When I was beginning my career as a journalist, young reporters dreamed of becoming “Woodsteins.” Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein were the dynamic Washington Post reporters who uncovered Watergate and toppled President Nixon from power.
Watergate spawned an unruly brood of mini-gates, each with a culprit, each received with diminished surprise by the public (to the sanctimonious sighs of media pundits).
The reason for this apparent indifference is simple: Corruption in government is no longer news. The unintended consequence of the media’s obsession with fraud is that Americans no longer have enough faith in government to blame it for the problems they confront.
Government scandals don’t relieve the niggling doubt that, indeed, the problems are far deeper than check-bouncing congressmen or secret arms sales.
Today, largely as a result of investigative reporting, most Americans can list the problems facing our society: the downsizing economy, family breakdown, violence, drugs, homelessness.
What we don’t know-partially because the public hasn’t been informed by the media-is that there are remedies to the most intractable problems. And these solutions are not somewhere far away in an ivory tower, but often right here in our own communities.
Can America deal with the problems that threaten to destroy us?
This question is so real-and the possibility that the answer may be “no” is so frightening-that most Americans prefer to avoid it. It’s easier to blame today’s culprit than to look into the mirror and see that the problems lie within ourselves-as do the resources to overcome them.
It takes courage for a journalist to seek out solutions and success stories, no matter how modest. First of all, fellow reporters look askance at someone who is looking for “good news,” while paunchy editors berated by outraged readers for portraying “everything bad” sometimes relent and demand an upbeat story to appease the mob (while burying it and ridiculing the author).
But the larger fear in a good journalist’s mind is that the pursuit of solutions is a betrayal of journalism itself. A good reporter is not supposed to interpret news but rather to get “just the facts, ma’am.”
As an opinion writer, no one has ever accused me of being objective. But I have a license to seek a deeper truth-the touchstone of life as it is lived, not by an impassive and seemingly objective statistical entity, but by people with a point of view grounded in the conditions of their existence.
Jargon, like the linguistic terms I just used, pretends to describe problems, but actually removes journalists from them. This is partly a psychological survival too. (Even a hardened reporter who shoves a microphone in a victim’s face is not impervious to the pain). It also distances readers from the suffering of people; an invisible wall.
I will never forget when my wall shattered. I was touring a neonatal intensive care unit when I saw a tiny human package of suffering-a baby afflicted with gonorrhea-lying in an Isolette. Born blind and deaf, wrinkled like an old man, the baby was screaming his tiny head off. But there was no sound-a tracheotomy.
I looked around the room at other babies screaming with maladies-the silence was deafening.
A nurse walked up and said, “This could have been prevented by a $15 penicillin shot.”
If this could have been prevented by prenatal care, what other problems could be prevented-or overcome-later on in life? Searching for solutions might actually help reduce the waste of lives and dollars.
I had no idea if there were any solutions out there. But as a journalist I had tools to search for them.
I convinced a publisher, Atheneum, to support my search-a book focusing on poverty from infancy to old age seeking practical solutions at every stage of life. When the book contract was signed, I panicked: How would I ever cover poverty from infancy to old age across America?
I began calling newspaper reporters, physicians, community leaders-anyone who would talk with me: “In your community, is there a program you consider effective?”
It’s strange-an American paradox: Nearly everyone believes (or secretly fears) that programs are a waste of money, that helping people really hurts them (by making them dependent), and that there is no real hope to deal with our problems. But the same people can think of at least one effort in their community that’s worthwhile-an effort that deserves support.
A similar response came from people who were enduring hardship. When I asked about their problems, they told me harrowing stories. But when I asked if anyone had helped them along the way, they shared the turning points in their lives.
“There aren’t enough handrails up life’s stairs,” a psychologist said in passing. The image stuck with me. What if we replaced the safety net (that’s supposed to catch you after you fall) with a railing that would prevent people from falling in the first place. A railing doesn’t substitute for hard work, but it’s something people can grab hold of in time of crisis.
Researching “From Cradle to Grave,” I looked for poverty across America-and I found hope. Not the easy hope that a silver bullet (welfare reform or some other panacea) could be found to eliminate poverty. But the hard hope that with courage, determination and compassion-the qualities one encounters in people whom society has written off as hopeless-we could confront our fears, make progress and find meaning in the struggle.
This hope is not objective proof, but personal evidence that the search for solutions has value. Whatever it uncovers, the act of searching may have a real impact in expanding one’s understanding of reality to include not only the destructive and the tragic elements which dominate journalism today-but to embrace a more balanced vision that problems exist, but measurable progress is also possible, not in all cases, but in many lives.
Along the way, I began seeing poor people not only as needy but as rich in experience and insight about the problems ordinary Americans face. They are people with resources, something to give.
The search for “what helps, what hurts, what works” is a crucial step to build a healthier, less destructive society. It is important for young journalists to learn the lessons of Woodward and Bernstein-to dig out the truth, no matter whom it harms. But I also encourage reporters to keep digging until they uncover solutions, to get involved. Older journalists, all we have to lose is our cynicism. Together, we may help answer the question dangling like a sword of Damocles over American society. How can we survive?
