Re: Authentic Journalism (Score 1)

According to your false dialectic, Orianna Falacci was not a journalist, but an "activist." Same with Studs Terkel, Gore Vidal, I.F. Stone, Andrew Kopkind, so on and so forth... In other words, the greatest journalists of the past century would not have made your cut as journalists. "Objectivity" is a rather recent myth in "journalism." When a journo says he's objective he is either very naive or dishonest from the get-go. There is a tradition of passionate journalism; what Falacci called "the study of anti-power." It's so rarely allowed in the commercial media but still thrives in some corners, many of them online. The partisan press is at least as much press as the falsely objective press. Okay, I'm sure your mother is a very nice person. Chinga su madre is what we say in Mexico as a verbal slap. But if you call yourself a journalist, you HAVE to talk to angry. Public anger (not just mine) is fueled by the way the commercial press does business these days. I don't need to "sell" you the idea of reading Narco News. You will read it or not, by your own choice. And you will keep reading it or not, by your own choice. What you will find are, A., translations of what the Latin American press (yes, many of whom write for commercial media) are reporting on the war on drugs; B. analysis of that information, most of which does not appear in the US press, and; C. original investigative reporting and commentary. That a media discloses its bias, as I do (mine is that the US-imposed "war on drugs" impedes democracy, human rights, justice, the ecology, the economy and, yes, even press freedom in our hemisphere), IMHO, makes that media more faithful to the best qualities of Authentic Journalism. Disclosure is what allows the reader to form his and her own opinion, without being manipulated by this "objectivity" myth. In this case, a conscientious judge read 568 pages of Narco News, terming her revision "careful", and concluded that it walks like a newspaper, talks like a newspaper, has responsible journalistic practices like a newspaper should have, allows letters to the editor like a newspaper, and although it is online, it is still a newspaper under the eyes of the law. Terms like "activism land" are just another way to try and enforce a caste system. That you work, as you say, in one of the bottom castes indicates that you are even more wrongheaded to try and justify the mentality. If you join a union, do you stop being a journalist? Is an opinion columnist an "activist"? No, because he has the backing of a commercial enterprise. I still publish in commercial ventures; the Boston Phoenix, the Nation, the Philly City Paper, Evergreen Review... just in the past year, but I do the majority of my work online where I have no boss and more freedom to say what I mean. But get off this "observe and report" objectivity horse. If you observe atrocity, and remain indifferent in your reporting, you become something less than human. Many colleagues have chosen that path. That is where the jobs are. But there is also a grand tradition of Authentic Journalism that rides a different horse, one that gallops and aims against tyranny in all its forms. That, too, is journalism. Best to your mom!