sterile or neutral even as it is objective and fair. I believe that a recent ongoing story in Ohio proves my point:

Marc Dann was Ohio’s elected attorney general who was recently forced to resign because of a series of findings of unethical conduct and ongoing investigations into allegations of even more. My local paper’s coverage of this ordeal has been good--I would say just short of outstanding.

This coverage, I believe, proves my point because of its very nature. The reporters and editors working this story were forced to make a critical choice in their reporting, which was to decide that what Dann had done and was accused of doing was wrong and deserving of almost daily coverage of the allegations and the calls for him to resign.

This reporting was more than just a sterile journal of the events that occurred. The Dayton Daily News, through strong, passionate, dogged reporting participated in the statewide conversation that brought about Dann’s resignation, which had to happen because what Dann had done was unacceptable conduct for an attorney general.

In short, the Dayton Daily News made a judgment call. The paper’s writers and editors were neither sterile nor neutral, yet they were objective and fair. Their passion and involvement shined a light on something that was wrong in Ohio and helped contribute to righting it.

If only all of Dayton Daily News’ reporting was this successful. If the paper’s writers and editors turned this same attention to the causes of crime or unemployment in Dayton, perhaps such attention could achieve similar results.

My point here is that people cared about the Marc Dann story because papers around Ohio like the Dayton Daily News inspired them to care. In doing so, they engaged in the very spirit of journalism that I believe they should possess every time they report a story. It is because this kind of reporting still exists that I still have hope that journalism can reclaim the spirit I believe it should have.

I do not hate journalism. Instead, I like to believe that I act as the check and balance to journalism as much as it acts as the check and balance to the government. I want journalism to succeed, but it cannot succeed if no one is paying attention to its sterile journal of the day’s events. Make that journal spirited, and journalism will have succeeded and we will all be better for it.

Green Journalism?

On 28 April, Time Magazine stirred up controversy with its "How to win the war on Global Warming" cover. This controversy is exactly the kind of thing that causes me to question the foundation of modern journalism.

See, my problem is not with the cover per se, but with the characterization by some that Time was ever an unbiased news organization. It is clear that the writers and editors at Time think that Global Warming is real and is a threat, in spite of the fact that Global Warming is far from settled science reportable as fact.

If Time was following the self-proclaimed rules of modern journalism, then the cover in question would have never been necessary because Time would have been reporting a neutral exposition on the differing opinions on global climate change, its causes, and its solutions. There would have been no reason for a journalistic magazine to issue a call to action for a cause of questionable merit. Instead, they would have reported the facts and let the readers decide.

What this controversy shows to me is that Time has revealed the truth about its journalism in a way that few other publications have dared. Time is biased. Time is not neutral. Time is reporting the news from its own perspective, and it does so in this case with passion.

What this controversy shows to me is the true face of journalism with its attempts to obfuscate scrubbed away. The reason that so many people reject modern journalism is because it is biased and tries to pretend not to be. People may not agree with the Time cover or article, but at least it is honest and genuine. No one has to wonder where Time's writers and editors stand.


If more journalism was done the way Time decided to do this article, then perhaps people would not feel like they are being lied to. Certainly, such a change creates a new kind of journalism, but is it a change for the worse?

Passionate reporting

I think that the key to success in modern journalism is passionate reporting. With the profusion of news and news sources, it is far too easy to tune out the news and ignore it completely simply because it is so prevalent. I think dry reporting makes the news easier to ignore because it is often hard for the news consumer to get a clear sense of why he should care.

I think that what people really want from news reporting is not just a collection of information, but context, relationships, and the idea that the person reporting the news wants to find solutions as much as the people reading. Of course, not all news is bad news or something that needs to be fixed, but most news is, and reporting that points not just to the problems but the solutions accomplishes the very things that the current sterile reporting claims to want to but cannot.

Right now, this kind of passionate reporting seems to be limited to the realm of non-traditional journalists and the opinion pages. Certainly, I am not suggesting that news reporting should be set aside for rampant speculation and opinion; rather, I am suggesting that news reporting is about reporting all of the news, not just the surface of it.

Journalists are in a unique position within society not just to report what has happened but to report what can be done. In the modern media age, the "what can be done" message is often drown out by the competitive shouting of advertisers, advocates, partisans and politicians all trying to portray their own interests as paramount. Combine this cacophony with sterile reporting that gives information often without context, and it is no wonder that so many people shrug the whole mess off.

What makes reporting passionate? When the journalist shows that he knows the story; not just the facts, but the whole story. Passionate reporting says what happened, how it affects all of us, and what can happen next. Passionate reporting presents the reader with reasons why he should care about this story and want to do something about it.

A story can be passionate and still be fair. As the Largemouth Citizen Journalism Workshop definition of Citizen Journalism states, journalism can be passionate and still be journalism.

Trained journalists usually follow an ethical code of “objectivity,” which means that besides striving to be factual and fair, they also try to remain personally neutral towards the subjects they write about. Citizen journalists, while they also strive to be factual and fair, are not usually neutral on the subjects they write about, and they don’t try to be. They believe instead that the best journalism: A) is a form of popular writing grounded without compromise in verified fact; B) presents news and public issues with an articulated point of view; b) achieves fairness to the facts, to sources, and to readers by fully explaining that point of view while also offering views, ideas, and perspectives other than its own.

If traditional journalism wants to survive in the modern media marketplace, then it has to do what it takes to get attention, not just to sell more media, but because the journalist’s responsibility is to inform, and no one can be informed if no one is paying attention.

Transformations

I’ve wanted to write since I wrote my first formal story when I was in seventh grade. That experience left an impression on me that never faded, and even though life took me elsewhere from that original experience, the idea was always there.

In 2005, after four years as a network architect and at the tail end of a (at the time) fifteen year Information Technology career, I decided that I could not ignore my idea of becoming a writer any longer. I committed myself to a radical transformation from a network integration specialist into a published writer.

In some ways, modern journalism faces a similar choice. Throughout the history of news gathering and reporting, the profession that would become journalism has evolved and transformed as technology and the demands of the societies journalists have served have changed. Certainly, some ideals make news reporting better today than it may have been in the past, but the fact that those ideals have not always been ideal proves that change has occurred.

According to the Society of Professional Journalists, the goal of a modern journalist is to accomplish the following four things:

- Seek the truth and report it

- Minimize harm

- Act independently

- Be accountable

In themselves, these are laudable goals for journalists to strive toward; however, I think that the interpretation the SPJ puts on how these goals are achieved represent why journalism is struggling as a profession in the modern marketplace.

To me, the problem rests with one basic idea: why should the consumer care? In our modern world of 24/365 news from literally hundreds of potential sources, why should the news consumer care about the reporting of a particular source? If all sources are reporting neutral, factual news, then why care who reports it?

What makes news stand out and what draws readers to certain news sources, in my opinion, is the very lack of neutrality journalists claim they are striving toward. People watch and read Fox News or Slate because they can perceive the bias and so they seek out biases that they agree with.

Some journalists stand aghast at my previous statement because they fundamentally do not believe that people should put their bias into news. I think this rejection of bias extends not just to those reporting the news, but also to those who are consuming it. If that is the case, then what is the point of news at all?

The point, as I see things, is for the journalist to help create a conversation in the public marketplace of ideas. In order to do that, the journalist has to compete with all of the other 24/365 sources to get the story out. The way to compete is to tell the story with passion and from a point of view that makes people pay attention to what is being said.

This is why I think citizen journalism, of all the experiments in journalism going on right now, has the best chance of succeeding and transforming the profession into something relevant to the 21^st century. Citizen journalists, through fair, factual, passionate reporting from a particular viewpoint have the chance to create the conversation in a way neutered journalism cannot.

Further, citizen journalists--or whatever they become--create that conversation without violating the spirit of anything the SPJ thinks journalists should be doing. Citizen journalists can seek the truth, minimize harm, be independent, and be accountable while also being passionate and, yes, biased about their reporting. Citizen journalists can report the truth without being neutral and without compromising the truth.

So can all journalists.

As the internet and media technologies yet to be realized change the way people gain access to the news, the choice of what kind of news people are looking for will make the movement of the marketplace more and more clear. People want to know more than what happened. They want to know why and they want to know what they can do. Journalists can answer those last two questions if they want to, but they have to change in order to do so.

I’m transforming myself, I hope for the better. Journalism can transform too, and it will be for the better of the profession and everyone who relies on it.