Situational Definition:
On this past Thursday, October 25, Douglas Blackmon delivered a truly insightful conference into his upbringing, career highlights, and the overall field of journalism. He is a highly acclaimed writer known for many news stories and his book, “Slavery by Another Name.”
During Thursday’s speech, Blackmon spoke on many different experiences. These experiences were very interesting, while also raising a few ethical questions. Blackmon recounted his exhilarating time in Eastern Europe, and his time spent writing his book while reading excerpts. From these, a few thoughts arose. Some of them were the issue of personal safety internationally when reporting, and whether or not a white journalist from the deep South is the most unbiased person to be covering post Civil War slavery.
Analysis:
While discussing his time in Bosnia, Blackmon went on to detail events similar to a Hollywood film; with Croatian armies firing live ammunition in his vicinity while he was desperately trying to escape. While undeniably thrilling and a great survival story, it raises a few questions.
There are several things to think when recounting Mr. Blackmon’s time in Eastern Europe. It makes prospective journalists such as us to wonder, is there a fine line concerning personal safety which should take the high road over a story? In other words, is possibly dying worth a potential international story? In countries such as these, the norm is not to assist the American journalist finish his story. In an article published in the Gateway Journalism Review, Maggie Moseley Smelling goes on to explain “ Since 1992, 72 journalists have been reportedly murdered in Syria, and they were targeted as journalists. Journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff were assassinated in Syria in August 2014.” While this concerns another part of the world, it shows how susceptible journalists can be to violence in other countries.
Also during the speech, Blackmon read very interesting excerpts from his book; which focuses on how slavery found loopholes to still operate in America post-Civil War all the way up until World War II. While all of it was truly eye-opening and chilling, it helped to raise a question inside of me based on biased reporting.
While Blackmon is an unbelievably talented journalist and writer, the one thing I pondered on was whether or not a caucasian male from the south is the most unbiased to be covering such a topic. While his intentions are strictly pure and to inform, it makes one curious if people would be caught off guard by his coverage of such horrific events because of the seeming inability to relate with the victims from this time.
This clearly is a harmless form of bias, but there is reason to argue that it still is present. In a scholarly paper by Sarah Pietrzak and Elizabeth Atwood explains a previous source of bias in reporting. While this is vastly more extreme and relevant, the article goes on to explain “This qualitative study examines how two small Virginia newspapers that had opposed school integration covered an integrated high school boys basketball team that won a state championship three years after the school admitted African American students.” This shows how conflicting bias can be when concerning race. While Blackmon strictly tries to inform on the continuation of an egregious practice after the Civil War, it could be received in the wrong light.
Conclusion:
Overall, this was a very educational time. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to Mr.Blackmon and his history. Some valuable lessons I learned were to look at every subject as unique and special. While he was going through a timeline of big stories/events he had covered, he made a point to say how everyone, no matter how basic, was “epic” and was to be treated as such. This is a valuable lesson of respect of learning in the journalism industry which I truly appreciated.
Despite finding a few things which raised concerns in my mind, I still was very impressed with Douglas Blackmon and am grateful I was able to listen.
References:
Moseley-Smelling, M. (n.d.). Journalism Safety. Retrieved from http://gatewayjr.org/
Pietrzak, S., & Atwood, E. (n.d.). Full-court press: How segregationist newspapers covered the championship season of an integrated Virginia high school basketball team.