A contradiction in the message?

Yikes. What speaks much louder than Mark Lever’s statement that, “We really wanted to get feedback from our constituents in the community, about what we can do to be essential in their lives again,” is the omission of any place The Guardian actually solicited that feedback.

It would appear from the article that the invitees (i.e. “our constituents”) saw the traditional push-out format of the medium unproblematic.

Why wouldn’t they? Having a vehicle to uncritically regurgitate “the invitees’” message meets the needs of potential advertisers and interest groups just fine.

The last thing an interest group wants is a newspaper that — in real time — engages the general public in a topic though critical dialogue . . . in public.

Unfortunately, for businesses like The Guardian, the last thing “the invitees” want is the first thing many consumers want. What’s wanted is high-quality (critically researched) journalism examining and presenting topics for feedback. Feedback from those who are impacted by the topics being examined.

However, what we seem to get is quite the opposite: verbatim releases from interest groups, and advertising.

Until the contradiction between what is delivered and what we need is reconciled, isn’t it all just rearranging chairs on the deck?

As Marcel Proust wrote, “The real voyage of discovery is not to travel through a hundred different lands with the same pair of eyes, but to see the same land through a hundred different pairs of eyes.” Walter Wilkins,

Stratford