In the Kealey Bultena Memorial Visual News Laboratory,* I found this eye-catching admonition about pronouns. It struck me as metaphorically significant that we instruct our young journalists to associate I, you, and we with a frowny face. The poster reminds us that in its pretense to objectivity, professional journalism (not to mention academic research) strips its practitioners of identity and community membership. Each of us (not just reporters and bloggers, but every one of us capable of communication) tells stories as an I. We direct our stories toward you. We tell stories about us. To remove even those simple pronouns that mark the identity and context of a story unavoidably diminishes the story's authenticity.And in lighter news, I found this public service announcement:
I generally oppose fear-mongering... but not when it's this funny. This student artist clearly understands how to increase immunization rates: beware the vampire pig! (Principal Raabe, I have Mr. Rommereim from the South Dakota Pork Producers Council on line 2....)
*Kealey! Kidding! You know we all love you. ;-)
Who needs vaccines when you have vampire pig!
ReplyDeleteBeing a former newspaper editor in Lennox, I found it interesting when you discussed how we as scholarly writers villainize the use of those inclusive pronouns, but on the other side, we get upset when writers speak as if they have no connection to the ideas and concepts.
Was great talking with you at the Lennox CFC!
Joshua Schmidt
I'm more scared of Spider-Pig than I am of Vampire-Pig! LOL
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider-Pig#Plopper
My aunt must have been bored tonight, because she googled my name and found this! Thank you for naming the Lennox journalism area after me... I think. It's good to see I'm still on the radar somewhere - and in a positive way!
ReplyDeleteKealey Bultena Braa