Jeune Street

Baha'i World Centre

The benefit and pitfall of blogging is its fast speed of publishing, without any editorial oversight or much time for ponderous reflection. One of my favourite bloggers, Andrew Sullivan, described it thus:

This form of instant and global self-publishing, made possible by technology widely available only for the past decade or so, allows for no retroactive editing (apart from fixing minor typos or small glitches) and removes from the act of writing any considered or lengthy review. It is the spontaneous expression of instant thought-impermanent beyond even the ephemera of daily journalism. ... Unlike any single piece of print journalism, its borders are extremely porous and its truth inherently transitory. The consequences of this for the act of writing are still sinking in.

Although I'm very new to blogging, every now and then I post something that makes me wonder a couple days later whether I used the right words or conveyed my thoughts clearly. Sometimes I think the tone may have been off. The emotional impulse that drives blogging can sometimes spill over into slight intemperance.

With the post on Thomas Erdbrink's WaPo article a couple days ago, I wondered whether my words could be taken as unkindness when they were meant as a clarifying contribution to the day-by-day evolution of new media on the Baha'is in Iran. The post would be read by 100 or so readers and then virtually disappear in a matter of days. That's blogging. The time horizon creates an in-built tendency to be direct and definitive in tone.

Today, a friend and mentor emailed me with a gentle reminder of the Baha'i standard of discourse:

Warn the beloved of the one true God, not to view with too critical an eye the sayings and writings of men. Let them rather approach such sayings and writings in a spirit of open-mindedness and loving sympathy (Baha'u'llah)

Initially I felt surprised and a little taken aback. But upon reflecting about this quotation, I was reminded of the power of words. Of the temptation to simplify. Argue. Diminish. I probably did some of that.

On standards in journalism

So I thought I should clarify the issue that primarily concerned me: standards in journalism. It's something that I wrote about in the comments section of the piece:

What concerns me is the kind of pseudo-objectivity that some journalists seem to feel obliged to convey in their reporting. It is a 'show both sides' approach taken to an extreme, where the truth is irrelevant and the news is only a series of 'viewpoints'.

Journalists will never be objective. The best that they can do is try to overcome their own biases in their presentation of world events - after all, isn't that the real purpose of the news? Overcoming bias involves meticulous research and an attempt to write about events with a discerning pen. Every word published by a journalist serves the purpose of conveying - in whatever limited way - the truth of events. If a statement is inaccurate, obscures the truth, or fails to illuminate the full context of the news, then it serves little purpose.

Media is changing so quickly, and with it are our standards of authority. In the past the articles of a newspaper such as the Washington Post would command immediate respect. But today the internet puts volumes of rapidly-evolving information at our fingertips, and no longer do we need the old bastions of journalism to keep us informed.

In world where we are inundated with information, then, perhaps what we need more than anything is wisdom.