Comments on: Preview: Sex, Journalism & Trust

By: Amy Gahran

Amy Gahran — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 16:35:25 +0000

Amanda — I can understand that comment because I did not post the complete draft, just excerpts. In my complete draft, several portions indicated here by “…” do involve a discussion of sex. But that writing is really rough so far (mostly bullets of points I want to make but I haven’t yet decided the best way to connect them in a narrative). I wanted to publish only the more coherent parts of the draft.

The next draft will include more detail about sex-negative culture, and hopefully it’ll pull together more then.

- Amy Gahran

By: Amanda Brooks

Amanda Brooks — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 04:54:47 +0000

I’m just not really sure why you need to put sex in here at all, unless it’s to get people’s attention. If you’re going to discuss sex in society, you’re going to have to discuss it with more depth. This is mainly an article on journalism, and sex is tossed in without solid connections.

By: Amy Gahran

Amy Gahran — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 22:39:25 +0000

Thanks for clarifying, Peter! That’s very helpful.

You wrote: “When people start asking if i can clarify something I know I’ve stepped too far inside my head and way off track.”

LOL, been there, dude! In fact, that’s why I decided to post this draft in the first place, so I wasn’t spending too much work packaging it all in my head before people started critiquing it. I think it’ll be a much stronger piece as a result.

- Amy Gahran

By: Peter

Peter — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 19:48:00 +0000

When people start asking if i can clarify something I know I’ve stepped too far inside my head and way off track. Let’s see.

“Mom + Dad = baby is neither the pinnacle nor the totality of human sexuality. Likewise, professional journalism from established news “brands” is not necessarily the best or most reliable path to ‘the truth.’”

Which gets to Libby’s comment (my notes in ()):

Who gets hurt by the notion that only trained and experienced journalists can speak the truth (i.e. that mom+dad=baby is the pinnacle)? Maybe all of us, because this notion denies us all our individual truths. At the same time, having worked as a daily news reporter, I remember how helpful it was to have the ideals of “objectivity” and “fairness” to guide my investigations and help with the million daily decisions I had to make about who to talk to, how to use their quotes, what information to include. If I was just writing as “Libby” and was not bound to strive towards those ideals, why would or should anyone care what my articles had to say? The public is definitely suspicious of journalists (authority), and wouldn’t they be equally suspicious of a random “Libby” who wants to spout some nonsense (i.e. have anything other than Mom + Dad = baby relations)?

I think people will be suspicious, but they will also want to live the lives they want to live and not be suspected of living inappropriately. It feels like this is the point where we introduce an arbiter (leave the sex metaphor for now) because what Libby calls individual truths may also be called opinions.

You write:

This should be a relief to news organizations and communities. It should free us up to be more creative and collaborative, to abandon outmoded assumptions and practices, to find new and more robust business opportunities, and to represent real life even better through “the news.”

So far, and maybe I also saw a similar sentiment on a Poynter link, this has led us to co-opt myspace and the rest as homes for our links at best instead of meeting people “on the street.” Take your sentence … “and to represent real life even better” and strike “through ‘the news.’” Except that we (I anyway) haven’t figured out how to directly monetize myspace, if we’re going to make these improvements we need to get out of the classroom.

Thanks for humoring me. If it doesn’t for anyone else, it at least helps to clear my head.

By: Amy Gahran

Amy Gahran — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 17:07:37 +0000

Peter, Maybe I’m just a bit thick this morning, but I don’t really get what you’re trying to say. Could you clarify?

- Amy Gahran

By: Amy Gahran

Amy Gahran — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 17:06:52 +0000

Great comments so far folks. I’m working on something else for the next couple of days, but I am reading them and will respond. This is very useful in helping me think this through as I refine this piece.

- Amy Gahran

By: Peter

Peter — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 16:00:06 +0000

They might be suspicious … until they wanted to post their own “nonsense.” They would want that nonsense taken seriously which then begs the questions on both topics: Does there have to be an impartial (HA!) God/editor? Is 50 percent + 1 of the public enough to decide? Or, on both topics are we past the point of relevance with the idea of a majority?

Situational ethics anyone? I think I probably take what I consider to be the working metaphor too far.

By: Libby

Libby — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 07:21:40 +0000

You have an interesting mind Amy. As I understand it, you’re not proposing that sex is a metaphor for journalism, but rather that there are parallels between the way our society views sex and the way it views journalism– and these parallel ways of thinking have damaged our ability to connect in similar ways. I think it would be good to clarify what aspect of sex you are talking about earlier in the essay. The sentence about “Mom+Dad…” really helped, but in another spot you seemed to be comparing journalism to porn and prostitution. That was confusing, especially since some forms of journalism could be seen as porn and prostitution, and then it’s not a parallel but a description. It seems like your overall message is, “There’s more than one correct way to do this,” whether it’s sex or journalism.

It might be helpful to consider who gets damaged by this paradigm. Who is hurt by the notion that only heterosexual, procreative sex within marriage is OK? Gay people, unmarried people, childless people, people who are too ashamed to masturbate, anyone who’s a little kinky—maybe everyone gets hurt, by being shamed into thinking that their sexuality is not “right.”

Who gets hurt by the notion that only trained and experienced journalists can speak the truth? Maybe all of us, because this notion denies us all our individual truths. At the same time, having worked as a daily news reporter, I remember how helpful it was to have the ideals of “objectivity” and “fairness” to guide my investigations and help with the million daily decisions I had to make about who to talk to, how to use their quotes, what information to include. If I was just writing as “Libby” and was not bound to strive towards those ideals, why would or should anyone care what my articles had to say? The public is definitely suspicious of journalists, and wouldn’t they be equally suspicious of a random “Libby” who wants to spout some nonsense?

By: Peter

Peter — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 17:03:40 +0000

Sex as a metaphor for journalism. The possibilities for comparison are nearly endless, and most of them probably apt. Most disturbing (MA content follows), given media’s need for revenue, is how we will sell ourselves and learn to interact with groups on mySpace et. al. There must be room for a Puritanical reference somewhere …

By: Koan

Koan — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 04:55:17 +0000

Kudos to you for sharing a draft of something - different industry, but even with my closest, most trusted colleagues, I get palpitations about showing work in progress (it’s a mindset I’m working on to try and shift).

Mom + Dad = baby is neither the pinnacle nor the totality of human sexuality. Likewise, professional journalism from established news “brands” is not necessarily the best or most reliable path to “the truth.” People in communities marginalized by mainstream news have always known this.

Awesome! Maybe that’s one of the benefits of living outside the mainstream - a perspective (born out of necessity) that sees established practices objectively, for their good and bad, rather than simply accepting them without question (because it would be too scary to consider alternatives).