Thank You Journalism

What would we do without journalism?

Without journalism we would be living in a world being explained to us by poets with three names, like Henry Wadsworth Longfellow or Edgar Allan Poe.

Without journalism we would be living in an old world getting older.

Journalism is a form of citizenship and citizenship is a complicated thing, too complicated for most people. To be a citizen you have to think or feel at least one of three things about the world you live in--anger, confusion, or defeat--or all three things at once. Journalism tries to explain why we might be angry, perplexed or defeated, and then, if it's really good journalism, shows us that it's all much worse than we thought.

Journalism is what's emptied out of our imaginations every day, day after day, hour after hour, until all that's left are the questions we asked, or might have asked.

We need journalism now more than ever in this time of experimental aberration.