We dig our words like there’s no tomorrow, but pound the same message like a manic chain gang. We’re afraid to dance a little, to make our words so addictive that people are sniffing up our phrases like a river of crack.
Is it personality we’re afraid of? Or is it coming to the realization that we actually don’t have much new to say?
We can’t explain what it’s like to stand at gunpoint. Most of us don’t know what it’s like to struggle against the bricks of poverty, gathered around ankles like a mafia hit robbing people of their self confidence. But we insist we are the better talkers, the better writers. We are the experts, after all.
If that’s the case, we have to learn everything we can. We have to be the experts. If we aren’t we have to learn how to get the hell out of the way.
Video, audio, Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, e-book. We get the chance to be cavemen trying out the new tools. It’s our wheel to invent, to perfect.
We have to learn how to dance. Not how to entertain but how to pace ourselves. We have to know how to dance like poets, learn how to drop our beats in just the right way to get the most reaction.
It’s a dog-eat-dog word out there. The economy and technology are combining to turn journalism into a battle of the fittest.
We must remain honorable men, honorable women. After all, ethics are at stake.
But we must also be the defenders. Our words must crack like gun shots, whether protecting the proud and innocent or shooting down the not so much.
We must also be the cheerleaders, shaking our stuff to help people reach the promised land.
It isn’t a dance we can do alone. We need a partner. We need someone else’s words because journalism doctrine keeps us from releasing all the words that bleed in our own hearts.
That isn’t to say we are out of a job. We are the still the teachers, the choreographers. We can’t necessarily give them each step, but we can take their moves and help them find the right grace.
We have to grab the public’s hand, not just its fingers.
Otherwise we may just find our words extinct.
