This week’s paper will have articles where particular choices were made on to show. This is what people need to know. This is what makes for a good story.
The choice in coverage in some articles will be obvious. In others, it will not have been a passing thought.
Journalism is all about hard choices even in the easiest of moments, especially as journalism changes with the times. Do we stay balanced and cover both sides? Do we take a side? Will we provide one side with false equality or do we risk our credibility?
Journalists are not supposed to display allegiance or affiliation. Yet, journalism is its own sort of activism.
We are the fourth estate. We hold truth to power. In other countries, our colleagues pay the price for it. Some in power try to break trust in us so they can get away with their agendas.
We are supposed to shine a light and challenge you with our stories. This is what is happening in our community. You should not hide from these events.
But we hold our power too and as the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls inquiry has shown with its calls to action, we have failed in our duties.
This week, we will have succeeded and failed in that. Maybe you will agree or disagree.
We succeeded in showing you a protest and why each side had shown up there that night.
We equally failed to show you the humanity of those in court this week. When you read the bad things people did, you will not get the experience of what is like to have a day sitting in the courtroom from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
You will not get the conflicting emotions of seeing people who have done awful things face or try to squirrel away from their actions. You will not see the glimpse of the person they could have been if they had made another choice, had a different path.
You will not see or hear of the families behind them, dreading the verdict they have waited all day to hear, crying as their loved one is taken away. You will not witness the tragic family stories taking place.
Maybe you should have heard those. We could always use more lessons in empathy and understand we are lucky in our own ways.
We’ll be back next week. We will try again next week, delivering to you another round of successes and failures.
