Take It to Washington: Journalism and Civil Resistance

By Al Giordano

When they ask us on a day not very far from our own, “What was a newspaper, Gramps?” we will take them to a building in Washington DC called The Newseum, along the National Mall, across from the Smithsonian, and reminisce about times gone by when the day for a majority of citizens would begin with coffee and something once called newsprint.

And we’ll wipe a tear from our eye and explain, “This was a front page, Sonny… And this was a newsstand, Missy… And Buster, that statue represents a news boy!” And our grandchildren will tug on our coats and say things like, “When are we going to see the original dinosaur bones, Grandma, the ones across the Mall?”

Or maybe there will still be newspapers then. But that can only happen if the public begins to see, as it once did, that journalism serves its interests, and not somebody else’s. And until newspapers and other media stop being so damn mercenary and turn themselves over to the people, they’ll continue to be our own era’s wooly mammoths, flailing about in the tar pit.

Just as an offensive began today at the United Nations to make what should be extinct – such as military coups d’etat like that being attempted in Honduras – extinct, and what should be alive – such as authentic democracy, like that which grew into a civil resistance in Honduras – alive, a similar initiative has been launched from somewhere in a country called América. It’s our international teach-in on authentic journalism, which will make an evolutionary leap this coming February of 2010 on Mexico’s Yucatán peninsula with The School of Authentic Journalism. (If you’d like an application to be part of it, send an email to app@narconews.com.)

All summer long while we were reporting from Honduras about its vibrant and historic civil resistance movement, the daily newspapers there kept printing headlines, over and over again, that urged the readers not to worry about the international sanctions against their coup regime. They reminded, again and again, that the United Nations was continuing to fund their sham “elections” planned for November 29. Multiple times they repeated this, usually in giant headlines on page one.

But on this day in history, September 23, 2009, something historic actually happened. Brazilian President Lula da Silva – his country’s embassy in Tegucigalpa under attack in recent days by soldiers and National Police of an usurper regime, with attempts to cut water and electricity, block food and medicine, and the use of a “weird sonar apparatus” to cause mental pain and anguish to Honduras’ legitimate president and his legitimate government, huddled inside – went to the United Nations in New York and called for an emergency session of its Security Council to defend its sovereign territory.

A few hours later, UN General Secretary Ban ki-Moon announced that the United Nations has suspended its aid to the faux-elections in Honduras because they are, quote, “not credible.”

And if that development surprises you, kind reader, it might be perhaps because you found yourself dependent on commercial media – or other kinds of mercenary spinners - for information about the Honduras crisis that turned out, likewise, to be “not credible.”

Maybe you heard such confusing claims as “the coup is not a coup,” or, “Constitutional rights must be suspended to save the Constitution,” or, “a neighborhood that organizes to defend itself from military invasion is not an organized people, but a ‘riot,’” or, “what happens in Honduras is really about Caracas,” or, “what happens in Honduras is really about Washington,” or, “war is peace” or other such yarns.

Of course, if you’ve been following these pages here all summer long you know better than that. And you have a better grasp of the real story because authentic journalists went out and listened and looked and took notes of what was inside all these things. And they didn’t just tell you. They showed you what was going on down below, while most of the others tried to keep your attention up on the circus of power up above.

And if you supported that authentic journalism, you are likely proud to be part of it. (And you can become even prouder now, that it might clone, replicate, reproduce and plant new strong trees with your continued support.)

And just as some folks somewhere in a country called América had to go to New York today to set the record straight, and turn things around again so that history will soon become right side up anew, we’re going to Washington on October 15 with an equally ambitious task: to show (not just tell) that journalism ain’t dead yet. It’s just flailing about in the tar pit, its bones auditioning for a future Smithsonian exhibit, and it needs more than a helping hand, but, rather, the hard work of many hands, organized, to have any hope of survival at all.

(If it's hard to read the poster up above, here's the short version: Dr. Howard Barrell and I will dissect recent media coverage of civil resistance movements from Honduras to Iran on October 15, from noon to 2 p.m., at that very same Newseum building, and you can RSVP with an email to heidid@nonviolent-conflict.org)

The future of journalism – if it has one – is one of civil resistance.

Wouldn’t this be the right time and place to finally try to understand what civil resistance is, since, if you're a journalist, your survival now depends on it?

Fellow and sister journalists: If you want our craft to survive, if you want our children and grandchildren to respect what you did in this vocation, or maybe even continue with it, you had better learn to look below and understand how civil resistance really works. Because if you don’t fast come to understand things like the primacy of listening, the superiority of strategic planning, the necessity of public support and participation, and how those things are constructed, organized and maintained collectively, that tar pit that is currently up to your and your industry's neck will soon consume you, and it, too.