Of course, a fair number of our writers do have agendas and organizational ties and the like. At least a few work with their campus Hillels, for example. But that’s just a reality of Jewish campus life – and of the new age of journalism.
Trying to deny that reporters have biases is an absurd practice that becomes increasingly ridiculous with each passing day that mainstream media organizations come under scrutiny.
What we’d rather have – what is more honest – is to just show those biases up-front, report as best we can, and hope that readers and other bloggers will help show us when we’re getting the story wrong. And readers and other bloggers really are what will make our coverage tick. That’s why we link to all the Jewish students’ blogs on campuses we cover: we don’t see them as competition, but as partners in an ongoing discussion.
That’s an ethic that might seem strange or new to those who’ve been following the media in recent years. Perhaps that’s why blogging has become so successful. Either way, we’re preparing a generation of student journalists in the best mix of old standards and new practices.
It is a plain reality for those starting a journalism career today that many of the jobs available are at newspapers and magazines that, in order to survive, will have to be altered significantly in the coming decades. Our students cannot be assured that simply learning standard old-media practices will keep them in a job for very long. We’re preparing our next generation of Jewish journalists to deal with the next generation of media.
And while we’re at it, we’re preparing the readers, too.