Weeklies

When you have a certain philosophy towards journalism it can hold you back. Quoting people heavily and letting them dig their own hole doesn’t work when you get a taciturn person as a source. I generally operate with this philosophy because it’s what my boss likes. Thus, I’m often in a situation where I don’t really know where to go next or who to talk to, because my source was not very loose.

One thing that’s always quite funny, though, is when you get a real loose cannon. Someone who just likes talking and will say the darndest things. Honestly, it is often what I would have expected someone to say, and it often comes from people whom I know better than others. So comfort must play a role. It doesn’t stop it from being enjoyable. A quote is worth a million words, and some people just like spreading the weatlh.

I’ve never been to school specifically for this thing called journalism. I thought about it, but I only tolerated my undergraduate education from a formality stand-point. At the time that the decision was made, writing and conducting interviews seemed like something better learned by experience, at least for me.

Despite my lack of a higher-higher degree and my general disinterest in the politics of university life, I am driven to learn. I read whatever I can get my hands on, and especially love trying to get at the heart of things. Education broken in Maine? Why? Tell me, show me, or get out of my way.

The same behavior applies to my job as a journalist. Why do we do things the way they are done? My editor has a philosophy about what is “news.” It has only just occurred to me that his philosophy, if thought about a little bit, could actually be applied as a theory. He subscribes to the “quote, fact, quote,” theory of journalism. Let people say what they will and surround them with just enough narrative glue that you know what they’re talking about.

I enjoy that method, but I don’t believe it is the most effective. Especially given the current shift from paper and tv to Internet, literal journalism will be replaced. Instead, the predominant theory will look something like, “do your best and wait to be corrected.” No one is an expert in everything. I may have been assigned to the school “beat” but that does not make me an expert. Encourage people to correct what you write, and then encourage them to read your corrections. Develop a relationship with the people who you can’t hope to inform with ivory tower journalism. Media is only your enemy if you ignore it until you need it.

I got called out today. A lawyer dialed up the paper after it went to print. Apparently she felt blindsided by the harshness of a fellow lawyer’s comment in the paper. She thought I should have called her back to ask her what she thought about the other’s words.

I feel a little mixed on the subject. For one I don’t feel too bad because my editor green-lighted the article. By my book that’s an endorsment for everything in it being kosher. He’s a great and moral person and I don’t think he would let even a hint of slander or libel slide through. On the other hand he perhaps didn’t know that I hadn’t called back the original lawyer to tell her what the other one had said. So I guess I still could have made a mistake here. I’ll have to wait till Monday now to find out.

It’s not eating me up inside, but I feel like I might have watched something that touched on this subject in my training. I feel like I should have known better and this was a rookie mistake. I will not, however, always vet stories past my sources before they go to print. That would be awful.

As someone who covers local government here in the United States, this just gets me all riled up. The editor of a weekly in Cameroon was recently given a sentence of a year in prison and a hefty fine for printing an article about possible corruption of the mayor in the provincial city, Kumbo.

The tricky thing is I don’t know a whole lot about what is going on. Perhaps Mr. Tayu is actually guilty of slander and libel? I can’t say my faith is in the Cameroon government, but how does one decide when something is truly damaging and when it is simply investigative? These kinds of topics are very difficult to answer, and can crop up in the most benign of situations.

Crises are all relative, and while what has happened to Mr. Tayu is terrible, a similar incident in the United States could still ruin a person’s, a journalist’s, life. That’s why ethics are so important. I hope that what Mr. Tayu was doing was completely ethical. And if that is the case, I certainly hope he can find justice.