What is the author's debt to society and how does he repay it?
Today, I'm headed to Columbia to take part in a symposium on the future of journalism—a subject that feels at once on some great cusp and under the weight of a myriad conflicting pressures. It prompted me to revisit one of my all-time favorite Paris Review interviews, a 1969 conversation, in which the great George Plimpton and sidekick Frank H. Crowther interview E. B. White. White has previously voiced strong opinions on the free press and, of course, the architecture of language, but here he shares some timeless yet strikingly timely insights on the role and the responsibility of the writer:
A writer should concern himself with whatever absorbs his fancy, stirs his heart, and unlimbers his typewriter. I feel no obligation to deal with politics. I do feel a responsibility to society because of going into print: a writer has the duty to be good, not lousy; true, not false; lively, not dull; accurate, not full of error. He should tend to lift people up, not lower them down. Writers do not merely reflect and interpret life, they inform and shape life.
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Last week journalists got some pretty disparaging news – journalists had one of the worst jobs in country. In fact, according to CareerCast.com, only four jobs are worse that being a journalist - oil rig worker, enlisted military soldier, dairy farmer, and lumberjack.
Long hours, bad pay, stressful deadlines – these were all reasons that put journalism near the bottom of the list but these I’m willing to make a bet that 98.9 percent of journalists knew these things before penning that first news story. If you became a journalist for fame and fortune, then you’re going to be miserable.
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