Read on Twitter
Thread (sorry). This piece by @TomMcTague was the best thing I read yesterday on John Hume, because instead of hailing him as a saint, it explored the compromises he had to make, and the controversy around some of his decisions. https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2020/08/john-hume-was-politician-not-saint/614893/
As I wrote in Difficult Women, "progress erases struggle". Hindsight smoothes out complications, making the eventual path of history seem like it was destined from the start. But that's not what happens - and crucially, not what progress feels like when you're living through it.
A few weeks ago, @CCriadoPerez sent me this piece on how - in an age of polarisation and social media - journalism should aim to "complicate the narrative". It's really stayed with me: https://thewholestory.solutionsjournalism.org/complicating-the-narratives-b91ea06ddf63
One of the ways that Twitter has deformed journalism is that its tropes - the bad-faith misinterpretation to set up a glorious dunk by our hero, the tweeter; or the lazy, obvious statement as an applause line - have escaped into the wild.
It's generally a lot easier to argue with a strawman version of the other side's opinion. Or to "nutpick" - find people on the fringes of the opposing side and argue with them. And Twitter rewards that. But it doesn't do anything except entrench tribal divisions.
In journalism, all the most interesting questions are difficult. If Trump is so obviously incompetent and unqualified, why did he win the presidential election? Should politicians engage with people they consider to be terrorists? Why can't we just lose weight by eating less?
Something from Bari Weiss's resignation letter has been going round my head: "a new consensus has emerged . . . that truth isn’t a process of collective discovery, but an orthodoxy already known to an enlightened few whose job is to inform everyone else."
This is why I've enjoyed reading so much history in the last few years. It is LITTERED with ideas that everyone subscribed to, which turned out to be completely false. And often harmful. You have to preserve a space for the little boy to go "er, that Emperor, is he....?"
Anyway, that's my feeling about what journalists can do right now. Complicate the narrative. Don't boil down history, and historical figures, to saints and sinners. Be open to being wrong. Regularly revisit all the things you think are so obviously true you take them for granted.
My latest piece is on domestic violence, and a question that many find too big, and too morally murky, to answer. Most help is predicated on the idea that victims will *leave*. But only 30% of those who seek help use a refuge. What can we offer the rest? https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2020/08/are-refuges-only-solution-domestic-violence/614392/
( One of my other strong beliefs is that the architecture of twitter is useless for coherent thoughts and nuanced arguments, so I usually do stuff like this in my newsletter instead: http://helenlewis.substack.com )
