Writing and Working Bill Lascher Writing and Working Bill Lascher

Journalism of the Unknown Unknowns

It's complicated ... and that's the point. Journalism doesn't have all the answers, and we shouldn't expect it to. We shouldn't expect our stories to solve things for us.

Journalists' primary role is not to answer the challenges that face our society: it's to bring light to those challenges, so that those with the proper tools to solve a given problem will know that the challenge exists. In a sense, we're brokers, we're middle-men, we're matchmakers between problems and solutions. But those problems and solutions still have to get to know one another, find the right match. We can't consummate their relationships, we can just help them find one another.

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Exploration, The West Bill Lascher Exploration, The West Bill Lascher

Heart of the Monster: Journey to SEJ 2010, Part 3

I admit that the story – and this entire series, delayed as it may be – has meandered from its path. Nevertheless, I'm also wrestling with how to respond honestly to my experiences, with what happened in my brain on the journey and whether it's self-indulgent to serve this soup of thought (it's a little too stagnant to call it a stream) to you, instead of a straightforward report of the who and the what I saw where and when. Which approach provides the real, honest reporting?

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Media Analysis, Journalism Bill Lascher Media Analysis, Journalism Bill Lascher

Making the most of making the media

For all the critiques I have of the We Make the Media Conference at the University of Oregon's Turnbull Portland Center in November, 2009,and all the many more already so eloquently articulated by other thinkers (Click here for a list of the reflections I've found, some of which I'm responding to here), I'm stunned by how, a few days later, I remain invigorated by the event. Like Abraham Hyatt and many others, I left the event quite drained, but now feel energized. Though the event may not have gone in the direction organizers hoped, perhaps it was a success anyhow.

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