“Journalism is an incredibly hard profession. I embrace people when they decide to come in because journalism is like long-term unrequited love. It will never love you as much as you love it,” Lynette Clemetson, the Charles R. Eisendrath Director of Knight-Wallace Fellowships for Journalists at the University of Michigan, explained to a crowd of Vassar students, faculty and community members. She continued, “You can produce something that causes legislation or influences policy, and it will still be like: ‘What do you have next?’ It wears you down.”
Clemetson was one of three media makers featured in the “How Media Illuminates Critical Stories and Perspectives” panel. This segment was held on day two of the “Storytelling for Change: Shaping and Sharing Inclusive Narratives in Higher Education, Media, and the Arts” Signature Program at The Vassar Institute for the Liberal Arts, which took place on Nov. 7 and 8. Clemetson was joined by Eric Marcus ’80, Executive Director of the award-winning podcast “Making Gay History,” and Mike Gillis, Head Writer at satirical news publication The Onion. The program was convened by Vassar Associate Professor of Psychological Science and Media Studies Dara Greenwood and Vice President of Communications Victoria Grantham.
Despite portions of the conversation centering on journalistic ethics and freedom of the press, the work Clemetson, Marcus and Gillis undertake does not necessarily fit within the traditional confines of mainstream, cut-and-dried journalism. Rather, each panelist shares a common goal that propelled them into the business of storytelling: the pursuit of something honest.
“From a young age I was good at writing and bad at everything else. Really, what transformed me from a writer to a comedy writer was picking up a copy of The Onion in middle school and feeling like it was the most honest writing I had come across,” remarked Gillis. This statement might initially seem ironic given that The Onion prints satirical, fictional news. Yet, for The Onion, an average Joe pulling off the highway and deciding whether to get Wendy’s or McDonald’s is top-of-the-fold news. Traditional journalism often neglects the mundane and universal; however, for Gillis, the mundane and universal is often true. “What The Onion did for me as a middle-schooler was talk about the everyday experience of American life, which is often stupid or boring,” said Gillis.
For Marcus and Clemetson, this pursuit of honesty took on the form of asking questions with the hopes of receiving authentic answers. When asked by Greenwood about his time at Vassar College and love of storytelling, Marcus recounted: “Here at Vassar, I did my undergraduate thesis about the unbuilding of Main Street Poughkeepsie… I did an interview with the Mayor of Poughkeepsie and I found out that I loved asking questions.” Clemetson shared a similar sentiment: “I grew up in a large family with dinners and a door that wasn’t locked. I came from storytellers but also was in an environment as a child where serious questions weren’t welcomed,” Clemetson recalled. “And as a journalist, your job is to ask people questions all the time and get answers… It felt like the most amazing thing in the world, to be led by curiosity and passion.”
Although Cletmetson explained that the environment she grew up in was not conducive to asking serious questions, it did instill in her the value of community and vulnerability, particularly in the face of difficult choices and cultural moments. “My job [as the Director of Knight-Wallace Fellowships] is to say, ‘Put all of that down. Let’s sit together. Let’s cook some dinner.’ My job is to try to let them [the fellows] rediscover why they are doing what they do.” The Knight-Wallace Fellowship program provides accomplished journalists with the funding and opportunity to pursue timely stories while addressing current challenges the journalism industry faces. “This [The Wallace House] is a space dedicated to having journalists recenter themselves and be in community. It’s a beautiful house, obviously, but I show it to people because it is a subversive place.”
For Marcus’ work on the podcast “Making Gay History,” which has millions of downloads over more than 200 countries around the world, this community is often fostered digitally. “There are huge opportunities in what we do because of the changed [digital] landscape.” In reflecting on the podcast as a medium, Marcus emphasized, “We can reach people in a way we couldn’t before, and in countries where they aren’t supposed to read or view these things. I saw downloads from Libya and Saudi Arabia, and I thought, ‘Yes!’”
Marcus’ emphasis on space and community is not to say that the podcasting medium he uses within his work is unimportant; rather, podcasting allows him to connect with his audience and convey emotion. “Making Gay History” celebrates iconic queer figures and anecdotes. In many cases, these narratives are joyous; often, however, they carry weight. During the panel, Greenwood noted how this audio-based medium is particularly useful in showcasing heavy stories, “The value of the podcast, to hear the voice, to hear the pauses. What a treasure trove to have access to this.”
Although his work is not audio-based, Gillis also notes the benefits—and occasional downfalls—of utilizing unique storytelling mediums. The Onion often uses quippy, nonsensical headlines and stories. In an age of misinformation, these modes can be simultaneously effective and difficult to navigate. “I think part of that is it can be easy to confuse satire with misinformation, but I think the difference between satire and misinformation is very similar to the difference between art and propaganda, and part of that comes from intention,” Gillis explained in an interview with The Miscellany News. “We’re not trying to willfully deceive people. We’re actually really taking efforts to think about the reasonable reader and how they’ll interpret what we’re putting out.”
The Onion occasionally re-prints headlines. Although this choice might initially appear confusing, it is intentional and non-deceptive. Mass shootings, for example, are a horrific, ongoing reality of living in the United States. In the aftermath of each shooting, The Onion will re-use the following headline and change the dateline: “‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens.”
Gillis also shared the importance of communication and consideration when transforming the dark realities of our current political and cultural moment into something light and joyful. “There’s a ‘This American Life’ episode where they go into The Onion’s writer’s room; they say, the loudest sound in the writer’s room isn’t laughter. It’s silence.” Gillis continued, “We do laugh about jokes, but a lot of our time in the writer’s room is really spent obsessively going over every single word of the headline, making sure that it is going to be communicating the message we want to be communicating to our readers, and fixating on the precise wording that we’re using, the meaning that we’re going for.”
Humor in the face of tragedy and a disturbing reality can be a deeply healing—or even necessary—experience. “It [making jokes] is one of the most inherently human things to do. After a loved one passes away and you’re standing in the hospital and cracking the first joke… it’s realizing you will not be dragged down by the struggle and mire,” noted Gillis. “There is the ability to breathe that comes from telling a joke.”
In medium, mode and consequence, the journalistic work of the panelists is non-traditional; this fact, however, does not diminish its value. Vassar Visiting Assistant Professor of Sociology John Andrews, who attended the panel, emphasized the importance of non-mainstream media in a written comment to The Miscellany News: “Independent and non-traditional news media are invaluable; it can tell the stories that mainstream media cannot or will not since mainstream media is, in the end, oriented toward profitability. In this sense we might say that access to independent and other non-mainstream media is requisite for citizenship today.”
Greenwood additionally stressed the value of storytelling in connecting people, both with each other and their humanity, while also introducing people to new, meaningful knowledge. “Whether sharing important stories from gay history in America with an LGBTQ teen who is listening to a podcast secretly in another country, enabling journalists from war-torn regions to land in a safe space where they can do important work, or eliciting laughter and relief from an Onion headline, each of the speakers aimed to contribute comfort and community, along with information,” she noted in written correspondence with The Miscellany News.
Operating outside the confines of mainstream media is no easy task, yet it can be incredibly rewarding. Amid attacks on free speech and dwindling trust in journalistic media, the event emphasized that the pursuit of something honest is, perhaps now more than ever, a noble pursuit indeed. Clemetson acknowledged this complex, fragile state of news media, but emphasized the importance of conveying honest stories whenever possible. “The pursuit is difficult, but it is vital.”