Respecting the Unknown
A couple of weeks ago, a co-worker of mine starting complaining about one of the local newspapers, referring to it in very polite terms as a "shit-rag".
I laughed at this comment, and replied, "Well, in my experience, all newspapers are shit-rags." I was being facetious, and I was talking more about the medium of print than the role of journalism in society as a whole. But, my co-worker took this comment very personally, largely due to the fact that he used to work for several years at a newspaper. He proceeded to launch into a long diatribe about the purpose of a newspaper, what it's supposed to accomplish both locally and globally, etc. And I have to admit that as he spoke, I started to tune him out, as I often do when I'm speaking to someone who goes off half-cocked.
Every academic field is supposed to serve a purpose in society. People study their respective disciplines in college so they can start playing that role when they graduate. There's no such thing as an inherently moral or immoral academic field; the actions of those graduates, which may ultimately form the impression people have of those fields, is what makes them seem so.
In the case of journalism, a few greedy people with an agenda make the whole industry seem corrupt. A few advertisers peddle cigarettes and this ruins people's faith in advertising for advertisers trying to sell diapers. Arthur Andersen colludes with Enron to bilk shareholders out of a ton of money and suddenly the credibility of every last CPA is called into question.
For any profession, public trust is an important resource, and most professionals are aware of this fact. They act accordingly. But a few bad apples at the fringes ruin things for everyone. And so, having been exposed to enough misuse of journalism in my days, and because the misuses stick out in my mind more than the benefits, my irrational inclination is to think less of it.
The solution to this problem is just to recognize that this is the way things are and that overgeneralizing doesn't narrow down the actual problem. Maybe we should stop pretending that we can solve the world's problems by hating large parts of it in broad strokes.
I laughed at this comment, and replied, "Well, in my experience, all newspapers are shit-rags." I was being facetious, and I was talking more about the medium of print than the role of journalism in society as a whole. But, my co-worker took this comment very personally, largely due to the fact that he used to work for several years at a newspaper. He proceeded to launch into a long diatribe about the purpose of a newspaper, what it's supposed to accomplish both locally and globally, etc. And I have to admit that as he spoke, I started to tune him out, as I often do when I'm speaking to someone who goes off half-cocked.
Every academic field is supposed to serve a purpose in society. People study their respective disciplines in college so they can start playing that role when they graduate. There's no such thing as an inherently moral or immoral academic field; the actions of those graduates, which may ultimately form the impression people have of those fields, is what makes them seem so.
In the case of journalism, a few greedy people with an agenda make the whole industry seem corrupt. A few advertisers peddle cigarettes and this ruins people's faith in advertising for advertisers trying to sell diapers. Arthur Andersen colludes with Enron to bilk shareholders out of a ton of money and suddenly the credibility of every last CPA is called into question.
For any profession, public trust is an important resource, and most professionals are aware of this fact. They act accordingly. But a few bad apples at the fringes ruin things for everyone. And so, having been exposed to enough misuse of journalism in my days, and because the misuses stick out in my mind more than the benefits, my irrational inclination is to think less of it.
The solution to this problem is just to recognize that this is the way things are and that overgeneralizing doesn't narrow down the actual problem. Maybe we should stop pretending that we can solve the world's problems by hating large parts of it in broad strokes.