I’m fascinated by journalism. I put a keen eye, not a negative eye, on its role, particularly how it is changed by the times we’re living in.
– Robert Redford
I too am fascinated by journalism and humbled by the contributions of courageous journalists at home and on the front lines of conflict. Today we live in a small small world where risks soar higher and faster than the stakes. Amidst the firestorms of controversy set by the arson(s) in power, who light fires for the pleasure of watching them burn, we need to halt the destruction. To that end, I have not lost faith in the power of a free press. We must now ferret out fake news and debunk conspiracy theories to clear the smoke and mirrors. To reveal injustice and ignorance, I put my money on the skills and integrity of investigative journalists to restore our ethical and humanitarian values.
Journalism without a moral position is impossible. Every journalist is a moralist. It’s absolutely unavoidable. A journalist is someone who looks at the world and the way it works, someone who takes a close look at things every day and reports what she sees, someone who represents the world, the event, for others.
– Marguerite Duras
No, I don’t claim to be an investigative journalist but I am always on a quest for truth. Compelled by my fascination, I explore the globe through my lens. With the curiosity of an anthropologist, the eye of an inside/outsider and the chemistry of an artist, I wander. My ribbon of travels zig zags through Third World countries including Togo, Benin, Cote d’Ivoire, Senegal, Egypt, Tanzania, Kenya and South Africa – as well as India, Pakistan, Myanmar, Thailand, Peru, Papua New Guinea, Mexico and all the Caribbean Islands from Cuba to Grenada. And I absorb the culture and the landscape of First World countries in Europe, as well as Japan, Israel, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. As I connect these journeys, these cultures, the people I encounter, I am struck by our strengths, our fragility and our interdependence. So the withering news to withdraw from the global community – I find immoral. “Climate change knows no borders.” (Angela Merkel) Like the majority of other nations committed to the future, we cannot abandon humanity. We must join to make it vibrant – to make it green again. We cannot let the planet go to hell!
And I believe that good journalism, good television, can make our world a better place.
– Christiane Amanpour
And yes, while I have always been fascinated by investigative journalism, I am also drawn to the revelation of truth in film and literature, poetry and music, visual art and body language. Only the vocabulary differs. Artist James Turrell uses “the vocabulary of light to describe a spiritual experience,” Annie Leibovitz “learned to create a palette, a vocabulary of ways to take pictures,” while the vocabulary of dancer/choreographer Martha Graham demonstrates “the body never lies.” In 1985, Margaret Atwood utilized the vocabulary of a dystopia – a cautionary tale of a distant twisted time that unfolds as The Handmaid’s Tale. A prophecy that chills us now.
Whatever the vocabulary, we owe a debt of honor to journalists and documentary filmmakers who seek to expose the truth. Many have risked their lives in increasingly dangerous circumstances to bring us the story. Photographer Frank Capa, who covered all the wars between 1936 and 1954 – killed by a land mine explosion. Danny Pearl of the Wall Street Journal – kidnapped and murdered in 2002 at the age of 32. In 2016, according to Reporters Without Borders, three quarters of the journalists killed were victims of “deliberate, targeted violence.” Since 1992, 1,239 journalists have died pursuing their mission. For a selection of Pulitzer Prize winning investigative pieces check out http://www.pulitzer.org/prize-winners-by-category/206. And as for Redford’s fascination with journalism, watch (or revisit) his portrayal of Bob Woodward alongside Dustin Hoffman as Carl Bernstein when they uncover and break the scandal in All the President’s Men.
You can’t serve the public good without the truth as the bottom line.
– Carl Bernstein
So in the current climate of arson set fires, I’m placing my bet on the power of investigative journalism to expose and illuminate. And in the spirit of a journalist, I will keep this one brief. Plunge in, lay out the evidence – and leave it up to you.
Let’s create a vision for the future!
Timely, poignant, necessary. Please submit to/publish in MSM asap. I'm so inspired by you and your creative expressions. Like many, I'm thinking "what can I do now" that will shift our altered reality. In the meanwhile, I continue to take pictures of ordinary things, pushing them into different contexts to see what happens. Much love to you for all you do for us and for the planet.
Definitely relevant to our world and the craziness it is experiencing! We have to hope that people’s words and free speech matter and need to be heard! This is the only planet we have and we need to take care of it and cannot let anything get in the way of that. I believe that the journalists can make a change and speak for the voices of the people.
Please submit immediately to The NY Times.
What was embarrassing at the beginning of the year has become frightening. I praise the tenacity of the journalists who continue to write truth while being insulted, shouted down, and more and more threatened. Sensationalism and bent truths have always existed in our publications, but give credit to the readers who recognize it and value the well written and researched work of the journalists. A lot of dross to sift through, but the dross becomes easier to spot with practice. It is encouraging that the hard consonants in the word impeachment are starting to sound.
As a former journalist and columnist for a large county daily newspaper, I dislike what passes for journalism these days, at least in the broadcast format. The constant reiteration and opinions are "editorializing' not news reporting. While I decry the White House attacks on the press, "Twitter" is not fact reporting either. As the big money goes to broadcast "journalism" and newspapers fail, we are losing objective reporting in my humble opinion.