Retaining your humanity as a budding journalist
On the morning of Nov. 11 I went to the Remembrance Day services at the Grand Parade—not as a journalist, just as a human. Is it possible to be both at once? Because I’m glad I wasn’t being a journalist that morning. I am relieved that nobody there affiliated me with what I saw in the other journalists down at the square.
See, it’s a long service, and an important day. There are lots of wreaths to lie down, lots of people looking solemn. And, granted, on a blustery day photographers are going to have a difficult time getting that perfect shot. But I’m going through the same training those journalists at Grand Parade went through. I can understand the moral judgements that they make, and the weight of the eyes watching the watchdog.
Yet even with that inside knowledge, the behaviour I saw on the morning of Remembrance Day, when the two minutes of silence fell, sickened me.
I saw veterans bow their heads, and I saw a crowd taking off their caps. And then I saw the legions of photographers and videographers flitting around, in between the ranks, snapping photo after photo after photo.
It’s two minutes. 120 seconds. But they couldn’t wait that long.
I felt the same way 10 hours later at St. Andrew’s church, surrounded by wet, hungry, cold Occupy protestors. I’d been there for two hours by then, waiting for the general assembly to start. I don’t want to sound like a martyr here: I wasn’t forced. I chose to be there, to get the story. But once they’d eaten and dried off and finally sat down to discuss their next steps, the first point of order made my heart sink: no media. They wanted me, and my ilk, out.
Occupy has a bit of an anti-media reputation. That makes me skeptical: we exist, ideally, to further democracy. “I would rather have a free press and no government than a government and no free press,” as Thomas Jefferson once said.
And so maybe a better journalist would have stayed that evening. There was no legal obligation for me to leave at that point. But all these cold, tired people—who, no matter what you think of their cause, had had a very long day—just wanted some peace and quiet.
I know a lot of my fellow journalists would have stayed in that hall. I also know a whole lot who would have made the same choice that I did.
The people who would have stayed, tweeting, with a recorder running in their pocket: they scare me. The ease with which I could become those photographers in the square: that truly scares me. (Full disclosure: I did stay at the church. But I stayed as a human, helping out the ladies in the kitchen, because I like church kitchens.)
I know journalists who write great pieces and still retain their humanity. It happened all day on Friday. But it’s a hard line to walk. Especially when the emphasis of our whole lives is on the scoop, the story, that great white goal of getting “The Truth” out to “The People.”
It’s a good goal, and a necessary one. I just hope I have the courage to stick to that line. Because I’m just as human as any of us, and that scares me, too.
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