by Rod Amis

THE GREAT WHITE DOPE - Rod Amis's second post in the May Contagious Festival, his manifesto on American journalism.

10 May 2006: In my original post here I spoke about a "war of ideas" taking place in America. That was not a use of hyperbole that many of us might wish it were. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) under the counter-terrorism provisions of the Patriot Act has targeted freelance journalists who have raised a voice of dissent against Bush Administration policy, the American Friends Service and others much as they were targeted during the late 1960s and 1970s under the infamous Cointelpro program. In an anti-historical country, history has become cyclical.

Again, in the "land of the free" it has become dangerous and unfashionable to oppose the policy decisions of a government that thrives on inspiring fear. The important question is not how we reached this juncture again. The important question is what are journalists, members of the media continuum - broadcast, Web, etc. - doing to support the efforts of those who still believe that the First Amendment of the United States Constitution still has meaning for people as well as corporations. In that spirit, we not only serve by providing facts but also by questioning the facts as presented by the power elite; it was in that second task that most of the established journalists in the U.S. failed, all now admit, prior to the invasion of Iraq. Those of us who did raise voices of dissent were openly vilified by both the government and our fellow scribes.

I cannot but wonder, looking at the good, competent work done by Natalie Davis why she has not been recruited by some forward-looking and adroit editor at the Washington Post for example, rather than a less experienced blogger who only brought embarrassment to that publication. I don't see why the Los Angeles Times, to offer another example, doesn't hire Abu Aardvark. What I'm' talking about here, and again, is diversity in our news coverage instead of more of the Great White Dope. Can anyone out there feel me on this one? I think you can and should.

What is to be done? Well, you, Gentle Reader, can voice this very same opinion. YOU can demand that you don't only get the usual parade of the crony club of the Great White Dopes. You can insist that you want to read, see and hear the voices of more people from other backgrounds. Send an e-mail to the editor of your local newspaper or the producer of your nightly television news source and let them know that it is more diversity of sourcing for those stories that are important to you from the situation on the Gulf coast of this country to the corruption scandals in the nation's capital you want. You can say, and yes! demand that it would be refreshing and illuminating not to hear from the "usual suspects." That's what is to be done.

Orville Schell

One of the old school, with his own school: he's Dean of the Berkeley School of Journalism.

Howard Kurtz made this assertion about how we cover news in the 7 May, 2006, Washington Post:

Like many Americans, I've followed the Katrina story closely, but then tuned out for days when other news or the daily strains of life intervened. After eight months you assume they must be making some progress. Downtown and the French Quarter basically look fine; the worst damage by now must be limited to a few of the hardest-hit areas, such as the Lower Ninth Ward.

But then you come here and see the devastation up close, and discover that things are far worse than you imagined. And you realize that, despite the millions of words and pictures devoted to the hurricane's aftermath, the normal rules of writing, photography and broadcasting are just not equal to the task.

He goes on to say:

Most of those left behind in the storm were poor and black-"A National Shame," a Newsweek cover story declared last fall-and it seemed, briefly, that we were on the verge of a national conversation about race and poverty. But it never materialized. And even though middle-class whites may have had the wherewithal to evacuate, many of the houses I saw in ruins clearly belong to them. But who wants to rebuild in a city with such spotty basic services and so many unanswered questions? And how do you cover this diaspora without bumping up against the limits of journalism?

We all have defense mechanisms to shield ourselves against tragedy overload. From the Asian tsunami to the Pakistani earthquake to the latest Midwestern tornadoes, it can be a bit much. Perhaps I believed that New Orleans must be making modest progress because it was comforting to think so, and besides, if it was still a huge, stinking mess, the media would tell us, right?

And ends on this note:

Collectively, we all mo ve on.

That is not possible in New Orlean s. Yes, many people are tired of the Katrina saga. In a world filled with problems large and small, in a business that gravitates t oward the latest buzz, the up-to-the-minute news flash, that's easy to grasp. If people saw what I saw, however, they would understand why journalism's work here is not done-not by a long shot.

It is, as others have said, that very "short-attention span" nature of the news, when covering a situation like that in New Orleans - where This Writer lived until last summer - that makes it an even more important a responsibility for those of us who love and ply this trade to follow-up on what we report.

Someone from New Orleans, an old friend, insisted to me in a telephone conversation on the very night before the Kurtz piece was brought to my attention from another dear friend who lives in Italy, that it was important that I, at the very least, not abandon this story that is far from reaching its conclusion. I explained, during that telephone conversation that the opinion of most who know me and my experience of the place remains that it would be an act of self-destructiveness to even consider returning to the Crescent City again.

I had the sad experienced, post-Katrina, of speaking with another friend who had not gone far from New Orleans during the storm. He was one of the first people to return and told me that he found himself crying every day. I was working on my book a bout the catastrophe at the time and those aspects of the place which I firmly believe are now and irrevocably lost. The challenge now, as a journalist, is to keep covering the story, to keep the aborted conversation about race and poverty, a fatally flawed criminal justice system and a city on the verges of extinction alive. Anything else would be shirking and an act of cowardice.

In that sense, this second "manifesto" of mine, if that is the way to categorize this project, is as much a call-to-arms to my fellows in this field, on and off the Web, as anything else.

Are our creature comforts and illusory "job security" more important than the - forgive me - higher callings of this profession? I don't think so.

That more has not been written until this week about the abomination that's called a criminal justice system in New Orleans is a travesty itself. The lack of representation for the poor, coupled with an incarceration rate that is so biased and high that one report said two years ago that if Louisiana was a country it would have one the highest incarcerations rates on earth, speak volumes about what was wrong there even before the hurricanes of last summer. In fact, in New Orleans, the jail - Orleans Parrish Prison (OPP) is a business and has been for years. OPP is paid for the days of incarceration for its inmates and thus incentivisedd to hold people as long as possible. Thus, people freed are often held until after midnight for release to collect the extra day's income.

It was common knowledge within OPP before Katrina that those who can't afford to raise bail might sit as long as six months behind bars before going to trial. This system rendered it possible for people who had not committed crimes to lanquish behind bars, to the enrichment of the system, without recourse. Yet little has been written about this egregious system over the years. America and American journalists just looked the other way - especially because most these people are poor and black. As one black inmate told This Reporter, "Look around you. In New Orleans, justice means it's just us."

This horrific system, had there been no Katrina, might have continued for years with little or no notice and scant reporting.

And, in the jaundiced view of Yours Unruly, there are thousands of similar stories here in the United States that are simply not sexy enough for the entrenched editors and producers of the Mouthpiece Media. It's a disgrace.

Where is our Emile Zola ?

That comedian Stephen Colbert's presentation at the White House Correspondent's Dinner last week should enflame the Web and create a concomitant backlash among the MM speaks volumes. Too many journalists in this country are far too willing to put on the f--kme pumps, trot over to the palace and get in bed with the very people they should be investigating in the public interest. [Colbert Photo courtesy of his Comedy Central Web site.]

For those writers I have fostered and encouraged over the years, when asked for advice, I have always pointed to the fact that - even for those whose final aspiration was achievement in fiction - journalism is the best school there is. During this bit of pontification, I have pointed to Zola, Dickens, Twain, Hemingway and so many other writers from around the world who cut their teeth trying to investigate, witness and then report the facts of the world on a deadline.

I think of that as a backdrop to an experience This Writer had in March. I accepted an invitation to attend a conference at the Annenberg School of Communications and Journalism, in Los Angeles, sponsored by the Online Journalism Review . Much to the dismay of this participant, during the hours and hours of sessions, the words glaringly missing from the discussions were journalism, reporting, editing and writing. I kept waiting to hear them and seldom did. Marketing was discussed extensively, as the astute reader might expect. That, in this view, is one the largest problems of our profession today.

Good night and good luck.