OUTSIDE THE MACHINE:
How to be an Ethical WriterCommissioned for the People and Planet website: www.peopleandplanet.org
"There is an odour to any Press Headquarters that is unmistakeable... the unavoidable smell of flesh burning quietly and slowly in the service of a machine." (Norman Mailer)
The machine in question makes money. Like all employees, journalists are recruited to maximise profits. In essence their job is to sell wealthy audiences to the all-important advertisers, on whom the average broadsheet depends for fully 75% of its revenue. The hidden agenda - undiscussed, often unconscious - is to report 'the truth' in an interesting, entertaining way that does not alienate these advertisers, or wealthy media owners, or parent companies and governments. For anyone with an ounce of honesty this involves an agonising conflict between personal integrity and career progression - the friction burns you up.
Graduates might think they can change the system from within, and there are rare examples of extremely honest journalists working in the press: John Pilger, George Monbiot, Robert Fisk and Greg Palast, for example. But these are islands in a sea of compromise. Pilger has described himself as a kind of "fig leaf" at the New Statesman, a way of promoting their claim that they are open to a wide range of views. Only one or two 'fig leaves' are required, however, and so most of the good writers thrive outside the mainstream.
It doesn't necessarily feel like you're selling your soul when you accept employment in the corporate media, and when you are then rewarded with status, privilege and even power. But then as the American writer Upton Sinclair wrote: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."
Women too! If you want to take care of yourself financially and egotistically, the mainstream is for you. But the advice of the great sages of all human culture through history is: "In the strongholds of vice no bliss endures."
DON'T BE FOOLED! Working out of a motivation of self-interest is absolutely not the best way to achieve your own happiness and peace of mind. It is the way to a sense of meaninglessness, futility, boredom and despair. To work for money is to work for a dead thing; to work for others is to work for life and aliveness. If you work out of a motivation of compassion for others, out of a desire to help them, you may find a sense of meaning, excitement and satisfaction that you did not expect. The idea that working for others involves a miserable self-sacrifice, a life of grim misery, is completely wrong. Ironically, it's exactly the other way around - working just for yourself is the worst way to look after yourself. The philosopher and mythologist Joseph Campbell wrote:
"The way to find out about your happiness is to keep your mind on those moments when you feel most happy, when you really are happy - not excited, not just thrilled, but deeply happy. This requires a little bit of self-analysis. What is it that makes you happy? Stay with it, no matter what people tell you. This is what I call 'following your bliss'... There's something inside you that knows when you're in the centre, that knows when you're on the beam or off the beam. And if you get off the beam to earn money, you've lost your life. And if you stay in the centre and don't get any money, you still have your bliss."
The institutionalised mainstream media compromise described above is everywhere, and this means that it is difficult to be honest +and+ to make money out of writing. But before we consider the mechanics of making a living, let's consider the whys and wherefores of writing itself.
To have anything meaningful to write you need, as Campbell says, to find what it is that really inspires you. One of the most important things you can do is to then read all the books by the authors you love, and all the books they read and loved, and then similar books and so on, so you build up a really solid base of knowledge about stuff that really fascinates you. Look at the quotes and bibliographies and track down books that look interesting; really hunt them out. Don't be afraid to contact authors to ask where a book can be found. Often you'll need to order direct from the publisher (look in the Writer's Yearbook for publishers' email addresses and phone numbers). Most of the best books just aren't in bookshops; so don't stop there.
I think it's important to treat books as tools rather than ornaments. It's good to underline possible quotes so that you can later find and take out the best ones (I've got over 700 pages of quotes in my PC). You can have a journal (pompous though that sounds) where you write all your thoughts, ideas, stories, and beginnings of articles, without the pressure of thinking 'Now I'm going to write an article'. When new ideas stop flowing, you can always go back and work on something older and unfinished.
On the process, the way I write an article is to think, 'What are people being told about a really important issue: media freedom, sanctions against Iraq, opposition to global warming, the power of compassion and non-violence? What do I believe to be true? How can I construct an argument to get them from where they are to what seems to me to be true?' So, for example, most people assume that the media is free, but at Media Lens we believe the media is filtered to serve state and corporate interests. So I begin by describing how the mainstream views itself - using, say, Guardian quotes declaring how wonderfully free and open the media is - then present the alternative arguments that challenge these mainstream views. I then add the dissident response to mainstream refutations of these challenges and so, hopefully, help people to at least understand what it is dissidents are trying to say. That's one way. The best arguments to refute are the opposition's strongest arguments, not their weakest, so focus on those.
Honesty into media success doesn't go. If you look hard you will find that even the highest profile radical writers +never+ present a systemic critique of the mainstream media in the mainstream press - the reason is that they are well aware (as some have admitted to me) that such a critique would mean career death. So when you're starting out, you may well need to do part-time work to pay the bills. What James Joyce, Jeremy Smith at the Ecologist and myself all have in common is the fact that we have chosen teaching English as a foreign language as an answer! You can take a four-week teacher training course for a few hundred pounds. Because it's comparatively well-paid, you can work part-time, leaving plenty of time for writing. It's also fun, low-pressure, and you can travel the world doing it if you want to. Sometimes you get laid-off, but that means you can work full-time. My first book, Free to be Human, was mostly written in a two-month period after I got laid-off one autumn. Although I was broke, it was one of the happiest times of my life.
Book reviews are a good way to get noticed by editors. Once they've published a couple of those you can ply them with articles. Don't be disappointed if you get rejected time and time again and ignored. We all have hundreds of articles rejected. Never be tempted to complain about it to editors. See it as a way of practicing, of learning your craft - if you keep going you will get stronger, better, more powerful. The goal is to become so good that editors just have to include you. Don't be afraid to learn from the style of your favourite writers and to use the quotes they use - they aren't private property.
Most importantly, though, through all this, keep a careful eye on your motivation. Are you doing this for money? If you are, it will kill your writing. Is it because you feel your life will become 'meaningful' if you publish a book? It won't. Do you crave status, a reputation? That will kill your writing too, along with your spirit, your passion and your bliss. Steer clear of these seductions - these are the things that are killing honesty and in fact killing our world. The Dalai Lama has said: "Generosity gives rise to a creative mind." When you think about what good writing tries to do - or rather, what it tries to give - that makes perfect sense.
Write about the things that truly inspire you, and do it for the benefit of others - to reduce their suffering and to increase their happiness. That's my advice. If you do that you will achieve real 'success', real passion, enthusiasm and fulfilment, with or without money and status.
David Edwards is co-editor of Media Lens (www.medialens.org)
This article will shortly appear on the People and Planet website: www.peopleandplanet.org
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