Sometimes your old education comes in handy.
The other day I helped flesh out 3 very different angles to an upcoming news release depending on the angle and tonality the team behind wishes to pursue, when they go live.
In doing so it (yet again) dawned on me how powerful the right wording can be; how you can use the right words to set the tone and provoke the thoughts you want to install while essentially saying the same thing at the end.
How your angle is just as valid as the next one. And how little is centrally controlled anymore when it comes to messaging.
And then I came to think about Erik Torenbergs piece on “How the Internet Ate Media” and this quote:
Everything used to be fractured and fragmented by definition. Then came the telegraph, then the telephone, and mass manufacturing, public education and more. We’re now returning to that early way of living before Peak Centralization. Structurally, we have more in common with the 1800s than we did with 1950s.
Using that to reflect a bit on my education as a journalist and the challenging times for journalists at large, I thought to myself:
What if journalism school also taught an “education in truth”?
Scrap all the stuff about finding the angle and write a story up. Focus on doing proper research, asking the right questions and – first and foremost – the ability to get to the bottom of things.
To a solid sense of truth. No angles. No agendas.
I think that would probably be one of the most valuable educations you could lecture/have in modern society as people who can navigate the chaos of (mis)communication without getting lost or crash will be in high demand.
Thoughts?
(Photo: Pixabay.com)