For too long, our “news” has been nothing more than telling us what someone tweeted and then offering endless predictable discussion about it. Telling us what someone said is not reporting, it’s repeating. But this new era we are stepping into will offer so much opportunity for the kind of reporting that makes history.
When was the last time you had to go undercover for a story? When was the last time you reported on something that wasn’t handed to you in a pre-written press release? When was the last time you reported on what someone did rather than what they said?
We are heading into a data blackout. Numbers that come out of official channels are going to be manipulated to prop up the ego for an audience of one. A lot of statistics won’t even exist anymore because there’s no way to spin them. If they can’t be spun, they simply won’t be collected.
So it’s time. It’s time to send in your Nellie Bly to the septic ward of hospitals in abortion ban states to show us what they don’t want us to see. It’s time to smuggle cameras behind closed doors to expose the back room dealings. It’s time stop parroting the tweets that I can already see on my phone and dig out the real story.
It’s time to revive the once noble profession of journalism. What you’ve been doing for the last 30 years has been a vacation. No more shuffling papers around on autopilot. It’s time to get your asses back to work and risk your own comfort and safety in the service of your country.
If you’re not going to do that, what do we even need you for? We can see the tweets without you. We can all debate the implications of them without you. We can spread what they say to a wide audience without you.
The constitution gave you the freedom to speak truth to power for a reason. It is the very foundation of who we are supposed to be. It’s time to remember what we can’t do without you, and get to work doing that.