Welcome to The Speaker. Let us tell you something about who we are.
This section of the paper deals with the ideas, principles and philosophy of those responsible for the content you will find here. While reluctant to say anything of ourselves–preferring to serve plainly as a source of news–nevertheless we feel that offering something of our ideas, principles and philosophy will be the best way for you, our readers, to understand who is serving you.
Sometimes the news is the most important temporal thing.
One capacity of news is to spread new information. Another capacity is a record or journal of events that took place.
Professional journalism has traditional standards. They are expressed variously, but most people already understand what is expected of those who take on the duty of bringing news to the public. Here is an expression of the basic principles of journalism by Pew Research, although other expressions could serve:
- Journalism’s first obligation is to the truth
- Its first loyalty is to citizens
- Its essence is a discipline of verification
- Its practitioners must maintain an independence from those they cover
- It must serve as an independent monitor of power
- It must provide a forum for public criticism and compromise
- It must strive to make the significant interesting and relevant
- It must keep the news comprehensive and proportional
- Its practitioners must be allowed to exercise their personal conscience
Certain of these tenets have been called into question over the years. Is it possible for a public and businesslike organization–inherently bound to a host of interests–or a journalist–human–to remove themselves from a story? Is it appropriate to provide both sides to a story in equal measure when one side is a force which is known to be abusing the truth and abusing the news, or would preclude access to or mislead readers from a chance at understanding the truth or the importance of a matter?
News agencies approach these problems in various ways.
The Speaker approaches these problems in various ways itself. We attempt to solve some of these problems by including an absolute variety of journalists and news sources, and by letting the object of an article speak itself. One of the conceptual ideas we frequently raise is that articles may exist like pieces–like chess pieces, maybe–and one may be placed down to express a point of view expressed by a news source as an argument, and an article based on a disagreeing source may be placed then as another argument, thereby providing readers with pieces to use in their understanding and discussion of a matter.
We also have a conception that a journalist–the one who finds, understands and writes the article–may prove an interpretation and then prove against it. So long as a journalist proceeds seeking to bring truth and news to our audience, and in a manner adhering to professional journalistic standards, we believe they are carrying out their duties.
In another idea, as an organization we seek to be invisible, or beaten; who should win is the truth. There is a saying that expresses the degraded, sacrificing role a source of information must sometimes accept: “The true teacher defends his pupils against his own personal influence. He inspires self-distrust. He guides their eyes from himself to the spirit that quickens him. He will have no disciples.” These words express to a degree our understanding of a news organization–it must always be prepared to accept a negative judgement by its audience when necessary to bring them to enlightenment.
Another conception we have is that news may be an object that serves as the basis for someone’s action. Within this conception, we identify two further points. One is that news may bring timely information about the actions somewhere being taken which are the same actions another person may need in order to proceed. The other point is that a piece of news–even if as news it is worthless–may provide the object over which a person can speak or act–without which, action or words would not have an avenue for expression.
We will continue to revise this section of The Speaker as our own understanding evolves, and expect it to be a section of our news site never to be finished, but always a work in progress. Please send us your thoughts–we want to hear from you.
Please let us know what news you want or need to have, what you are happy with or dissatisfied with in our service, and anything else you want to say. We want to hear you speak.
The Speaker was founded in 2014
Publisher, The Speaker (last revised October, 2014)
By The Speaker