How can one little worm get through all the books? (Photo credit: lawrence_baulch on Flickr)
I’ve stared at this phrase for the past 10 minutes:
“Substantial and demonstrable knowledge of regional, national and international issues.”
I’m applying for a more permanent job at the CBC, and this requirement initially sent me into a bit of an epistemic tailspin.
I automatically read it this way:
“Substantial (in terms of importance? breadth? expertise? And by what metric? As compared to the average person or the seasoned journalist? ) and demonstrable (does this mean showing an awareness of topics selected at random? Being able to speak to any number of complex issues intelligently? Writing a multiple choice test?) knowledge (regurgitation of what I’ve read? analysis and criticism? facts and figures? All of it?) of regional, national and international issues (local blogs, front page news, foreign media — all of the above? All of the above on every story? What about cultural frameworks, privileged narratives, power relations?“
Grad school: I think you did this to me.
While completing my master’s degree, I think I got a little too comfortable beginning sentences with: “what do you mean by … ?” and “what’s your definition of …?”
The weird thing is that I was always a somewhat reluctant academic. While sitting in the so-called ivory tower, I often wondered if most people could appreciate the things that go on at that altitude. Too often it felt like the scholars were less interested in exchanging meaning and more interested in making audiences nod and say “aaah, aren’t you clever?”
I was also very aware that the opposite of dumbing it down was the equally ridiculous act of puffing it up.
By Bill Watterson
But there’s no denying this: my worldview has been forever changed by all those lectures, books and mind-boggling debates. I developed more mental stamina, in spite of the pain of attention. I also learned to appreciate the value of being a self-critical and well-read reporter.
Mid-career journalists like Tim Porter warn that it’s too easy to fall into the daily grind, allowing journalism to simply be whatever journalists do. As he wrote in a 2003 post:
“I practiced journalism, but I knew almost nothing about it …while working in a role dedicated to informing the public, I had precious little information about my own profession, about its best practitioners (or greatest charlatans), about its history and role in the development and preservation of democracy, about its standards or even about the people I intended to inform – the community around me.”
Statements like these make me want to hold on to my Michael Schudson and Stephen Ward books — but at the same time I know that I can’t just name-drop media scholars if I want to do well on a day-to-day basis.
As a fresh graduate, I now face the world beyond academia and it is important for me to imagine an audience that doesn’t consist of snarky grad students. As I list hard skills on my resume — hint: deconstructing normative paradigms didn’t make the cut — I once again find myself searching for balance.
Where is the solid ground between contempt for the “ignorant masses” and contempt for the “snobby elites”? Between shallow generalization and pinpoint specialization? Between the strictly practical and the hopelessly philosophical?
It’s important to me that I do this thing both skillfully and thoughtfully. I’ve loaded this blog with questions: Is it crazy to choose journalism in the first place? How can I bring kindness and nuance to my work? How sensitive can a journalist be? How can we have conversations about ethics that don’t seem precious?
I still have too few answers, but maybe that’s okay.
Part of what drives me is my dissatisfaction with what I know and my genuine desire to always do better. For this reason, I concluded that “substantial and demonstrable knowledge” must be a process, and never a pinnacle.
The best I can do is keep learning, and keep humble.
