For your reading pleasure something from my rejection pile. The following is an Opinion piece submitted to and rejected by the Globe and Mail. (As a writer I do not let rejection get me down.) However, I feel it covers an idea worth exploring.
Who. What. Where. When. Why. And How. These are the bedrock upon which
are built sound journalism, criminal investigations and, likely, the
discovery of a disastrous mess in the kitchen.
A recent Globe and Mail Opinion piece (Saturday, Dec. 7, 2019)
entitled 'How can we save Canadian non-fiction?' decried the apparent
policy shift by the Canada Council away from fact-based literature
(non-fiction) and the imminent demise of that genre due to lack of
critical funding. In its place there will be mainly "fiction, poetry
and the sort of first-person non-fiction that appears to be in favour
at the council stated writer and publisher Kenneth Whyte.
Reading this made the word "storytelling" bubble to the fore of my
consciousness from deep within where it had been percolating since a
Stratford Festival Forum discussion I attended in October on The
Integrity of Journalism. (Three eminent journalists discussed the
state of their craft and commented on audience observations.) There
were the expected questions about coverage of the troublesome U.S.
president and the slow death of print media; however, what lodged in
my brain was the way University of Toronto professor Naheed Mustafa
shook her head sadly when asked about the trend toward Storytelling.
As a lifelong learner, that visual pronouncement germinated a truism I
had not known existed up to then: Storytelling is the easy way out.
To define the thing--Storytelling is the first-person recounting of
that person's own story. Period. It is often heart-breaking and
difficult to listen to the details; many times I have heard the
interviewee break down and cry. Solutions to problems and happy
outcomes are rare in this genre. After the story is over I am no more
knowledgeable than when it started about the causes of said problem,
remedies attempted, incidence rates and determinants of success.
As an example, take homelessness. I have read and listened to too many
"Docs" as a homeless person takes us through the details of that hard
life: the begging, the sleeping on grates, the difficulty getting
health care, the eating of other's leftovers and on and on. Then the
so-called documentary ends. I ultimately feel bad and think I should
donate some money or knit some socks or something but.... where to
donate? Who can solve this?
Maybe it makes for good ratings but journalists and their
employers/authors and their publishers and, in the end, the Canada
Council are letting us down here.
Back to homelessness. I would like a well-rounded analysis of that
issue. Sure, include one person's story to put a face on it but
explore the Why, What, How, Where, When of the thing, not just the
Who. To my way of thinking, a thorough investigation would discover
how many people are homeless, root causes such as government closures
and cut-backs to mental health facilities, drug and alcohol addiction,
lack of affordable housing, marital dissolution and unemployment, to
name a few. The reader would learn percentages of men, women and
children caught up in it; regional hot spots, city versus small town
rates; how other provinces and countries deal with the problem;
programs that have shown promise or are proven successes.
All of the above involves the gathering and presentation of facts.
Non-fiction. The stuff that is needed to make informed decisions. And
to keep me, as a listener and reader engaged, a glimmer of hope or
some ideas from those in the know on how to help would be ideal.
