Thoughts On Journalism: From Anderson Cooper To Jesus Christ

If you ask me, journalism is a dying organism.

Think about it. Anymore, media output is funded by higher corporate powers who dictate what airs and what the network has to say about it, or driven by personal motives, or determined to keep someone else happy who may not be a source next time if you say something that reflects poorly on them.

That is not journalism.

Journalism, in its truest, unadulterated sense, is a form of deliberating fact-based content to the masses, digging to the core of the issue, asking the questions, finding out the answers and composing an understandable and straight-pathed piece that does not mislead the interpreter.

On the other side of the screen or paper, the viewer/reader is left to gather their own opinion based on what the journalist has presented to them.

How much do we do that? Whether we’re behind the pen or the ones reading its inscription, are we investigating the true core of issues, events and facts?

Not enough. We let figureheads appeal to us with their opinion, their good looks or their “sales pitch.” We watch what we like or what intrigues us and forget the rest if we don’t ignore it first.

As a growing journalist who has merely dipped her pinky toe in the catapulting waves of what we call “media,” I can’t say this is an easy concept to grasp.

Robert Case, director of the World Journalism Institute with a heart for the Christian perspective of committing journalism, said in his essay, The Role of the Christian Journalist:

Journalistically, does that mean that since we can only be biased and subjective in our thinking, that we are constrained to report then from only a biased and subjective, a predisposed point of view? That is, since epistemological bias is our only option, is journalistic bias our only option? To a certain extent, I think so. But methodologically we can approach journalistic fairness, accuracy, veracity and, yes, objectivity to a reliable and useful measure.

Editorial pages and opinion magazines are expression of this role [of conversation fosterer]. Journalists are not obligated to report and write news that fit the facts (truth), but rather news that is useful for public discussions and consensus building since “truth,” “democracy” and “goodness” are communally useful concepts which arise out of public discussions.

What we’ve become used to are the Anderson Coopers, the Twitter feeds, the argumentative four talking-heads presentations, the cool graphics, the high-definition televisions, the common strand. The real story is found within this common strand and in whether it’s true or not.

As a growing Christian who is still wading in the resistant ocean of what we call “life,” I find the case to be same.

What defines how we spend our time? A TV schedule? A gross calculation of how many Facebook posts we make in a day? The amount of feedback we receive on something? It’s never enough and we kill ourselves striving to do more to please.

I find myself aiming to achieve because I feel I have to, regardless of if it’s my true passion or not. We’re told we have to do well, and any slight slip is a movement in the wrong direction. We condemn ourselves before we allow the working imperfections to shine through and reveal God’s ultimate glory – because he chooses to work through the good news and the bad news.

“To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, ‘If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.’” – John 8:31-32

Why, then, should we be ashamed to tell the truth? If we lose our job, our byline, our place on a page, then it’s nothing in comparison to the gain we can share in the love of Jesus Christ.

This has proven itself true to me time and time again.