Emergent Christians know that godliness doesn’t mean boring, depressing or futile expressions of truth. And we need to find ways to make journalism reflect fun, life and hope in the midst of reporting truthfully on heartwrenching situations. Who watches the news to be inspired?
At the end of a long day, people turn on the TV, and if they choose to watch the news its either out of habit, addiction to bad news or voyeristic curiosity about Jon Benet, Michael Jackson or Sara Evans. If we want to be inspired we watch Extreme Makeover Home Edition, or even Gray’s Anatomy. Brian Mclaren has blogged about our desperate need for ethical journalism so that we can know enough about our neighbor’s plight to care, and he’s right. But ethical journalism is not enough. We need ethical journalism than is smart, sexy and inspiring.
We are inundated with information, including alot of disturbing and disheartening information. And then we are inundated with a ridiculous amount of information that is totally irrelevant. And then we have to get on with the tasks of life. Work. Commute. Pickup the kids. Find time for our marriages. Shower. By the time we hit the couch, the last thing most of us want to do is watch something that will deplete more of our energy, making us feel both depressed and helpless. We want to let off steam, unwind, laugh and feel forget out the stress of the day.
That’s why ethical journalism needs to join forces with people who both care about the world and know how to connect emotionally with audiences. We need more Angelina Jolies and Anne Lamotts. We need Jon Stewart to help Jim Wallace make the message a little funnier. Just like the best preachers make us laugh and cry in the same breath, poignantly showing us the truth about ourselves and the world without driving us to despair, we need a new genre of real journalism that melds ethical reporting of facts with humor, personal stories about impacted families and those who are making a positive difference, and ways we can be heroes too. We need a story that we can enter into; a story that can become part of our story. And that story cannot be all dark and stormy night. At some point, something funny has to be discovered during the storm, helping us realize that laughter, humanity and hope happen even in the dark.
Jemila Monroe
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