Of the calling of immediacy
   Date :22-Oct-2019

 
By Vijay Phanshikar :

“Journalism can never be silent. That is its greatest virtue, and its greatest fault. It must speak, and speak immediately, while the echoes of wonder, the claims of triumph, and the sighs of horror are still in the air.”
- Celebrated journalist
Henry Anatole Grunwald
 
 

 
 
 
Of the calling of immediacy WHAT a tremendous description - definition - of journalism! Absolutely in the form and norm of a mantra! Yes, of course, Henry Grunwald was a master of journalism, of its art and craft and science! And when he practised the profession, he approached it with a sense of totality -- leaving nothing in spare, nothing as a sanctuary to run away to, seeking a shield from journalism’s downside, possible undesirable outcomes of pursuing it. It was out of that sense of totality, finality, that Grunwald wrote so tellingly about the meaning and metaphor of journalism. Of course, he was a diplomat, too. But he was known more as Managing Editor of ‘Time’ Magazine, and then Editor-in-Chief of ‘Time Inc’. To him, journalism was not just a matter of job; it was a calling.
 
In that, Henry Anatole Grunwald stood in the league of journalism’s great masters, practitioners and theorists who gave newer meanings to the profession, made it a zone where democracy and civil society celebrated themselves, basking in a sense of freedom to express themselves, a sense of participation in the social discourse that also encompassed politics as a necessary activity that monitored the process of governance. Let us delve a little deeper into the urge of journalism -- to speak, and speak immediately, while the echoes of wonder, the claims of triumph, and the sighs of horror are still in the air ...! What a wonderful way to express how journalism operates, how it is necessary for journalism to speak and respond to the call of the moment and the calling of the philosophy of civil societies. Immediateness is the crux here.
 
The journalist is the observer of the event, the chronicler of the moment in time, the recorder of the contemporary (what a paradoxical expression, this!) history. Standing on the sidelines of developments, deployments of human resources -- physical and metaphysical -- the journalist must not, cannot afford to, waste time. He must report the event immediately as he sees it, senses it. He has only an apology of time during which he has to fathom the depth and height and expanse of the event -- and then fashion his response, and then deliver a well-meditated document that would become what another master of journalism-management -- Philip Graham (publisher of ‘The Washington Post’) called ‘the first rough draft of history’.
 
Yes, the echoes of wonder, the claims of triumph, and the sighs of horror are still in the air and the call of immediacy is pushing the journalist to assess the event and assert his or her voice and tell the moment’s story -- contemporary history -- to the world. Yes, there is a terrible possibility and potential to make mistakes and possibly paint an erroneous picture. For, today’s claims of triumph could be tomorrow’s shrill sirens of defeat! But journalism is bound by the compulsion of ‘daily-ness’, the push of immediacy, and therefore it must speak right at that moment.
 
There may be a mistake in that account -- that the society may realise much later. Yet, that first rough draft of history, that immediate chronicling, is the calling of journalism. The only tool in the journalist’s hand is his or her pursuit of truth as it appears at that given moment -- based on sound ethics and sounder morality and an unwavering belief in the religion of giving expression to human happenings -- of happiness and of horror. When the echoes of wonder, the claims of triumph, and the sighs of horror are still in the air, the reader or the listener or the viewer has the chance to test what is right or wrong in the reporting, and fashion his response to the event in currency. That is the beauty of journalism that offers a centrestage of thought to human progress.