A friend of mine who teaches at a big Midwestern university recounts in class the events of her first week as a reporter for the Minneapolis Tribune. She was sent to Duluth to cover Democratic presidential candidate Hubert Humphrey on the campaign trail. When they were introduced, Humphrey vigorously shook her hand. “Oh yes, Susan,” he said, “I read your stuff all the time.” He couldn’t have read her stuff, though; she hadn’t written anything yet. “Just a few words,” she explains to her students, “but words that taught this fledging reporter a great lesson about pols and the little lies they tell.”
I usually find occasion during the semester to quote I. F. Stone’s dictum, “Every government is run by liars and thieves, and nothing they say should be believed,” to make the same point. But Susan’s story makes the point better. That’s because it has existential force. Her story vividly captures in a way a secondhand quote can’t the realities of a reporter’s life.
Some might think telling “war stories” is a waste of precious class time. I’ve a colleague who didn’t want to fall into the “trap” of regaling students with stories ad nauseam (“which, let’s face it, is easier than teaching or grading,” he said). So one semester he kept track. When he toted it all up at the end, he was surprised that he’d used less than an hour - out of 45 – talking about his newspaper experiences. And yet, he admitted, it was his stories that students seemed to remember most.
“Stories teach us how to live,” Daniel Taylor said in his essay, “The Ethical Implications of Storytelling.” What he meant was that stories preserve our experience for contemplation and evaluation. Although not all stories carry a heavy message, there’s an entire category of stories, so-called “exemplary tales,” that are told to convey a moral.
Our war stories are potentially just such tales. They can provide evidence, in ethicist John Barton’s words, of “how real human beings live through various crises and trials and remain human.” My colleague who kept tabs on his storytelling has described his stories as cautionary. Most, he said, deal with “screwups I learned from.”
But sometimes the storyteller and the audience can’t agree on what exactly the moral of a story is.
When Susan was a cub reporter on the Tribune, she interviewed the Beatles, who were on their second tour of the States. She got into their hotel room by dressing up as a waitress in an ugly, mustard-colored uniform and accompanying an actual room service waiter upstairs. Ringo took one look at her little plastic name tag – it read “Donna Brown” – and snorted, “What kind of name is that?” The waiter nudged her in the side. “Tell them what you real name is,” he urged. She did, as well as her reason for being there. Rather than throw her out, the Beatles politely answered her questions. They even let her phone for a photographer. The next day her story ran on the front page, with a photo of John sitting at a table and looking up at her and laughing as she poured coffee in his cup. She still has a glossy print of that photo somewhere.
Many of Susan’s students think she’s nuts for not having the photo hanging up in her office. They also think she’s nuts for saying she’d never participate in the same kind of stunt today. To her celebrity-struck students, disguising herself as a hotel waitress to get an interview with the Beatles seems soooo cool. They lose all sight of the fact that it wasn’t a story of vital public interest that demanded undercover methods.
Susan intends one lesson when she talks about her hard day’s night, but her students, living in a paparazzi-saturated culture, draw another. “It may be a lost cause,” she remarked to me.
Or maybe not. Negotiations over what the point of a story is can be part of the point of the story. In the process of negotiating, we test different interpretations, try out different themes. This is helpful. This is educational. Lawrence Kohlberg, the Harvard psychologist famous for his research on the stages of moral development, contended that “the teaching of virtue is the asking of questions. . . not the giving of answers.” Stories don’t necessarily have to yield clear moral rules to be of value. It’s enough sometimes if they just give us something to think about.
26 comments:
My top 3 picks would be: 1) the New York Times article about the lack of coverage in Afghanistan, 2) NY Times on fake reviews, and 3) USA Today's piece on the abortion comic.
My top 3 picks would be 1)Afghanistan low on News Agenda, 2)Some papers reject "Doonesbury" strip on Texas abortion law, and 3)Pinkwashing: Corporate Sponsored Cancer
My top three picks would be: 1) Photographers at Occupy Wall Street, 2) Doonesbury strip snub, and 3)the Rush Limbaugh case.
Heyy! It's Charlene. My top 3 picks are:
1)For $2 a Star, an Online Retailer Gets 5-Star Product Reviews
2) Magazines Begin to Sell the Fashion They Review
3) Has Rush Limbaugh finally gone too far?
So far I've pretty much narrowed down the 3 top picks for the project. They are the (1) Rush Limbaugh article, (2) Afghanistan Low on News Agenda, & (3)The Doonesbury comic strip. I thought most of these were real interesting!
1. Has Rush Limbaugh finally gone too far?
2. Some papers reject 'Doonesbury' strip on Texas abortion law
3. Pinkwashing: Corporate Sponsored Cancer
My top three would be
1)The 6 criteria for hype & why Hurricane Irene coverage does not meet them
2)Uncovering the Sadness of Young Deaths
3)Fighting over online sex ads
1) Rush Limbaugh 2)Confusing Sex and Rape 3)Fighting Over Online Sex Ads
My top three picks are:
1) Sports recent breakout stars
2)Pink washing
3)New show steps up product placement
My top three picks would be 1) For $2 a Star, an Online Retailer Gets 5-Star Product Reviews 2) Fighting Over Online Sex Ads 3) The 6 Criteria for Hype and Why Hurricane Irene Coverage Does Not Meet Them
My top 3 picks are:
1)Magazines Begin to Sell the Fashion They Review
2)For $2 a Star, an Online Retailer Gets 5-Star Product Reviews
3)Pinkwashing: Corporate Sponsored Cancer
1)Has Rush Limbaugh finally gone too far?
2)Uncovering the sadness of young deaths
3)Confusing sex and rape
My top 3 picks would be: 1)Confusing sex and rape, 2)Uncovering the Sadness of Young Deaths, and 3)Protests put Coverage in Spotlight.
My Top 3 Choices are:
1. Protest Puts Coverage in Spotlight
2. Confusing Sex and Rape
3.Afghanistan Low on News Agenda
Sorry, I commented on the wrong post before...
The three topics that grasp my interest are as follows:
1. Pinkwashing: Corporate Sponsored Cancer
http://www.forbes.com/sites/meghancasserly/2011/07/11/pinkwashing-corporate-sponsored-cancer/
2. Occupy Wall Street: Protest Puts Coverage in Spotlight
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/21/business/media/occupy-wall-street-puts-the-coverage-in-the-spotlight.html?hp
3. Has Rush Limbaugh finally gone too far?
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Elections/Vox-News/2012/0302/Has-Rush-Limbaugh-finally-gone-too-far
Sorry, I commented on the wrong post before...
The three topics that grasp my interest are as follows:
1. Pinkwashing: Corporate Sponsored Cancer
http://www.forbes.com/sites/meghancasserly/2011/07/11/pinkwashing-corporate-sponsored-cancer/
2. Occupy Wall Street: Protest Puts Coverage in Spotlight
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/21/business/media/occupy-wall-street-puts-the-coverage-in-the-spotlight.html?hp
3. Has Rush Limbaugh finally gone too far?
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Elections/Vox-News/2012/0302/Has-Rush-Limbaugh-finally-gone-too-far
1) Afghanistan Low on News Agenda
2) New Fight Over Online Sex Ads
3) Uncovering the Sadness of Young Deaths
1) the New York Times article about the lack of coverage in Afghanistan
2)New show steps up product placement
3) Magazines Begin to Sell the Fashion They Review
My top 3 picks are: 1. Sports recent breakout stars, 2. Herman Cain accusations, 3. Lack of coverage in Afghanistan.
1) Rush Limbagh, 2) New Fight over online sex ads, 3) Confusing sex and rape.
My top three picks are:
1. Confusing Sex and Rape
2. Protest Puts Coverage in Spotlight
3. Sports' Recent Breakout Stars Shine a Light on Those Left Out
My preeeeeferences:
1)Script Takes Sponsors From Bit Players to a Starring Role
2)Pinkwashing: Corporate Sponsored Cancer
3) Some papers reject 'Doonesbury' strip on Texas abortion law
I just looked over the responses and I realized for some reason my comment didn't post successfully. I apologize, I don't know what happened.
My choices were
1)Confusing Sex and Rape
2)Magazines Begin to Sell the Fashion They Review
3)Fighting Over Online Sex Ads
# 1 Has Rush Limbaugh finally gone too far?
#2 Magazines Begin to Sell the Fashion They Review
#3 Afghanistan Low on News Agenda
Post a Comment