 I have always considered myself lucky to be able to say that I come from two places: Trinidad AND Tobago. Now with UWI’s backing, I can say I belong to 18 different places – from Bermuda to Belize. And as we all know, islanders such as ourselves, we are citizens of the world.
In the immortal words of David Rudder, Trinidad and Tobago are truly the places where the Ganges meets the Nile. Long before globalization became a catch phrase, people from Africa, India, Europe, China and the Middle East were learning how to live, negotiate and work out their differences – on these islands.
It was here I learned not only about differences, but also about our common values. We share a mutual discipline, a tolerance of other people and opinions and a common patois that means we don’t just tell stories, we see and speak to the wisdom of our experiences.
Certainly this has played out in my life. It helps me appreciate stories told in effective, powerful and innovative ways. Whether it is a newspaper editorial or a calypso, we value the lyricism that carries the truth of our lives.
I often credit this background for preparing me for my life in California and my work at the Los Angeles Times. Certainly the lessons taught here – in this too easily overlooked corner of the world – translate well to a metropolis as large and diverse as Los Angeles, and I feel extraordinarily fortunate to have taken this journey.
Today I edit one of the leading newspapers in the United States, the winner of 41 Pulitzer prizes, the third highest number for a newspaper. I am enormously proud of our work, and I consider myself lucky to have played a role in the paper’s success.
I have negotiated with the White House and the generals of Afghanistan. As a foreign correspondent, I have travelled the world, frequented places that can only be described with superlatives. Mogadishu: the most treacherous. The Sahel Desert in the Horn of Africa: the most inhospitable. The West Bank: the most complicated.
It has been for me a migration of sorts, accompanied by one of the greatest social revolutions in the history of mankind. I’m speaking, of course, of the Internet. I would like to use this opportunity today to talk a little about the challenges that the Internet – and new media – have brought not only to my field, the field of journalism, but also to medicine and all professional trades.
When I got started as a reporter, just out of high school working for the Express more than 30 years ago, the world was a far different place. I remember my first story. The cold storage facilities on King’s Wharf in San Fernando had broken down, and the fishermen whose catch was jeopardized were outraged.
I went back to the office and started typing the story on the Teletype machine only to discover that it was broken. After writing the story, some of it long-hand, I delivered it to a Port of Spain taxi driver who drove it to the newspaper offices at Independence Square. Sir Solomon Hochoy Highway was our information superhighway and not an uncommon method for getting stories in the paper. They got the story. It got printed. It got delivered. People read it, and it was accurate. Is it any wonder that newspapers are often called the daily miracle? I was hooked on the whole enterprise.
Today it’s hard to imagine such a time. The same story can be transmitted with one click from some Wi-Fi hub anywhere. Indeed, many of the stories and photos that run in the Los Angeles Times are transmitted under such circumstances from some of the loneliest places on Earth.
The shift, of course, has posed a challenge for newspapers and traditional news media that have been marginalized not only by social media sites but also by shifting tastes. But please, don’t misunderstand me. The Internet has given the Times a global presence it would never have had before, and it has made us a better newsroom. In 2011, latimes.com grew by 28% and topped 2.1 billion pages read.
And the world is a better place for the broader and wider dissemination of news. The face of injustice is more easily recognized thanks to the new forms of media that have arisen in the last decade. Could the Arab Spring have been as effective without Twitter or Facebook?
Yet as we rush to embrace the opportunities of new media, I’d like to strike a note of temperance. The explosion of data does not always equate to wisdom, and wisdom will always need the moderation of expertise, experience and responsibility, attributes that you graduates bring to the table.
We’ve all heard of mauvais langue, a penchant for gossip, for spreading lies, hearsay, or in my world as a journalist, to report a story without the full set of facts, a half-story if you will. It is something my grandmother warned me about.
We see examples of this every day, especially right now as our politicians duel with one another, spinning and tailoring facts to suit their purposes and – intentionally and inadvertently – misleading and misdirecting the electorate.
At times, the results are banal and transparent, barbs tossed on the campaign trail over mundane interpretations of tax policy or health care reform. At other times, though, the results are disastrous. I think about the so-called reasons some leaders use for going to war. I think about the people who believe them, and the suffering these lies have brought to the millions of people.
And it is precisely because of mauvais langue that I got into journalism in the first place: for the opportunity to dispel gossip, to tell the truth, and to tell truth to power.
Nowadays, it is possible for an independent film maker to disseminate an intentionally malicious film around the world and watch the flames spread in its wake.
So we find ourselves at the crossroads, often wrestling with profound decisions that strike at the heart of our business. We need to learn how to operate in a world where mauvais langue can do so much damage. And we have.
When the protests began in the Middle East over the “Innocence of Muslims” film, early reports said that the film was made by a Zionist Jew living in Beverly Hills whose purpose was to attack Islam. This version of the story was repeated among numerous outlets.
Our reporters, however, sought truth while others reported rumour. After hours of deeper investigations, we discovered that the filmmaker was not a Jew but a Coptic Christian from a small suburb east of Los Angeles, who deceived the world about the film’s origins.
As much as we felt the pressure to be first, we also knew we had to be right. It meant losing early readers to other Internet sites – with their version of the story. So be it. We made the choice to be correct. We chose not to parlay in the mauvais langue.
As journalists we are often left to wonder how our trade can survive in democracies that espouse freedom of speech, where freedom of speech is both celebrated and abused.
The question is all the more profound if you are like me and you believe in the power of stories, the power of narratives, to connect people to events, trends and to one another. Now as never before, we need the press to hold a mirror up to society, to moderate discussions about race and money, privilege and disadvantage.
We are not alone in these efforts. The Internet is forcing all professional trades to change.
Journalists hear from readers who have heard a different account of the news. Lawyers hear from clients who have read the laws. Architects hear from customers who might have drawn their own building plans.
And, yes, doctors hear from patients who have diagnosed themselves.
I have found that negotiating this divide has become the most consuming aspect of my work as an editor. And I suspect you will have the same experience as you begin your work. Perhaps it already is familiar to you. You begin the initial diagnosis of a patient – and before describing symptoms, the patient is telling you how to do your work.
“Doctor, I checked this out on the Internet and it says I have cancer.”
“I can’t wait for the blood test. I need to know now.”
“My sister Googled you. Where did you do to college?”
“What? You want me to come to the office? Can’t you just email it to me? Can’t you text me a PDF?”
Yes, like it or not, we will soon share the same professional fate. The world is moving faster than ever, and I suspect it’s not getting any slower. So much has changed since I reported my first story on the San Fernando Waterfront.
Of course it raises a bigger question: At a time when everyone is an authority, who needs authorities?
We are all in the business of telling the truth, and the truth today requires us to be more thoughtful and nuanced in how we deliver it. It is sometimes not enough to make a declaration; we need to expose the lies and falsehoods that attach themselves to the truth as well.
For every story that has a lie – and for the patients who think they know what ails them – we need to set the record straight. Of course it takes skill, and sometimes you don’t need skill and learning to catch a lie. My grandmother knew this.
But to spend a life in devotion to the truth, that takes courage and tenacity and a willingness not to back down.
As much as the world changes – for medicine and for media – professional judgments are fundamental for success. It makes all the difference between someone getting their news from hearsay or a sick person diagnosing themselves with WebMD.
I also argue that institutions such as this – these great universities – are the best place to begin this education, this slow apprenticeship where instruction and mentorship are the first steps toward understanding the broader implications of our work in this evolving world. This education needs to continue in the newsrooms around the world, as well in the marketplace where careers begin and flourish.
I know I am not alone in saying that we stand on the shoulders of those who came before us, and we have the opportunity to take their wisdom and spread it far and wide. Indeed, I would argue that that is our responsibility.
And that of course is the difference between real authority and mauvais langue.
And this is the wisdom that we aspire to, that you aspire to, in your work.
These are the values that you stand for.
These are the values that take root on campuses like this and with our continued support and advocacy and guidance, spread throughout the world.
These are the values that make your work a force for good in the world.
And at the very least, make our grandmothers proud of us.
This is an excerpt of the address delivered on October 27 to the graduating class of the Faculty of Medical Sciences.
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