And More: None So Blind… The attached comes via Mark Evans, who teaches with me at the University of Arizona and spearheads a noble online effort to carry on what’s left of the Tucson Citizen, the once-admirable daily that gave me my first reporting job about the time Pancho Villa attempted to knock the “new” out of New Mexico. In this tragically on-target piece in the New Republic, Tom Peters makes a crucial point: “Covering wars for a polarized nation has destroyed the civic mission I once found in journalism. Why risk it all to get the facts for people who increasingly seem only to seek out the information they want and brand the stories and facts that don’t conform to their opinions as biased or inaccurate? “And without a higher purpose, what is a career as a reporter? It may count among the so-called ‘glamor jobs’ sought after by recent graduates, but one careers website has listed newspaper reporting as the second worst job in America, based on factors such as stress, pay, and employment uncertainty; toiling as a janitor, dishwasher, or garbage collector all scored better. Even if you love the work, it’s hard not to get worn down by a job that sometimes requires you to risk life and limb for readers who wonder if maybe you suffer all the downsides and hazards just to support some hidden agenda.” Sometime back, Sebastian Junger, a reporter of higher profile, wrote that he was giving up war coverage to spare his family and friends from constant worry. Another sensible reason. All of this accentuates the need to celebrate, protect, and reward those who are still prepared to go see the world as it is on our behalf. Human nature ensures that a certain of fringe of society will continue to assume conspiracy and ulterior motive in “the mainstream media,” or simply “the Media.” Happily, a different fringe is wiser than that. We need to reduce the former and increase the latter. It was likely Matthew Henry, in the 1600s, who first observed, “There are none so blind as those who will not see.” Whomever, he or she was spot on. So far, we still have the choice of seeing reality if we choose to. At the rate we’re going, however, we’ll lose those eyes out there in places where we badly need them.
Posted on: Sun, 31 Aug 2014 19:14:39 +0000
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