By David Fortier
Come Sunday morning, the latest family pasta dinner will have come and gone. These dinners happen once a month up to the big holiday season, which means this Saturday’s was the last for 2023. These leisurely dinners feature homemade pasta sauce and some simple desserts.
This time around we were missing Mary, who was at her 40th college reunion in Boston. We did have a new guest, however, who brought chicken parmesan and cheesecake with a mango topping. The cook, the youngest’s boyfriend, I am guessing will be back when the dinners commence next year.
On the way home from dinner, I stopped at the Halloween Spooktacular on the field at Bristol Arts and Innovation Magnet School. And it was spectacular right down to the lightshow by Rosewood, with its dazzling creatures, and people in costumes lining up for the Rocky Horror Picture Show inside at the Rockwell Theater. (And outside all the activities under a bright full moon. Halloween, here we come!)
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A conversation that we will have to have sometime soon is just what role does journalism play in the life of a city the size of Bristol, just over 60,000, when what we have been living with might be considered a news desert. And, yes, of course, The Bristol Edition aims to fill this void, and by many accounts, TBE is doing just that.
Just something to think about. When there has been a dirth of local coverage, including accountability for power brokers, then the standard set by journalism and tolerance for it sometimes meets unrealistic expectations—meaning, well, people might simply crave “good” news and anything that points out a flaw or puts things in context gets dismissed as partisan.
Good reporting takes sides—it sides with democratic principles and it sides with readers, whom it respects for their ability to read a report and decide for themselves, with this new information, where they stand, again, in light of this information.
And, this way of gaining information demands of readers a skill set of their own. In two of their books on journalism, Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel provide some guidelines. In “The Elements of Journalism,” they develop a list of 10 principles, the first three which are 1) the first obligation is to the truth, 2) the first loyalty is to readers and 3) journalism requires verification.
In their book, “Blur: How to Know What’s True in the Age of Information Overload,” they propose readers might adopt an attitude of skepticism about what they read and name it “The Way of Skeptical Knowing,” which includes these activities:
- Asking about the type of content encountered
- Asking if the content is complete, and if not, what is missing
- Who or what are the sources, and whether they are can be believed
- What evidence is there and how was it tested or vetted
- Is there an alternative explanation or understanding
- Is this something I need to know
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Reading and listening this week included a podcast, Intelligence Squared, and its episode entitled, “James Baldwin: A Man for Our Times with Eddie Glaude.” Glaude is American scholar and author a New York Times bestseller, “Begin Again, James Baldwin’s American and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own.” Click here for the episode. Listening to the conversation provides many insights on the current discussion about colonial history, race and identity.
For reading, I suggest giving this a try: Marc Andreessen’s “The Techno-Optimist Manifesto,” a 5,000-plus post on his website proposing a future dominated by techno-capitalists. It has received a lot of attention–Andresseen is one of the creators of Mosaic, later named Netscape, as well as an entrepreneur. Whether you buy in or not, the manifesto makes for an interesting read. I tempered my own reading by following what others say about the piece.
Have a good week!
“Come Sunday morning” is intended to be a weekly review, a recounting of the past week and an anticipation of week to come. Among its features will be reviews of old and new books, sharing of favorite podcasts, some family news, Bristol events and happenings and issues surrounding education, work and community journalism. He can be reached at dfortier@bristoledition.org.
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