A reminder of what true journalism is all about
Whenever
an application form asks for my occupation, I’m always proud to write
‘journalist’. I could use ‘PR Consultant’ or ‘Company Director’ but
‘journalist’ is what I’m most comfortable with.
Although
good writing is at the core of what we do here at team de Winter - www.thinkdewinter.co.uk - and all of us
write content of one kind or another on a daily basis on behalf of our clients - I admit that I haven’t actually been commissioned to write anything for any journal of any
kind for more than thirty years. I did plenty of that over more than a decade
as a reporter on a series of Weekly newspapers, and enjoyed every minute. Journalism is where my heart is.
Reporting
is a function. It involves writing with style, purpose and accuracy for
newspapers or magazines, or preparing news to be broadcast on radio or
television. And what a rewarding role it is.
The greatest thrill during my newspaper days was watching people
on the bus or in a café reading what I
had written. That feeling of connecting with people, touching them through the
written word is indescribable.
For me, journalism is something far more subtle. To be a great
journalist requires values, masses of integrity and the ability to tell right
from wrong.
Working in a busy newsroom with proper journalists has been a
highlight of my working life. ‘Proper’? Well, people with a genuine love of the
English language and an innate ability to pick the right word and put it in the
right place to create impact or illicit the required response from the reader,
be it joy, anger or wonder.
They are people who use words as a force for good, have a real
concern for their fellow men and a need, more than a desire to connect with
them.
To my mind proper journalists are driven to make a difference
through their writing, to right wrongs, teach and inform and, in some small
way, improve the quality of life for the ‘man on the street’. At their best,
they have the ability to touch souls.
You can add passion, resilience and a generous helping of
courage to the mix. It’s a massive thrill to work amongst kindred spirits but
working with journalists takes that to a whole new level.
I’ve worked with people who have embodied and displayed the best
of these qualities and it’s been particularly depressing these last few weeks
to see the spotlight focused so sharply on the worst of them. Devoid of any
integrity, they have betrayed their duty to protect and educate their fellow
man in favour of figures and personal power. Instead of exposing malpractice,
they have engaged in it with enthusiasm.
For those who may be starting out in the business, or forging
their own reputations in journalism, I’ve pulled out of my wallet, where it has
been kept for over three decades, a tattered newspaper cutting that sums it up
perfectly.
The late John Gordon wrote these words in the diary of a
struggling 22-year-old journalist in 1949. They were subsequently published in
a national newspaper in the ‘70s.
‘Gold amongst the
rubble’
‘Great reporters are born, not made. They have minds that are
acutely sensitive to what interests most other men and women. They are tireless
in their digging out of facts. They have an uncanny sense of the one little
gleam of gold in a heap of rubble. And they are as accurate as a plumb line.
Many of the best of them cannot write. But when they can they
are treasures beyond price.
The really great journalist is always first a reporter. If to
reporting he can add the rarest gift of all – the power to crusade, to make
articulate what is in the minds of millions of his fellow men, with such
vitality that he merges their thoughts together and so creates what is called
‘public opinion’ – then he becomes a dazzling star in the sky.
If he uses that power to change life for the greater good of his
fellow men, he in time joins the immortals and deserves his place among them.’
