This blogging business is cool! (50's expression meaning neato jet which evolved into "real boss" during the 60's)There would have been a time (probably about a month ago) when I would think a BLOG to be one of the more dangerous forms of communication on the planet. No assignment desk? No Editors? No producers? No Excutive producers? No News Directors? No General Managers? No CEO's? No Boards of Directors? And what's this first person thing?
As a journalist you pat yourself on the back for getting both sides of the story, taking an objective stance, telling people what they want or need to know. Why would they care what you thought or felt? So I was feeling a little guilty when I jumped into this BLOGGING thing. But I'm getting over it.
To get my students on the road to understanding a journalist's role I often paraphrase a scene from the movie Elmer Gantry. The fire and brimstone Gantry is trying to entice a reporter covering his tent meetings to BELIEVE. With a big toothy grin, Burt Lancaster says something like, "I know you want to believe brother, just take that one step, you can believe." That reporter, taking that lonely stance only a journalist can know says, paraphrasing again " I would like to believe but I can't. I just can't." Somebody has to take that cynical spot on both sides of the fence to protect us all. Doesn't someone?
Truth is someone does, but it no longer has to be me. And this sort of lone ranger posture can get a little extreme. It reminds of a Mort Sahl bit about riding on Air Force One with Nixon.( I thought Mort Sahl was a pretty funny guy before he met Jim Garrison and Oliver Stone.) Anyway Sahl was making fun of Nixon's habit of referring to himself in the third person. Example: Air Force one hit some turbulent air dropping down bunches of thousands of feet at once. This plane full of junket journalists saw the passengers tossed all over the place. When calmer air arrived, according to Sahl, Nixon appears from his private quarters in a three piece suit with his tie in perfect position and proclaims, paraphrasing again, " I'm sure we would not want to report this incident in the press tommorrow. We wouldn't want the American people to worry about the safety of our president."
Wouldn't that be him?
It's not that we don't all sneak in some editorial stuff by accident or stealth even when weare being good. But to just blurt out your soul, let your attitude ring, let your heart sing, how cool is that? I've noticed there are days when I'm making an effort to be persuasive, to gain ground for some posture I'm promoting. But the days it feels the best is when I'm just lettin' 'er rip. It's all about just getting the corrosion out of your system, racing your engine, blowing out the carburetor. As long as this blogging thing doesn't reduce itself to preaching and pandering, it may become one of the better forms of communication. As long as we accept that most of us are just blowing off steam, what's the harm? Here's my closing thought. We all get to be Anne Frank and how cool is that?
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