Today I did a lot of reading about Journalism. Maybe I should do that more. I want to learn how to read, and how to find the right things to read, and (most importantly) how to see the most important statements in a text. And how to make connections to other texts and other statements and how to build a world model out of these readings.
Also, I enjoyed the sun! I went to the Meridian Hill Park. A hill park is a good idea. You take the most annoying part of a commute (the hill) and you try to make it a little bit nicer. With transforming it into a park. And yeah, it’s not the best park ever, but it kind of works.
Input? 7
Output? 2
Learnings?
If you’re surrounded by people with goals which are different from your ones, then you have the advantage of getting inspired and looking over your horizon. But you have the disadvantage that you always have to defend yourself, in your mind, why you’re not having the same goals as the majority around you.
“Accountability Journalism” is the term for journalism that makes the failure visible of people who are responsible for something.
Some problems need to be made visible and everybody will immediately agree that they need to be changed (think of the Spotlight movie). Some problems can be made visible but are so linked to different values that the facts won’t change a thing (think more in the direction of Snowden). The solutions for some problems is a debate, highly linked to always evolving cultural morality.
Saying that a journalist has a “point of view” is considered to be a good thing. Saying that a journalist has a “bias” is a bad thing.
People walk a LOT in DC. They like it.
Questions?Should I invest a lot of research in something that won’t lead to solutions, or even to change of beliefs, because solutions are extremely hard to achieve? What would be other benefits of publishing this research? Even if I can’t see a solution, maybe other people can? Should I do/publish something if can’t weight the risks? If I don’t know which the worst possible outcome could be?
Is there 100% truth? Is it 100% true when five people are in a room and I say “5 people are in this room”? Or is nothing ever 100% true because we use words which definitions change constantly? And if the term “truth” can’t be used to describe an absolute truth (because that doesn’t exist), what else should it stand for? Likelihood? Current, subjective beliefs, shared by the current society? Is truth a fluent concept?
How to remember what I’ve read? Should I just trust my natural curiosity in things and the fact that I will remember the most surprising facts or ideas?