I lost two out of my top three clients (in terms of monthly revenue) because of the pandemic-related economic downturn, and reluctantly decided to end my contract with another because of severe problems in its operation — but a silver lining is that I’ve had more time for freelance reporting.
My degree is in journalism, but when I graduated the country was in the thick of the early-2000s newspaper decline. The two newspapers in Lancaster — I’d interned at one after my sophomore year — had just laid off dozens of employees, and two years later would go on to merge and lay off even more reporters. It was the same climate across the region, so in addition to applying for journalism positions, I applied to a bunch of related jobs — and that’s how my decade in lobbying began.
Last year I approached a longtime industry contact who now runs a statewide online newspaper, the Pennsylvania Capital-Star, about helping to cover Lancaster County. He said yes, sponsored my press membership with the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association, and bam — I’m back! (Occasionally.)
My favorite journalism professor was Judy Maltz (pictured left). She’s one of the few professors I remember in detail, because she taught me so many lessons valuable to my overall writing career — her dedication to preparing future journalists for truth-finding and telling was clear.
Maybe some of the best bits of proof of her excellence as an educator are the all-caps negative reviews on sites like RateMyProfessor.com, from students complaining that she was too hard 😏
She critiques your writing without regard to hurting your feelings, which is what you want out of writing criticism. She has that talent of being direct, able to tell you what you need to hear without fluffing it up — while still making you feel respected, and optimistic about your potential.
More important than hammering us on technique and style (and she did plenty of that, AP style now has dedicated wrinkles in my brain), she stressed the tenets and ethical responsibilities of journalism. If you had to boil it all down to one sentence, it’d be this: it’s your duty to dispassionately relay the facts of what occurred or was said.
I think it’s important for people (especially Americans) to realize that most journalists regard this a sacred responsibility.* Last year I saw someone accuse me of bias in a story I wrote; their beef was with something contained in a quote. If I could’ve, I would’ve explained that using quotes is a tactic journalists rely on in order to avoid expressing bias in a story. When you allow someone’s own words to do the speaking on their behalf when covering them for a story, you avoid the need to explain and paraphrase their thoughts yourself, which is a way for bias to sneak in via the words you choose.
It also makes it more clear that you are conveying what someone else said — not stating it as fact yourself, the reporter.
I’ve been thinking about this since a few weeks ago, when a communications staffer for a caucus in the state House accused a reporter of being an unfit journalist, because she expressed an opinion from her personal Twitter account — not about a story she’d covered, but about something political in general.
But that’s setting people up for no other choice but to distrust any and all media.
It’s impossible for a journalist to avoid holding an opinion on everything they cover. Simply by existing as a human, one has a reaction to input — in other words, when you learn or take in a piece of information, you’re going to feel a certain way about it.
Journalists are trained to report the facts without letting that reaction inform how they convey what transpired.
And when they do mess up — because no being is perfect in fulfilling the duties of their job — a good journalist will admit it, apologize, and do everything possible to set the record straight and notify the public about the error.
Anyway…
That was a long preamble to sharing my latest article, haha: ‘We’ve seen the devastating effects of gentrification’: Lancaster protest focuses on housing equity
Footnote:
* I say “especially Americans” because we’re one of the countries that has fostered media sensationalism the most, and we have tons of “publications” that are thinly veiled publicity efforts from lobbying firms. I say “most” journalists for the same reason — but I think reporters for local newspapers are among those most likely to adhere to impartiality, because they’re more likely to have to acknowledge face-to-face the repercussions of bias and other errors, from people in the community where they live.
Words For Friends 