journalism basics – Christopher Wink

How to Stand Up to a Dictator: Maria Ressa

Bullies only respond to strength. Complicity won’t due. When confronting an authoritarian, best to “hold the line.”

That’s from the 2022 book “How to Stand Up to a Dictator: The Fight for Our Future,” written by Maria Ressa, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning journalist-entrepreneur behind Rappler — a respected, digital-first news site in the Philippines. Ressa was jailed and harrassed for her unwavering coverage of Filipino corruption.

The book is memoir and field guide, with a telling mirror for American audiences: the rise and fall of her enthusiasm for social media, and her battles with elected officials disdainful of free press and democratic norms. She’s charming and energetic. I spoke at a recent journalism funders conference where she was the headliner, and she gushed on-stage, effusing advice and perspective and vision. It’s easy to believe in her, and she tells a story of optimism, provided we work for it.

Of building open discourse-use and democratic values in the Philippines, in 2016, she thought Facebook was the solution; by 2018, she thought of them as indifferent and by 2020, she thought that “Facebook was the bad guy.” For all her reporting and operating a fearless news organization, she was jailed.

Why return to the Philippines to be jailed, even though she has American citizenship and family there? “There is no choice,” she wrote — couldn’t turn on Rappler and her employees and community and it’s where she wants to be. This will remind of Navalny, as she writes: “Over time, you get used to fear”

So, how do you stand up to a dictator: “by embracing values, defined early.. you have to create a team, strengthen your area of influence” — and know your lines and stand firm by them.

Below I have notes for my future reference.

How Our Love of Storytelling Builds Societies and Tears Them Down

If storytelling is so powerful, then why hasn’t the “storytelling big bang” of social media coincided with “a big bang and harmony and empathy”? Well, it has, but that empathy is for in-groups at the expense of the whole.

Social media can feed us any narrative we want: that we are smart, or behind or, above all else, that we are aggrieved by someone. This isn’t because the social platform companies want this specific outcome exactly. Rather, it’s because algorithms feed us what we want to keep us engaged, which reinforces content creators to create more of that subject matter — all of which is what these platforms do want.

In this way, storytelling is “an essential poison” like oxygen, something we need to live but which when isolated or over-concentrated can kill us. In science, that’s called “the oxygen paradox” which inspired the title of a 2021 book called “The Story Paradox: How Our Love of Storytelling Builds Societies and Tears Them Down” by professor Jonathan Gottschall. Ahead of a conference keynote I gave on “the case for storytelling” for place-based marketers, I recently reread his 2012 book Storytelling Animal, which helped me find this one.

“Story is a mercenary that sells itself is eagerly to the bad guys as the good,” Gottschall writes. They are “influence machines” and so stories aren’t moral; they’re moralistic — they can be used for good and for bad.

What I’ve learned from being threatened with legal action as a journalist and news publisher

Following a series of well-reported stories by Technical.ly on a startup in turmoil (including this most recent one), the founder threatened legal action. I’ve been here before.

In fact, I had drafted here a blog post from 2013 (!) that I’m refreshing for these purposes. Once or twice a year, we at Technical.ly get some kind of threat of legal action. Sometimes this amounts to a cease and desist letter, once it was formal-sounding demands for reporter notes and more often it is bluster.

Most usually though, our legal counsel advises us to stay quiet. No use inflaming the situation. But this time, one of the startup founder’s allies posted on social media a criticism of my reporter. That gave me cause to post this video response on social here (and embedded below for ease).

How to have better conversations

“We expect more from technology and less from each other.”

So argues Sherry Turkle, an academic and author, in her 2015 book “Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age.” Turkle is a professor of the social studies of science and technology at MIT. This book is part of a portfolio of hers that examines the impact of technology on human communication and relationships. Turkle argues the increased use of technology in everyday life has changed the way we communicate, and that this shift has had a negative impact on our ability to engage in deep, meaningful conversations. In the ensuing seven years this storyline has only grown.

Turkle argues that our constant use of technology, such as smartphones and social media, is eroding our ability to have meaningful conversations and empathize with others. She suggests that we need to reclaim conversation as a means of fostering deeper connections and understanding. The book also explores how technology is affecting the way we interact with ourselves, and how it can be used to foster self-reflection and self-discovery. Overall, the book is a call to action to put down our devices and engage in more meaningful face-to-face conversations.

Below I share notes from the book.

Advice for journalists graduating into a recession

New journalists, I graduated May 2008, and though I actually think this moment is even more challenging than then, let me share a few thoughts I wish someone told me then.

It’s ok to consider a job outside journalism. Your skills (writing, analysis, research) are portable. We do want people to shuffle to growth industries. You can bring journalism thinking and support elsewhere.

But the economy is presently stalled and many of you are true believers, so let’s talk.

Journalists as a ‘community directory of last resort’

Journalists fill such a unique role in communities. As a mirror, we show the best and the worst. We also often serve as a kind of directory of last resort.

I want to tell you something incredible, yet familiar, that happened recently.

In defense of perceived negativism in good community reporting

In our first few years of publishing Technically Philly, we’ve heard two pretty common criticisms. Some outside our community might say we’re too close and therefore too kind to those we report on. Some insider our community say we’re too critical.

Continue reading In defense of perceived negativism in good community reporting

The basics of a news story in five bullet points and five minutes

I shared the rough curriculum I had established for working with a journalism club at a neighborhood school before my time there was cut short.

Just a week after I took a full-time job and told the club’s adviser that I’d have to take a bit of a sabbatical from my time there, I wanted to give a primer to have a conversation about the basics of journalism with her students.

In fewer than ten minutes, I tried to bottle an entire journalism degree into five bullet points. Clearly I missed plenty.

Below, see what I shared. Let me know what giant holes these high school kids will have in their foundation because of my failures!

Continue reading The basics of a news story in five bullet points and five minutes