When Journalism Began to Change

When I read Breaking News: The Remaking of Journalism and Why It Matters Now by former editor of The Guardian Alan Rusbridger, I was struck with how much his experience at the newspaper tracked with my own experience in corporate communications. The worldwide web and what followed was upending his world at the newspaper at the same time it had begun to change mine – and for the same reasons. We began to deal with it earlier, while The Guardianand other newspapers were affected more quickly, but we were grappling with many of the same issues and at roughly the same time (1995-2015). 

I left corporate communications for a time – almost four years. I felt worked to death, spun off, and finally laid off, and I was done. I set up my own consulting firm, and I was focused on two areas of communications – writing speeches and community relations. In late 2003, a friend dared me to apply for the top communications job at St. Louis Public Schools, which I did, thinking I’d never hear anything. I was wrong. They called, I interviewed along with nine others (we were all told to report at the same time and sat in the same room until we were interviewed). I got the job and started work the next morning.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Dancing Priest.

Photograph by Markus Spiske via Unsplash. Used with permission.

A Conversation about Journalism

We have to start talking about journalism in the United States, and specifically the decline of journalism. Newspapers, television programs, and online news sites have been talking for years about how to fix the problems of circulation, readership, viewership, and competition from social media platforms, but I don’t think they’re going deep enough. 

I’ve been working on a new fiction manuscript for some months now. The story is rooted in a community and the people who live there. An event happens that attracts the news media, both local and national. While the event and the role of the media are only a small part of the story, I’ve spent time researching news media, news, and how (and often why) certain event are covered.

 

This wasn’t a big stretch; my B.A. degree is in journalism, and I worked with journalists for most of my professional career in corporate communications. For three decades after I graduated from college, journalism remained recognizable. In 2003-2004, I was the director of communications for St. Louis Public Schools, amid a highly controversial reorganization. I dealt with journalists daily. I was interviewed daily, and usually by multiple reporters. (My first interview occurred 15 minutes into my first day on the job, when a TV reporter wanted a statement on a teacher sickout. I hadn’t even filled out my HR paperwork when I was standing before a camera.) 

To continue reading, please see my post today at Dancing Priest.

Photograph of The New York Times by Wan Chen via Unsplash. Used with permission.

My Bias Was Showing

One of the wonderful things about the worldwide web is the connections that can be made literally around the world. Most of the readers of this blog, for example, are based in the United States. But there’s a fairly sizeable contingent from Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, Russia and the People’s Republic of China.

And India.

J of India (that’s his name on the comments) is retired and living in India. He blogs at Neither Use nor Ornament, and it’s a blog that strikes me with wonder – the photographs of processions, religious ceremonies, launching of boats – all of the things that comprise daily life where J lives. He was raised and worked all of his life in England, and then retired to India. His blog, he says, is a diary of life on the Malabar Coast. For me, one of the most striking things about the photographs J posts is the color, almost an eruption of color. It’s absolutely fascinating.

We occasionally exchange emails on different subjects. Recently, after seeing one of my posts, he sent me an article entitled “Faith in the Darkest of Moments,” an account by Shoshana Garfield on how many of her clients, who had endured serious and awful torture, often spoke with utter certainty that God was with them. The first surprise was her conclusion – that these clients were perfectly sane, and that their accounts were generally true.

My second surprise was where this article was found – the Guardian in the United Kingdom.

Journalists for the Guardian would likely speak of their progressive leanings; my own experience (including direct contact with their reporters) leads me to believe that the Guardian makes the New York Times look like an apologist newspaper for the Tea Party. The Guardian leans leftward, and rather hard leftward.

So I told J how surprised I was. And he sent me another article, this one entitled “Richard Dawkins, the Protestant Atheist.” It was another surprise – the Guardian including (at least online) a perceptive characterization of Dawkins as being heavily influenced by the Protestant Reformation. It’s thoughtful and rather amazing.

And to punch the point home, J sent me what appears to be the religious page of the Guardian and a listing of a whole group of people who are blogging on the great works of religion and philosophy. The series includes blog posts on Genesis, Job, the Book of Common Prayer, Calvin, the Acts of the Apostles, Kierkegaard and others.

When I expressed my profound surprise, J said this: “I find the Guardian publishes many articles that, though often critical of institutional Christianity's attitudes, are strongly supportive of spiritual faith.” An exploration of all of these links proves he is right.

Three years ago, I was working one Saturday on a deacons work project at church – tearing out old rotted railroad ties that formed a wall along a very long driveway. About an hour into the work, a young man showed up to help (and carrying coffee containers from Starbuck’s – a true hero). As soon as he mentioned his name, my jaw dropped. He was the reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch whose beat included my company. He joined us in the work project and became a regular attender at church. He later moved to another job down south, and his replacement and his wife actually joined my church.

What’s the Post-Dispatch doing employing Christians? That’s as odd as a Republican driving a Volvo.

All of which serves to remind me that God can be found in the darkest of places, places far darker than newspapers. Although I have to admit I’m still amazed at the Guardian.

I owe J of India a debt of gratitude for allowing me to see – very gently allowing me to see – that my bias was showing.