At last week’s Forum of Journalists organised by the EU-LAC Foundation in Stockholm, two presenters on a panel on which I served alluded to the cross narratives of the modern era that render the work of journalists and academics infinitely more difficult than it has ever been – or perhaps recognised in the past as being challenged in that way.
For those unfamiliar
with the boundless, growing maze of current mass communication it might all sound
like fanciful, even fantastical excuse-making for endemic imprecision or
malpractice. Some see it as “too much freedom”, “licence” and even sacrilegious
departure from longstanding and cherished values.
It became certain
though, as we discussed these matters, that successive generations have
encountered similar transitions, albeit at different rates of change and engagement.
Even as one European
academic spoke, it dawned on me that the determinants that influence the quality
of history’s first on-the-ground drafts have throughout time always existed to impose
questions of authenticity and even outright truthfulness through ubiquitous, multiple
realities and narratives.
It has always been that
if journalism, or its rough equivalent, does not or cannot or has not produced
reliable first takes on our histories, there will be difficulty with coming to
terms with current realities through retrospection.
We think, for example,
of our own Caribbean histories and the parallel and integrated narratives of
slave-owners and those of their human chattel and other intermediaries. Current
projects to achieve reparatory justice are highlighting the several confusions.
What then, does all of
this mean for journalists? I asked. One colleague who had recently travelled to
Moldova in the face of the assaults on Ukraine by Russia, seriously contested prevailing
mainstream narratives reflective of presumed public opinion.
It was a discussion I
was patently incapable of engaging, except to note its association with the
concept of inter-woven realities. There are scholars examining this as a sub-set
of multiverse theory which goes beyond examination of “the two sides of the coin”
or even multiple perspectives on the same land or peoplescape.
It occurred to me, that
while being frequently mocked by people who don’t know better, modern journalists
(including Caribbean practitioners) have been called to new duty in ways predecessors
would doubtless be entirely ill-equipped to manage.
The world has changed
and so have tools and circumstances through which media professionals have been
having to deliver on a growing variety of needs and responsibilities. This is a
rather bitter pill for some and needs to be administered in small, palatable
doses and without offence.
Yet, life in these
times subsists on pique and hubris even in small vulnerable spaces such as
ours. I have been both fortunate and plagued, through engagement of the
national, regional and global dynamics, to have witnessed the changing landscape.
Substance has grown to
overtake the designs of supremely malleable form. TikTok’s verticality. Instagram’s
command of visual space. Twitter’s authoritative immediacy. Social media’s subversion
of traditional structures of storytelling. It is now clear that management of fact
now exceeds the call of orderliness and polite compliance with ageing rules.
Social media, artificial
intelligence, algorithms, bots, the failing viability of the “mainstream”, and
a redefining of the challenges to “legacy” conspire to surpass ancient habits
and values.
Fail to understand
these things at your peril, even though S.I Rosenbaum’s contrarian op-ed last
week in the New York Times eschewed the escapism embraced by notions of such real-world
multiversity.
“If we have to believe
in something invisible, let me believe in a version of the universe that keeps
my focus where it belongs: on the things I can touch and change,” he says …
hopefully.
Oh, were it that easy
to do as it is to say. Even such views hardly travel along tracks of their own.
There are in fact alternate realities that run alongside, through and between
the paths of what is often deemed to be “truth.”
All of this musing to
say that modernity will not be turned back. It is true that radio remained when
television arrived, but the fax machine has virtually disappeared alongside
typewriter ribbons, while telex persists in limited application.
The past, Rosenbaum
insists, can subsist alongside both the present and the future as durable timelines.
In other words, I dare argue, all of these are inter-related realities.
I happen to think it
has always been this way. However, there are now tools to capture it more
efficiently, and cover more about which we were never aware. Framing this as
journalistic challenge is another way of securing understanding. The young
among us know this far better than the rest of us. Their time is upon us.
