The updated Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics tells us to "boldly tell the story of the diversity and magnitude of the human experience."
My first thought upon reading that was: it's a pretty tall order for mere mortals. then, I thought, no, that's exactly what we do. without thinking of it in such lofty terms.
What I mean is, we see the diversity of the human experience daily. We don't necessarily represent it (although the New Jersey Pro Chapter of SPJ isn't entirely made up of late-middle-aged Jewish men). But we do see it. We write about it. What we need to do is think about it and seek out the subtleties.
When we see people, it is often at their worst. It is often intimately.
People so often rise to the occasion, but sometimes they don't. We see them in moments of triumph. Moments of tragedy. Moments when they do exactly the right thing. Moments when they plunge headlong into disaster and when they emerge, smiling.
It is part of our mission to ferret out the real story. To tell the reader/listener/viewer about the dignity of people they might not otherwise know.
And, not to let the great, diverse, messy, crazy public have their lives drowned out by the powerful.
No comments:
Post a Comment