Eared Grebe Waddling
September 10, 2007
The pedagogy at the J-School is directed towards personal development rather than rote. There is no firm direction, like “do this” and “do that.” Rather, the focus is on the negative space, the borders of appropriate journalistic practices, ethical behavior and accurate writing. We had a lecture the other week, delivered by Dean Klatell, who spoke of developing a story source as a dance of seduction and betrayal. Do we seduce our sources with our fascination in them, and then betray them as we tell all their secrets in our text? The question was ultimately left unanswered. This is the essence of our education. We are positioned in front of these questions, ethical questions that strike at the heart of our personal morals. And then we are left alone with the ways to answer. For each, the process is different, and the result is a necessary discovery of how we, as people, as journalists, must live with ourselves and the choices we make.
I am finding my way firsthand. Covering the BioBlitz at Jamaica Bay this weekend (Sept. 7-8), I was, for the first time, a member of the press at a public event, and through the 24-hour period, I had to find that niche within which I could be myself, represent myself as a writer, and gather the information from sources that ultimately will be the meat of my story.
It wasn’t easy. Scientists are wary of press. Most science journalism, in my opinion, sucks BEANS Science journalism routinely looks for the controversy, for the binary oppositions, for the dramatic perspective that finds its home in the human heart. But nature is not so parochial. Science is nothing more than observation. When in nature, or what we call nature, there are no binary answers, no right and wrongs, no perfect tragedies or comedies. As I watched an Eared Grebe dip under the waters of the East Pond in Jamaica Bay, the birders with whom I observed, explained that this fellow was far outside his natural migratory pattern. Searching for the tension, I asked, is this due to the human presence? No, he answered. This was a normal occurrence, the frequent anomaly present in nature, which befuddles man’s attempt at breaking down the world into comprehensible bits. It could be the fringe of a new migration, a mistake by a young bird, or some other sort of entropic occurrence. But there was no reason to suspect human activity as the source of this small bird’s wrong turn.
Later, in a conversation bordered by the cars rushing along Cross Bay Boulevard, we spoke about journalists and science writing. He recalled being quoted with such telescopic ferocity, that controversy was made from statements that neither represented his scientific view, nor the functional truth. This was a recognition of precisely the science writing I will not engage in. Of this, I assured him.
The drama of nature and science is too magnificent to be framed in the petty diatribes of a myopic perspective. As I piece through my notes and set up interviews for an in-depth look at this event, I am finding my way through this personal maze, coming to understand how I must be, in the most existential of senses, a writer in the world. And in this way, I’m coming to appreciate the school’s focus on developing the person rather than just developing a generic body of knowledge.
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