Something is rotten in the state of journalism. No, I am not Brent Baker, nor was I meant to be. But I can play the attendant lord, start a debate or two and advise the public – especially my fellow writers – about how we’ve fallen off course, and how we can right the ship.
We live in an age of literary and journalistic stultification. When the ancestors of today’s newspapers and magazines began to flourish in 18th century England, the era’s greatest writers – Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope, Daniel Defoe and Joseph Addison – were also its preeminent journalists. News was written intelligently, by the literati and for the literati. Spineless objectivity was nonexistent, and weekly papers provided open forums for meaningful debates.
Unfortunately, the golden age of journalism has gone the way of the powdered wig. Hell-bent on selling stories to the widest variety of potential customers and offending the least amount of readers, modern media outlets have plucked journalistic honor from the pale-wigged ones and driven it to the depths of commercialism and cowardice. Yes, the media must consider the practical aspects of distributing news to an immense readership, but that’s a paltry excuse for recent news coverage descending into Orwellian absurdity.
As evidence, I present a sampling of major recent stories: Inspectors find 11 empty warheads in Iraq. North Korea (which dismissed U.N. weapons inspectors years ago) boasts it can win nuclear conflict with U.S. Thousands more U.S. troops sent to Gulf. North Korea fires missile into Sea of Japan. U.S., Britain, Spain draft U.N. resolution to justify potential Iraq invasion.
Still not convinced? Put this in your hookah and smoke it: Australian medical study finds alcohol, tobacco, other drugs kill 7 million people annually. Illegal drugs account for 223,000 – or 3% — of these deaths. 55 people arrested, sentenced to up to 3 years for selling bongs and glass pipes. Attorney General Ashcroft warns of future crackdowns. Wal-Mart continues to sell shotguns.
While reading about events like these, one needs to wonder how editors, who must possess some degree of intelligence, can print them in an unbiased manner without committing seppuku. With the increasing popularity of online information services and 24-hour headline networks, most “news” is hours old by the time papers hit the stands.
Thus, large newspapers have no excuse to shy away from subjectivity. Ideally, these papers should allow the uneducated masses to ingest raw information from the myriad sources available and attempt to reclaim the controversial, thought-provoking status enjoyed by their grand ancestors. Unfortunately, corporate conglomeration – one needs to look no further than AOL/CNN/Time/Warner/New Line Cinemas for evidence – and spinelessness stand in the way.
In fact, those who accuse the media of liberal bias don’t know how right they are. Most major newspapers, magazines and networks are cowardly, kowtowing and disgustingly politically correct – just like the Democratic doormats in the House and Senate who allow George Jr. to Texas two-step all over their prostrate bodies. Dissenting mainstream news outlets and government officials alike are endangered species and do very little to inspire confidence or garner support among the populace.
The sane among us can find some solace in local papers such as The Weekly Dig and Boston Phoenix, whose attempts to expose the ridiculous state of today’s news culture are laudable. These papers, however, lack the money and national recognition to effect much change. Major left-leaning newspapers like The Boston Globe and The New York Times should – and could, with the money and prowess they command – follow the leads of their slightly smaller and more radical brethren.
Although such an act of courage would be quite risky, it would inject a much-needed dose of reality into our increasingly frightening political climate. Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly have no qualms about blasting liberal politics, and The New York Post can run a cover photo of U.N. representatives from France and Germany replaced with pictures of weasels – but Allah forbid that any large news outlet take a decidedly anti-Bush stance.
To believe that the nature of journalism can be changed from the top down, however, is to drown in a <<<<<<<<
Currently, the future standard-bearers of journalism are rotting on the vine. They waste away in classes taught by stodgy, businessman-like professors. They learn to write 17-word leads and straight stories that won’t offend even the greatest of prudes. The pedestrian prose they produce is a paradoxical miracle of literary anatomy; it is both limp and turgid, it bores as it dulls. But they are simply following orders.
I too once followed those orders. I began to take classes in the College of Communication last year, hoping to pursue a minor in journalism. However, faced with the insipid nature of these classes, which were plagued by many of the same ailments that have castrated modern journalism, my hopes quickly turned to despair – and finally disgust.
Admittedly, my utter distaste for Boston University’s journalism program has much to do with individual professors. I had one whose assessment of students’ writing (or anything else for that matter) was limited to the words “beautiful” and “powerful,” and another who took at least half of each class to tell (and often repeat) anecdotes about former students, celebrities and his glory days writing for the Herald’s gossip column. But even if my experience was a singularly wretched one, the fact that the nature of journalism is changing – and that COM needs to change with it – remains.
Television, the internet and wire services have rendered newspapers nearly obsolete in the realm of straight news. Editors and reporters used to race to “get the big story,” but those days are nearly over. In our world, where headlines sound like doublespeak and subjectivity is sorely lacking, journalism professors should encourage students to revolutionize the flagging newspaper business. Instead, they often lag behind the times (one of my professors even gave lessons from a high school textbook he wrote in 1984), and they teach us to write as innocuously as possible.
Professors and administrators, however, are not all to blame. Although exceptions obviously exist, many COM students commit the grave error of attempting to waltz around their English requirements. By taking classes in creative writing or other “throwaway” subjects, they prove to be just as spineless as the middling rags they’ll someday write for. Reading quality literature is the best way to improve one’s writing, and altogether too many students deprive themselves of this enriching opportunity.
The same applies to film students. What better way to learn about character development, screenwriting, mood setting and staging than to study the rich cultural heritage contained in our language’s greatest plays? Sure, studying the literary and dramatic geniuses of the past is daunting – as it well should be. They reached heights of technical and aesthetic majesty we can only dream of, but this shouldn’t stop us from learning from them.
Sadly, BU probably won’t overhaul its communications program anytime soon, and major media outlets show few signs of breaking away from their corporate chokeholds. Ergo, I urge all you journalism students to take matters into your own hands. Don’t be another straight news drone, and enrich your lives and prose styles by taking some real English classes. The least they’ll do is make you privy to the tasteless literary jokes in this column.