This will have to be the second blog in a series, on those days when one feels one cannot come up with a topic for a writing piece. Whatsoever.
The news is always there. People always do things, and other people who make a living out of reporting what the first people do, run over to their desks, write, and get it published either in print, online, or both ways.
It could be that the blood, corruption, and just the general evils that permeate human life get too overbearing. The writer / journalist simply feels he cannot write about it any longer, that playing along with it would mean a simple regurgitation of the same pieces, same reprimands, same reproach, same laments. The daily task of bringing a certain event to the knowledge of the world suddenly consists of a mere placement of new names and the odd new small detail into one of several downtrodden templates.
The rape / suicide bombing / political corruption / legal dispute / etc. etc. story is nothing more than the same verbs and adjectives, mostly the same nouns, with the addition of a newer date and a different private name (which can be either new or familiar).
Commentary pieces expect the same fate. One must live up to the expectation of pontificating the prophetic wrath of yesteryear with the zeal of an Isaiah day in day out.
And the question that begged is Why? Why bother? Why revitalize every negative cell in the body, every morsel of anger in the soul, only to fuel the same, usually magnified emotions seething among the reading public.
Have we not seen it all already? Do we not yet know that the world consists of too many baddies and not enough goodies? Are we not tired of consuming this deluge of information?
And the answer is no.
The writer, each and every individual person who writes for a media source, must be committed to the watchperson's responsibility with which he/she has been entrusted.
The world is an evil place a lot of the time, and the calamities do come in templates, with contingent changes that fit into the mould. But the masses should know. The masses need that constant reminder that there is an innumerable number of parallel lives with so much suffering and grief. That there are dangers one must avoid as a private person and a society should avoid as a whole.
So there.
The news is always there. People always do things, and other people who make a living out of reporting what the first people do, run over to their desks, write, and get it published either in print, online, or both ways.
It could be that the blood, corruption, and just the general evils that permeate human life get too overbearing. The writer / journalist simply feels he cannot write about it any longer, that playing along with it would mean a simple regurgitation of the same pieces, same reprimands, same reproach, same laments. The daily task of bringing a certain event to the knowledge of the world suddenly consists of a mere placement of new names and the odd new small detail into one of several downtrodden templates.
The rape / suicide bombing / political corruption / legal dispute / etc. etc. story is nothing more than the same verbs and adjectives, mostly the same nouns, with the addition of a newer date and a different private name (which can be either new or familiar).
Commentary pieces expect the same fate. One must live up to the expectation of pontificating the prophetic wrath of yesteryear with the zeal of an Isaiah day in day out.
And the question that begged is Why? Why bother? Why revitalize every negative cell in the body, every morsel of anger in the soul, only to fuel the same, usually magnified emotions seething among the reading public.
Have we not seen it all already? Do we not yet know that the world consists of too many baddies and not enough goodies? Are we not tired of consuming this deluge of information?
And the answer is no.
The writer, each and every individual person who writes for a media source, must be committed to the watchperson's responsibility with which he/she has been entrusted.
The world is an evil place a lot of the time, and the calamities do come in templates, with contingent changes that fit into the mould. But the masses should know. The masses need that constant reminder that there is an innumerable number of parallel lives with so much suffering and grief. That there are dangers one must avoid as a private person and a society should avoid as a whole.
So there.
posted by Orr at 11:41 am
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