Selling out--not quite

Well bloggers I think I might have sold out,

For years I have wanted to be a proffesional writer. I enjoy writing, and thought it was a natural fit, but then somthing hit me like a ton of bricks.

Laying out pages is easy, fun, and makes you bank!

So of course the back seat novel, that only breathes fresh air on the rare occasion that time and inspiration intersect, will still be worked on; but will I totally neglect a job as a writer?

I think I might.

However when you have any passion in your body--not just your soul, but a tangible passion--it won't die. Tonight is going to be a witness to that.

Between school, work and sociality I have not written anything since Pluck. Tonight that changes. I am not sure what is boiling inside of me, but it is about to explode onto my computer screen and I am excited.

I am not sure if I have an essay, a rant, or a short story on my hands, but tonight will be fun. Tonight will be my favorite of all writing nights--rough draft night!

So I am off the buy a 6-pack of Pabst and a pack of cigarettes. I will let you see the work in a few weeks when it is finished.

Long live the rough draft!

Abstinence

Dear bloggers,

I finished my opinion piece on abstinence only education. I am actually rather proud of it. I found a way to assert an opinion I don't believe in with facts that I do. I didn't cop out and take a religious stance on it. I actually asserted a valid point. I don't think that what I did was in anyway dishonest.

Still, this article will appear under a pseudonym--Jack Smith. This is a combination of two of my favorite authors: Jack Kerouac and Charlotte Smith.

Here is the full version of the piece. Tell me what you think.

I am not a religious person. I say that not to degrade those in favor of my present position, but to convince those against it that the following will be a rational article, not given to the reasoning of archaic Judeo-Christian beliefs.
The problem with comprehensive sex education is that it gives no credit to our teens. By teaching comprehensive sex education, we are telling our kids that we have given up on their ability to make adult choices. We offer them pills and condoms because we do not believe they are strong enough to abstain.
As great a product as birth control is, it is not 100% effective. Every method is less effective when, not used according to the directions. For example, if the 967 students that attended SC-BU last semester had all been in comprehensive sex education, and—feeling they had all the knowledge to make smart decisions—had promiscuous sex, while using the birth control pill typically (forgetting a day here and there) 48 of our students would be a mother or father right now. If each student at SC-BU had sex and used a condom typically 135 students would most likely be with child now.
I am not advocating against safe sex. In this world were Planned Parenthood is advertising and television is advocating sex, children are smart enough to know how to protect themselves if they are going to be active. I believe that in the classroom, we should try to hold our students up to the caliber society expects from them. We must let them know the risks that each method of “prevention” comes with. We must let them know that abstinence is an option, one that they can achieve.

Does Truth Require a True Portrayal of the Writer?

Once again, The Bulldog (SC-BU's newspaper) is up and running for the semester. Mitch held a meeting, and I just went to go see what was going on. Before I knew what was going on however, I was being assigned stories, and contributing my own ideas. Oh how easy it is to convince a writer to write.

The next day, as I am running from class to class, Nikki stops me and hands me a sheet with my first assignment, and tells me to attend the meeting later that day. I look at my assignment. It's a basic write-up on the new club in school--UMOJA-NIA. UMOJA-NIA is a club that encourages African American culture. It's an easy assingment and I didn't think too much about it, even while I was writing the piece.

My dilema comes later that day, while I am at the meeting. Danielle (one of the page editors) needs an opinion piece to counter her own. The article is supposed to be on why schools should teach absitence only education. Sadly, our newspaper lacks neo-cons, and no one could honestly writer the counter argument. Still, I volunteered for it.

I know I can write the piece, that's not the dilema looming ahead of me. I wonder if writing an opinion piece that I don't agree with is wrong. Am I misleading people to who I am? Does that matter? Can I stomach the knowledge that I may persuade someone to agree with me? Does that matter?

So I talk to my girlfriend. She laughes at me. She sees nothing wrong with me writing a piece like that. "Why not?" she asks, "They need the piece, who cares who writes it?"

I gues she's right. As long as I am true to the agenda that I am writing about, it's not really my opinion. I am just speaking for those whose voice we don't have. I doubt this small piece will convince anyone to chage thier mind. I am just going to give those who already agree with it more points, and those who disagree more to think about. Even if it does change someone's mind, it's not my ideas. I am just a vessel for the absitence only education people.

Still, I am writing this one under a pseudonym. Look for my article in The Bulldog under the name Jack Smith.

Honesty vs truth

The question for my final exam in advanced journalism had to do with the idea of truth in journalism. This is a tricky question, because what is truth is a tricky question. I eventually decided to write my essay on honest, and take truth right out of the equation.


How important is truth in journalistic writing is an evil question. Of course truth is important. Journalism is the business of telling the news. If news doesn’t tell people what’s going on then it loses its only purpose (I’ll let you judge if it has lost purpose). The only way to tell people what is going on is to tell the truth. Truth is the root of journalist ethics. Still, I don’t like the word. Truth weighs too much. Truth makes writers feel that they should be giving people something golden, shiny, and permanent. To quote an overly quoted Robert Frost poem, “Nothing gold can stay.” That’s true, and truth works the same way. What is true one day may not be true the next. It is an evolving creature, which adapts in ways that people cannot foresee. That is why truth makes people nervous. That is why people who attempt to be truthful are often labeled as untruthful. That is why people think there is no truth in journalism. So, in my writing on journalistic ethics I am omitting the word truth. I have decided to change my vernacular to honesty.
Truth is the actual state of things. In this postmodern world, who is to say what the state of things really is. Everything is constantly up for debate. There is no actual state of things anymore. This makes things hard for journalists, because they can write up everything they see, hear and smell; but someone can always disagree with them. Honesty is more forgiving to a writer. Honesty is sincere. Honesty is upright and fair. And I think this is more important to journalism than truth. Honesty is exactly what writers such as Murray are talking about when they talk about getting away from the situation and just reporting the facts, and not attempting great writing. That is what honesty is about. Truth is getting everything down, and making sure it’s correct beyond the shadow of a doubt. Honesty is about getting all that you can, and knowing that the information you have is the best obtainable at the time. This might seem like a very miniscule detail, but it speaks volumes. Honesty is just more real. It gives readers more credit to know what facts are fluid. It is good journalism without the piety.
Last Friday someone hijacked Hillary Clinton’s campaign office in Rochester, New Hampshire. While the situation was unfolding the television news networks were there. Fox News was the first to release a name. They confidently released the name Troy Stanley. CNN was the second to release a name. CNN hesitantly released the name Leeland Eisenberg; making sure the entire time that there audience was aware it was a tentative name and revealing where they got their sources. In the end CNN had the right name and Fox was wrong, but that doesn’t really matter. What matters is not the CNN had the truth. What matters is that CNN was being honest. They did not try to report the situation like they knew everything. They let their audience know that they were just going with the best information they had, and told them where that information came from. It’s that honesty that matters in this situation, journalists can be wrong as long as they let their audience know, that they are not sure. Granted, journalism should have fact checked enough that they know they are right, but in “breaking news” situations, I guess things are a little different.
Still, even when a journalist has all of his facts, he should report honestly. By reporting honestly I am echoing a phrase by Carl Bernstein. Bernstein says that journalism is, “the best obtainable version of the truth.” And that takes honesty. That is why journalists always have to quote their sources, or even put themselves into a story so that a reader knows how the information was discovered. It is the honesty that really matters. Even if what was accepted as truth changes, an audience knows that a reporter did the best to discover what the actual truth was because the reporter was honest.
Donald Murray says that he finds using the first person narrative alright in some situations. Murray says that using the “I” is alright when the writer has, “special authority, experience, or reaction.” I disagree; I think that floating in and out of a first person narrative can be a great thing in cold news and even most hot news stories. “I” lets a reader know how things where discovered, how various people responded to being interviewed, and just how things were taken care of. Sure it’s not a practice that should always be used; but if you need to be in a story for things to be clear, than put yourself in the story. It’s the honest thing to do.

How to get the best obtainable version of the truth

Carl Bernstein says that the best the press can do is get the best obtainable version of the truth. He says that to get the actual and complex truth, "requires hard work, digging, reporting"

Wow, that is the fanciest way to say nothing that I have ever heard. Let's face it, Bernstein is a reporting legend who is now on the "rubber chicken dinner circuit" and is preaching to those who think he's great. Now, I don't want to say that his points are not valid, or that its all fark, but its a little grandiose.

In the speech that we read, Bernstein manages to say a lot of things that touch on important topics, but doesn't say a whole hell of a lot.

Still there are some great points in here. He hits it right off the bat, " Today we in journalism limit ourselves more often in finding out the truth than the government limits us, because we are not willing to do the hard work of good reporting, of searching out the truth." This gets us into the "best obtainable version of the truth". If anyone really wants the truth they have to get that first polished quote from the government and then sniff around and talk to workers, see if this is really going on. They have to look at records. They have to go in depth.

Bernstein then goes on to talk about why reporters don't go in depth. Trash sells, timeliness is better than good reporting, and people want easy truths not complex ones all fall into why journalism doesn't go in depth anymore.

I have to agree with Bernstein--Rupert Murdoch sucks.

Yet, you have to look at it in some context. Bernstein needs this lecture circuit. If he doesn't talk like the whole of American journalism is going to hell, no one wants to listen. So yes, Bernstein has a lot of good points, but it doesn't go for all of American journalism.

here is one quote I really like. It doesn't really fit in with what I am talking about, but its fantastic!

"The truth is often complex, very complex "The best obtainable version of the truth” is partly about context and this is perhaps the greatest single failing of our journalism in media today. For too much of it is utterly without context. Facts by themselves are not necessarily the truth. Thus the gossip press, the tabloids, too much of what we see on the air, even when the facts are somewhat straight, they are often a form of misinformation, because their aim is to shock, to titillate, to distort, to give grotesque emphasis."

Again, this fits for a lot of the fark you see on TV and in the isle of your local grocery store, but it is not all American journalism.

Bernstein has alot of good points in his speech. Jouranlists should fact-check, talk to multiple sources, follow all stupid lead just incase, and really get thier hands dirty. Journalists shouldn't publish anything till it is well polished and makes sense, but hey that still happens. There is still hope. Smile Bernstein--smile.

Writing about Katrina

The staff of the Times Picayune, started a blog to reach the people of New Orleans, even though they could not distribute a hard paper.

These pieces are all very different in format and style. The first articles read like normal news stories. They get out the hard facts, they serve the public by giving out warnings and advice, and the do so with out bullshit! They are straight and to the point. Everything is written in a tone that shows the immediacy of the situation. They don't sugar-coat anything. They don't have time to write it, the reader doesn't have time to read it. Facts are what's important.

"The weather service cautioned motorists not to drive on roads covered by water because it's difficult to judge the depth. People in vehicles caught in rising water should abandon them immediately and seek higher ground. Winds of 100 mph have been reported on Grand Isle, and gusts of 70 have accompanied rain squalls in the New Orleans area that have dropped as much as 2 inches of rain an hour. Rain totals of 15 inches are possible in some areas today, as Katrina moves over the area."

Only pertinent news.

In the aftermath of the crisis the articles that really stick out are the editorials. Articles titled, "An open letter to the President" and "It's time for a nation to return the favor" do more than just stir dissidence and rage. They are well worded pleas that give moral to a city (reminding it of its greatness), critique a government's failures, and tell those reading from a safe distance how they can help. These editorials go far past rants, but truly serve their readership.

However, the most impressive article that I read from the Picayune's blog was posted on September 19, "'Help me, please don't let me die'". This article is about the 911 operators in New Orleans. It was grim. It was depressing. It showed exactly what it was like to be in that room. It showed the helplessness of the operators. It showed the devastation and despair of the callers. It showed the entire tragedy in one article.

What really moves this piece is the dialogue. They give you every kind of story, the kind that work out:

"'I'm calling to report a fire, at 6131 Bundy Road.'
'What type?'
'There's a whole apartment complex on fire ... ' '
Do you know how long ... ,' the operator interrupts. '
No, ma'am.'
' Do you know if anybody's inside the house?'
'I know there's people over there, that's what I'm trying to say ... '
'... OK, we'll get somebody out there.'
'Ok. Thanks.'"

and the ones that don't:

"'Seek higher ground' - that was all that Allen could tell them, in the calmest voice she could muster. 'I'm already on my roof,' so many of them would respond. "

The article is filled with great quotes, and what really amazed me is that the reporter went through so many 911 tapes. He, Brian Thevenot, writes that the police tapes have been released to the public, and to get the right ones he must have gone crawling through tape after tape.
The most amazing thing about this article is that Thevenot ends in on a (relatively) high note.

"But she said she plans to keep her $9-an-hour job, and to stay in New Orleans. 'I'm not leaving New Orleans,' she said. 'If I have to rebuild, I'll rebuild.'

This last quote leaves the reader with a optimistic idea about such a grim article.

More about 9/11

David Usborne's September 11 articles are great pieces of writing. Personally I like his retrospective piece a lot more. I think that it paints a much clearer picture of what was happening that day. Thinking about it though, I imagine that with so much happening it must have been hard to focus the deadline story. Usborne had so much to tell his reader's in England, but not enough space to really do it. There was just so much. So his focus was a little off, but it told the entire story--from his disbelief to the lines of people donating blood. The retrospective piece was written after everyone already knew what had happened. He does not have to make us believe or see anything--we already have. So with this piece he can speak less of facts and more of details, emotions, and his own story.

The good aspects of his deadline article is that he is in tune with his reader. While taking them through his own 9/11 experiences, Usborne answers all the questions the reader would ask. How many are dead? What are the people in New York doing for each other? Who is responsible? What does the city look like now?

I learned from Usborne that you have to find the story. You have to watch and you have to investigate. Usborne says that he did not even believe the man who said something about the towers being hit by a plane:

"The towers at the World Trade Center had just been struck by two large passenger planes, he told me...Clearly Mr. Mckinney's explanation wouldn't do...it was too outlandish."

Still he goes out to the sight and sees what he can see. Granted eventually he turns back--I suppose the lesson here is to know when to back off.

Usborne really gets a feel for the horror of the day, and with his generous use of the word I, the reader really gets involved in the story.

Finally, Usborne taught me through this article that a good simile never dies. In both articles he compares the Twin Towers to Lego towers. Its rather effective, and I am glad that he brought it back in the retrospect article.