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Making
things happen - with integrity. A weekly CyberMemo designed to keep you on task. Monday September 24, 2001 Volume III Number 39 |
FOCUS - Old School Journalism
Charles Wiley studied journalism at New York University just after World War II. Today, nearly fifty years later, his résumé highlights a colorful and checkered career. He has filed reports from war zones all over the globe, appeared on every major network, television and radio news outlet, and published articles in most every national newsmagazine (TIME, NEWSWEEK, US NEWS) and metropolitan newspaper including the New York Times.
More than eight times, his investigative techniques landed him in foreign prisons. He’s been arrested by the KGB and spent a miserable period of time in a Cuban dungeon, both episodes the consequence of getting the story.
This
week, as he took the to podium to speak, he appeared every bit the absent
minded professor - wrinkled, tweed sport coat with patches on the elbows, a
white goatee and thinning crop of silver hair tossed to one side and tri-focal
horn-rimmed glasses, open collar exposing a crumbled green tee shirt at the
neckline; the entire ensemble, mismatched.
You readily imagine this frayed man in his favorite place, a big
over-stuffed leather chair, feet up on the ottoman, a bright reading lamp just
over his shoulder, surrounded by a fine collection of musty books and articles
and stacks of stuff and an open yellow-pad and number two pencil nearby to
collect notes.
The Vice Principal of our local high school got advanced notice about our guest that morning, so he brought several journalism students to hear this crusty old veteran speak.
All of us, young and old, were riveted from start to finish.
He was airborne, headed home to California from New York when the World Trade Center was attacked just two weeks ago. Half way home the captain interrupted the routine flight and reported, “Ladies and gentleman, there has been a serious breach of national security this morning and our airplane has been ordered to land at the nearest airport immediately.” Passengers looked at each other, across the aisle, puzzled. “Flight crew, prepare to land” the Captain added, matter of fact. Mr. Wiley felt the plane slow down as the pilot cut back on the power, and they descended from cruising altitude, quickly setting down, unscheduled, in Las Vegas.
It took awhile for Chuck Wiley to process what had happened to America and for that matter, the world, while he was cruising home that fateful Tuesday morning. He found a television set tuned to CNN in the airport lobby.
Terrorist attacks are no stranger to Chuck Wiley. While this is hands down the most dramatic he’s witnessed, he has been close range to other terrorist incidents all over the world.
Chuck is among those who have been protesting the sorry collapse of our nation’s “human” intelligence gathering these past thirty years. Terrorists have enjoyed an open door, he complained, and we have not had the national will to slam that door shut. Until now.
But he quickly pressed on to the main point of his morning talk to community leaders.
“You must first understand a longstanding primary bias of mine. It’s a slant on reality that I learned in college many years ago. I studied journalism. I suppose today, you would call it ‘old school.’ My professors were zealous in their belief in what today seems to most an out-of-date concept. They told us this: ‘If you want to be a credible journalist, you must first and foremost be objective.’”
Objectivity.
He let us ponder the word for a few moments. We hadn’t heard it for a long time.
* * * * * * *
I flashed back to the debates on the university campus when I was an impressionable collegian. I remembered the heady clash of ideas. One of the questions we argued back then was simple: is objectivity possible? And the prevailing view on my campus was clear. No. Objectivity is an illusion. Under no circumstances can a human being separate him or herself from personal bias. Every attempt at objectivity is subjective. So why try?
And so we abandoned this thing called objectivity like Copernicus dropped his belief that the Earth was the center of the Universe. We firmly believed in our own enlightenment. We were cutting edge.
It didn’t occur to us that we were buying into an opposing worldview, a worldview called relativism.
We made books like “I’m OK – You’re OK” bestsellers.
We relaxed our standards. We abandoned the Classics. We stopped viewing education as the mastery of a body of knowledge, and turned it into a process. We turned from apprenticeship to self-realization.
Now I can see differently. Giving up objectivity wasn’t really getting smart as we thought. It was dumbing down.
And here I was early Friday morning, listening to a frumpy articulate retired journalist, brilliantly standing up for the opposing view. He embraced objectivity. And I loved it.
He said, “Back in those days, in my journalism department we were taught by veteran practitioners that journalism was a distinct form of writing and reporting. They taught us the difference between fact and opinion. We were drilled and grilled until we could spot that difference from a mile away. If we let opinion creep into our reporting, we would be rewarded with a big, bold ‘F.’ We were taught proper grammar. We were expected to spell correctly. We were required to study history, and to know the factual background of a story.”
Mr. Wiley continued. The media, as we call it, is the single most powerful force in society today. It’s more powerful than government. More powerful than business. More powerful than religion. More powerful than our great educational institutions. Why? Because the media sets our national agenda. It tells us what we will think about. Talk about. It tells us what problems we will address. And most critical, perhaps most frightening of all, the media now tells us HOW we will think.
“We live in an age of what I call ‘advocacy journalism,’” he sad flatly. “In general, reporters feel no compulsion to disguise their personal agenda. There is no reticence about inserting personal opinion. The media doesn’t simply report events, the media is the event. It doesn’t channel the news, it is the news.”
I thought about the legendary Edward R. Murrow. And Walter Cronkite. Eric Severide. And I wondered who in the media today carries that torch. Anyone?
In it’s pursuit of higher ratings and greater advertising revenues, the media has sold out. And we are suffering because of it, he said.
* * * * * * *
The media has indeed been a focal point for most of us since that fateful morning, September eleven.
We’ve watched the count of expected dead climb to over six thousand souls. It’s a staggering figure. Barely two hundred have been identified. In those moments of collapse, thousands upon thousands of good people, office workers, some disabled, confined to wheel chairs, unable to negotiate stairs, some burned horribly in the flames ignited and fed by enormous quantities of jet kerosene, fire fighters, charging up stairs in an effort to rescue people stuck on the upper floors; thousands of good people perished forever in the grinding concrete and twisting steel as two massive structures folded up like an accordion in a free fall and a dense cloud of billowing dust.
We’ve witnessed time and again the impact of jumbo jets from every conceivable angle. Repeated again and again, often as a backdrop to yet another awful voice-over report of deadly violence.
We’ve watched our national leaders, heard them address the nation, and bring us comfort and hope. They’ve mourned with us. Grieved with us. And expressed our outrage, and our national resolve to bring the perpetrators of these crimes to justice.
We’ve watched the rescue operation. We’ve followed brave firefighters and technicians into the belly of debris, and hoped together to find survivors. There have been a few. But mostly, we’ve been horrified that so many could have simply vanished without a trace in the awful pile of dusty rubble.
We’ve watched the nation go to church, seeking after the mind and heart of God himself. We’ve watched our leaders bow their heads in prayer. We’ve listened to them address our need, our spiritual need.
And we’ve watched our wealth slip into decline. We’ve seen the statistics of great economy at a standstill. We’ve listened to market analysts and business leaders make predictions about what may be the result of this unprecedented catastrophe.
We’ve watched out military rush to a state of readiness. We’ve reviewed the troops, and the machinery of war.
We’ve listened in on the world’s response. We’ve heard from the leaders of every nation, participated in gatherings around the world of sympathetic international neighbors who sympathize with our loss and stand with us against the threat of terror.
We’ve seen the grim face of our enemy.
All of this on the television screen and on the radio and over the Internet and in full color magazines and special editions of newspapers. The media has been revved up into high gear, and bringing us a truckload of information…
And few of us are complaining these days about bias in the reporting. We are hungry to know more. We are eager listeners. Quick learners. It’s as though all the rules have changed, our future has been called into question like never before. We are tuned in. Reading. Watching.
Obsessed.
Preoccupied.
* * * * * *
Objectivity comes with a different message. A personal message.
It says - step back. Get some perspective. Take a few moments and disconnect yourself from the passions and fears and anxieties and anger. Think about your life.
Who is setting your agenda these days? Who is informing your values? Your game plan?
Are you caught up in the wave of public emotion? Or are you ready to take steps toward your own personal liberation from the terrorists’ grip?
It’s time to salute, and then turn away from the flag at half-mast. But before you do, hoist your personal Red, White and Blue all the way to the top of the pole.
Then, says Objectivity, get back to your own personal calling – and do the things you do best. That’s your contribution to our lives and it makes our nation strong. Don’t abdicate your role.
Turn off the tube. Set down the paper. Come on back.
We need you.
* * * * * * *
It’s Monday morning. You are a leader.
The whole subjectivity/objectivity debate really is a debate over your personal role in shaping your own destiny. Subjectivity says you are caught, trapped in a system over which you have no control. The ebb and flow of human experience will come and go, and all you can do is ride the tide. Objectivity says that you can separate yourself from the pathos. And the pathology. You can think clearly, and rationally. You can rise above the circumstance. You can make decisions. You can act. You are a participant in the shaping and molding of your destiny. You are not a puppet on a set of strings.
Ask Charles Wiley, Renaissance Man, observer of global events, reporter of the human condition, journalist of the old school. He’ll tell you that you have a magnificent mind. He’ll challenge you – use it. You are healthy and strong. You are capable of nobility. You can make independent judgments. You can read and write and speak, and your words will inform and enlighten and direct.
We will never forget the images, the sounds, the grief, the rage, the fears… all brought into clear focus via countless media outlets these past two weeks.
But they will not bind us. They will not render us defenseless. Rather, they will energize us. Motivate us. Stir us.
It’s time to move ahead with new vision. Raise the flag high.
And make a better world.
© Copyright Kenneth E. Kemp 2001
Special Thanks to my good friend David Belcher, owner of Rhino Media Group and creator of WisdomGram
LeaderFOCUS is a service of Good Stewardship Associates
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