The most important obligation journalists have is to their readers. They are obligated to report the news accurately to their readers, and they are obligated to provide a forum through which people can communicate with each other and their government officials.
If I were to write a news story about the local “event” for peace held Saturday in Salt Lake City to coincide with the larger, worldwide event for peace, I would definitely be careful about what I called it in order to be accurate. Although thousands were there, not everyone participated.
Not everyone rallied. Not everyone stormed. Not even everyone marched or protested.
I would also hesitate to focus on one individual, no matter how politically famous or how wildly rebellious, because the story wasn’t about one person or one action.
What I would tell you is that there were students, professors, families and veterans present. There were anarchists, socialists, Democrats, Republicans and members from almost every other political affiliation you can think of, from nearly every religion and cultural background imaginable and from every designated income bracket. There were people holding signs and people waving flags, people speaking calmly, people yelling and beating drums, people sitting and listening and people standing in front of traffic.
I would tell you that there were at least as many opinions about how our government should go about achieving peace as there were people in attendance. Some decided to share their ideas on signs, some on their clothing, some into the microphone, some through their music and some through silence. Some decided to stand in the street to oppose the police, some to oppose America’s dependence upon foreign oil and some because it was the most powerful way they could think of to make their individual statements.
I would tell you all this because, although the meaning and the sentiments behind the event were anything but simple, the meat of Saturday’s story was quite simply that Utahns showed up and that they want change. There was no better time than Saturday for journalists to create that public forum and to allow people to communicate their ideas to those who didn’t attend the event.
Since I’m writing a column and not a news story, however, I am going to tell you about what moved me. Incidentally in this case, the same thing that moved me was the people I would write about in a news story. I was moved by their outrage, frustration, anger, sadness and confusion. I was moved by the emotion in their faces, by the ways they expressed themselves and by how they listened to each other. I was moved by the very fact that there are members of my community who are so deeply discontented.
And since I’m writing a column, I can tell you what angers me: Journalists who are so sidetracked by their self-interested political posturing that they forget where the real story is, regardless of whether they are writing news or writing opinion. It wasn’t about Rocky Anderson, or an editorial you may have published that he didn’t like or which City Council members he disagrees with. And it wasn’t about the stupidity of a government official when he called people in his own state “nutcakes” just because they didn’t share his ideologies.
The story of Saturday’s event was about the Utahns who are discontented and are seeking change. That includes families that want their sons and daughters to come home from serving our country abroad, veterans who never want anyone else to have to see what they saw and the youth who want to re-establish some sort of democracy.
To the journalists who missed writing about these people, I say you failed to do your job. And to people who consume such media, I ask, if our journalists aren’t even accurately telling us what is going on a few miles from our homes, do we really have any idea what is going on outside the country?
