An interesting divergence from a friend of mine who is otherwise quite similar to yours truly cropped up in conversation today, regarding the merits of going into journalism. Essentially, she would love to be a journalist and wants to become one after university, whereas I would hate it with a passion. The big difference in personality this boils down to is really rather simple - she is (from my admittedly biased perspective) very emotional, whereas I am primarily rational.
Why does this affect journalism? Because that difference in how we solve problems, conceive of our opinions and approach events is absolutely key in a journalistic temperament as far as I can see.
Let's approach this from her end to begin with (have you noticed that objective approach in my reasoning? Well you have now, and it serves very much to reinforce the coming points). She sees things subjectively, valuing emotional responses and finding solutions from a human perspective. The impact of an emotional orientation upon her ideas regarding the validity of her opinions is to make them more absolute - essentially, because she happens to feel one way, that way is, as far as she is concerned, unequivocally correct in every respect, and it is not at all unreasonable that her thoughts are treated as universal truth and the wider world informed. Sounds like a journalist, doesn't it? Perhaps you are starting to see where I am coming from...
But for contrast, let's take me. When I have to take decisions, when I formulate opinions... well, when I generally respond to the world around me, I like to look at things objectively. I solve problems using logic and like to see both sides of a given issue, and value rationality in decision making. As such, I realise rationally that my opinions are mine alone and that others opine differently in virtually all instances. Judging people in prose form is not exactly my cup of tea - I love impartiality and loathe spin.
While I adore writing, journalistic writing is anathema to me for other reasons - it is constrained, compromised, routine, uninspired in a creative sense - that is horrifying to my notions of strident individuality (my first comment I received for my original entry on this blog was that the style was "weird") which makes itself manifest in my writing. For me, a journalistic career would be like whoring out my creativity, or at the very least locking it up in chains.
Returning to rationality vs. emotional responses for the moment... obviously I recognise the importance of both - after all, without emotions I would not be so much as human - but I cannot help seeing emotional reasoning as flawed, and naturally distance myself emotionally from a situation in order to function effectively in response. Does that make me heartless? I don't think of myself as such, but I have been called insensitive on various occasions.
It seems more likely to merely be a difference of mental orientation, like the difference between those who plan and work in structures and my spontaneous self, or the difference between those who have an eye for physical and concrete detail and my abstract self.
Perhaps I shall explore those at some later juncture.
While the dichotomy of intellect and emotion is something I have taken note of and thought about a great deal (Indeed, I had it mentioned on my facebook profile for quite some time), I disagree with your apparent contention that journalism lies so much within the purview of emotion. It strikes me that ideally, journalism should be impartial, unbiased, neutral. To quote Babylon 5 (Indeed, the fictional journalists on said show), the job of good journalists is "..simply to report the facts, and let the truth attend to itself."
ReplyDeleteNow, this may be rare in practice. Humans are emotional creatures by nature, and so naturally a journalist will likely tend towards one side of a debate or the other. But they still can and should try to report facts in an unbiased manner. Their own views may come across in which facts they chose to investigate and report on, and to which side they grant more emphasis than the other, but the facts would still remain facts.
Good journalism, like good reviews, should be interesting and informative even to readers who disagree with the point of view of the writer.
On the heartlessness question, I would say no. I'm similar. Though I have come to realise that under some circumstances an emotional reaction, doing what feels right, is better than trying to reason everything out, even if for no reason other thn expediency. Equally, under some circumstances one should think things through carefully, because an ill-judged emotional response may have undesirable consequences.
The difficulty lies in knowing which is which.
I agree with you upon what journalism should be, but in practice neutrality appears to me to be but a mask for obvious subjectivity. The greater issue is that often people given that sort of platform become imperious with the management of their opinions.
ReplyDeleteI've gotten much better at expressing emotion over the years - I don't believe I'm heartless, but merely less ruled by emotion. You're right though, in that on occasion distinguishing between emotion and reason can be difficult (in my opinion, for all people - hence the validity of an emotional response over a rational one for others).
Additionally, I wasn't notified I'd had a comment or anything like that, so perhaps I ought to check my settings...
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