I’m in the midst of trying to catch up with my wife and seven-year-old daughter, who are ahead of me in reading “The Magician’s Nephew,” a novel by C.S. Lewis.
My family has been reading aloud a chapter or two each evening from the first of the series of seven books, known collectively as “The Chronicles of Narnia.” Although written for children, these 200-plus pages of fantasy, filled with characters who have adventures in other worlds, captivate adults as well. Before there was a Harry Potter, there was, and is, Aslan the Lion.
As I read the chapters I missed, I came across a scene where a gentleman from London, known as Uncle Andrew, finds himself in another world. In this new world, some animals speak. But because Uncle Andrew initially sees them from a distance, and he believes animals can’t speak, he thinks they’re simply making animal noises and fears they may harm him. This confusion later leads to communication problems and misunderstandings between them.
Lewis, the narrator, explains: “What you see and hear depends on where you are standing: it also depends on what sort of person you are.”
That applies to journalists as well.
What we see and hear also depends on where we’re standing and what sort of people we are. If we don’t know where we’re standing, or what sort of people we are, how can we know if we’re interpreting accurately what we’re hearing and seeing.
This new column, “Journalism with a Difference,” hopes to provide some perspectives on that.
Too often, we engage in journalism I would call “journalism with similarities.” We interview the same people. We gather information from the same institutions. We edit from the same perspective. We present the news of our world from the same viewpoints.
We’re not conscious of these choices because we approach the world from the same place and think other people are like us. And when we say we like people who are different, we mean we prefer they be different like us.
I know this because I fought this inclination myself, as a reporter and an editor, for more than 20 years in the news business. And I had an advantage. I was born in Puerto Rico and am of Puerto Rican heritage. English was the third language I learned as a child, as I was learning Spanish and German. I’ve lived in many different countries, and many states within the U.S. I’ve interacted with people of different cultures who speak different languages. In 5th-grade alone, I attended three different schools in three different countries in a nine-month period.
I didn’t just deal with differences, I lived them. And yet, I must remind myself regularly to stop assuming that I know what’s going on. I push myself to put myself in other people’s places. I try to understand where I’m coming from, and try to understand where others are coming from.
When we say we like people who are different, we mean we prefer they be different like us. As a journalist and educator, I could ask no less of myself. For I believe in pursuing excellence in journalism. I also believe that pursuit requires journalists to be ethical.
And I believe that being ethical means being knowledgeable about, and willing to report on, all the different types of people in your community.
This column represents one way of acting upon those beliefs. Note that the first word in the title of this column is “Journalism.” That’s what we’ll focus on.
I say “we” because there will be three other regular contributors, in addition to myself. They include Thomas Huang, Texas Living Editor for The Dallas Morning News, Keith Woods, Poynter’s Reporting, Writing & Editing Group Leader, and Jodi Rave, who covers Native American issues for Lee Newspapers. We’ll rotate every Tuesday with a fresh column.
Each of us will bring our own professional and personal life experiences to understanding “journalism with a difference.” We will write about what we see and hear, or fail to see and hear, through our own individual lenses, as well as those of others. Sometimes we may share our own work. Sometimes we will point to others’.
For example, in this past Sunday’s Floridian section in the St. Petersburg Times, staff writer Jeff Klinkenberg, photojournalist Bill Serne, and graphics reporter Teresanne Cossetta introduce readers to Shirley Cooper, a Tampa Bay crusader for cyclists.
Cooper’s not just any cyclist; she’s a 46-year-old transplant from Oregon who rides a bicycle to work in the second most dangerous metropolitan area for cyclists in the country. She’s lived in Haiti, is an environmentalist, and hands out “share the road” brochures to motorists who get angry with her.
In “The Road Less Pedaled,” we see the road from a bicyclist’s perspective. It is a different view than the one most commuters have from their cars. And not only do we read about Cooper’s viewpoints, we also hear the voices of other cyclists. This is just one of many stories out there that offer us a different way to see the world around us.
We hope you’ll turn to “Journalism with a Difference” for a different perspective. And we welcome your feedback.
