Jed Pressgrove is a graduate student majoring in sociology. He can be contacted at [email protected]. Widespread as negative criticism toward journalism is, I have neither read nor heard many positive comments on the work of exemplary journalists. This experience leads to a conclusion that can hopefully be shared by you: More insight into qualified journalism is called for.
Like any human perspective on the subject, the following commentary on journalists and what makes them great is subjective. The main criterion for quality journalism here is getting to the truth. And as you read about the accomplishments of these journalists, you will find that truth may materialize despite some subjectivity.
Ed Murrow
The success of George Clooney’s “Good Night, and Good Luck.” may render this choice clichéd for some. In fact, it is only fitting for a common-sense journalist to be seen as a common-sense example of the craft.
Ironically, one of Murrow’s greatest journalistic deeds – condemning the anti-communist message and actions of Senator Joe McCarthy – involved a subjective lens. Murrow once said of McCarthy in a seminal report: “His primary achievement has been in confusing the public mind.” Murrow also explained McCarthy didn’t “create this situation of fear; he merely exploited it.”
These words indicating the folly and motive of a public official weren’t documented facts. These words were human judgments – not those of science or objectivity – but valid as if measured.
Hunter S. Thompson
As a journalist you are taught to report objectively and generally refrain from using “I” and not to write long sentences or utilize too many conjunctions. Thompson’s style, termed gonzo journalism, invites breaking rules without leaving behind the truth.
“Professional” doesn’t describe this man’s writing, appearance, philosophy, his general condition. But most journalists couldn’t spend a year with the Hell’s Angels gang to detail their culture and clear up misconceptions generated by other publications (“Hell’s Angels: The Strange and Terrible of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs”). And most couldn’t contrast the American drug culture’s collective hope of the 1960s with its collective paranoia of the 1970s as vividly as Thompson (“Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream”).
Thompson, very often in first person, sometimes cursing and attributing values, ignoring traditional style and conduct, delivering the truth.
Dave Barry
Barry could be dismissed as just a funny guy tackling irrelevant subjects who makes our tough lives a bit easier. But I have come to regard him as one of the most rewarding journalists to read from the last century.
The world humans have created is often characterized by ridiculousness, and Barry never hesitates to show us why. For example, he illustrates the intellectual rigidity of those who fail to recognize diversity with this quip: “I realize that I’m generalizing here, but as is often the case when I generalize, I don’t care.”
In many cases with his writing, Barry isn’t only going for a laugh. His columns avoid the stuffy, know-it-all editorialist persona. He’s telling us we can’t get to all the answers by accepted means. In a way he represents a perspective that welcomes truth over common practice: “If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be ‘meetings.'” As readers, we might deny Barry a laugh, but can we deny what he says? In most cases, no.
Both journalists and audiences can learn much from these three men. The unobjectionable facts aren’t the lone engine of journalism, for those in power may control these facts so much that journalists must compromise their dominant ideology and locate the truth by subjective and unconventional means.