The Power of Journalism; More Than Just ‘Changing Your Socks’

By John W. Fountain

John W. Fountain, pictured here as a young reporter at his first full-time job as a newspaper reporter, says that many years ago he learned an important lesson as a reporter-intern: “Never ever to allow anyone or anything to steal my fire.”

By John W. Fountain

Many years ago, as a young reporter-intern at the Chicago Sun-Times and still a college student, I was espousing journalism ideals at lunch with a veteran reporter.

“I want to use journalism to make a difference, to effect change,” I said unashamedly.

“Listen, John,” the curmudgeonly vet said in between a mouthful of sandwich without really looking up. “…About the only thing you’re going to change in journalism (munch-munch) is your socks…”

I thought to myself: “If I ever get this jaded about journalism, just shoot me.”

Instead I said nothing. I simply decided to curb my outward journalistic zeal for the rest of lunch, to finish eating my food and to resolve deep within never ever to allow anyone or anything to steal my fire.

“There is no act more powerful than to empower those whose voices are seldom heard to write their own stories…”

More than three decades later, the fire still burns, though my journalism zeal has been seasoned by wisdom. And yet, I am convinced, even after all these years, that journalism still matters and has the power to help create important, impactful and lasting change, though it routinely falls short of its potential. It is a sin of omission rather than commission.

What do I mean?

Each day American journalism presents the menu of news, events, people and places that it believes is most important to the lives of Americans. Today’s stories are the first draft of history. These stories help shape opinions, attitudes and perceptions.

A street sign marks the block on Chicago’s West Side where John W. Fountain grew up. It is among the neighborhoods where Fountain contends the stories of daily life often go missing from the daily platter of American journalism. Photo: Fountain

But each day, many stories often go missing from the platter of American journalism, particularly stories about minority communities and the poor. Or the journalism is too often jaded by the perceptions and preconceived notions of often well-intentioned reporters who write their stories from the outside looking in — as the occasional tourist rather than as resident/inhabitant.

What’s often lost is a fuller, richer, perhaps more complete and yet, no less complex portrait of the people, the problems and even the possibilities of a place — the story told from the inside looking in.

Most often conspicuously absent from the portraits of poor communities presented by daily journalism are the voices and perspectives of children and teens. Theirs is a unique perspective — less seasoned with the salt of political correctness and cynicism.

And yet, theirs is a perspective rich with candor and resonant in the kind of truths that can prove to be a refreshing and enlightening addition to the landscape of American journalism and well beyond.

To impact diversity within journalism and within a democracy — diversity of voice, diversity of opinion, of perspective — I believe there is no act more powerful than to empower those whose voices are seldom heard to write their own stories and also to develop the skills needed to publish them.

It isn’t rocket science. The requisite skills are teachable, acquirable. I know. As a 30-year journalism practitioner, I have taught others, from children to young adults to the elderly, how to more effectively tell and publish their own stories — with their pen and in their own voices.

Why? Because we must tell our stories for our own survival, for our future. As a matter of truth and hope.

This has never been clearer in a world where technology now allows us to present our stories face to face with a global community in the stroke of a key. Indeed digital and mobile technology allows us to create an online body of work from historically underrepresented communities. A collective body of work that captures their voices, their hope, their existence and their stories as told authentically by them.

That’s empowering. That’s journalism. And that’s the kind of journalism I have held dear all these years and that has enabled me to crystalize for the annals of time the lives, faces and voices of people on the other side of the tracks, among them my own. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

And that’s a helluva lot more than just changing your socks.

Email: Author@johnwfountain.com

Website: www.author.johnwfountain.com

John W. Fountain will be speaking Feb. 20, at the Carruthers Center for Inner City Studies at Northeastern Illinois University, 700 E. Oakwood Blvd., Chicago. His talk titled, “Our Stories Matter,” starts at 7 p.m. For more information, call 773–268–7500