Hello friends,
I’m honored to lead a hometown newspaper and at my community college.
Semester after semester, I’m dumbstruck by the effort students give to this publication.
Every time I have witnessed them, the staff of the Clarion perform monstrous tasks. Students, many of whom are 17 or 18 years old, treat the paper like a full-time job on top of, in many cases, a full-time job or a full course load.
I’ve witnessed older students gain skills that lead to careers in the First Amendment profession. And I’ve seen professors deliver on hopes for employment.
But a pall hangs over the job as well. Everyone who wants to work at a newspaper has heard wisecrackers tell them it’s a dying profession. Seldom has there been such dire need for workers in such desperate straits.
Research out this summer from the University of Notre Dame and University of Illinois show closing community newspapers raises the cost of living in cities they served.
Coverage is always criticized by those whose careers it threatens. But reporting has the advantage of stifling the worst impulses of human nature. Reports hold the powerful to account, perish thoughtlessness and rethink firmly-held values of loyalty, human progress and peace.
The journalist asks how was the peace won, and who lost. Social transformation begins with a question and someone to ask it with a voice or smartphone or pen.
Anything worth writing takes risk and thoughts not worth defending aren’t worth having, which is why challenging ideas is important. The truth can alienate friends, employers, and family, but has the redeemable quality of setting you free.
While journalists may not be choice dinner guests, they are necessary to the health of a well-functioning party.
I hope this semester the Clarion can break links of untruth. Like citric acid, I hope the paper smarts the tongues of liars, and like fire, burns through an unjust city.
