Margaret Sanger's Journalism: Expanding Awareness About Birth Control

Journalism's first and foremost duty is to provide people with information, and an important part of that duty is finding otherwise obscure but important events and issues and bringing them to the public's attention. Margaret Sanger striving to perform that task for birth control

Not knowing about safe alternatives to illegal abortions had a great cost for women. Sadie Sachs became ill from blood poisoning after having an illegal abortion, and after her doctor refused to tell her about ways to prevent herself from becoming pregnant, died after having another abortion. Sanger's own mother died from chronic tuberculosis, having lost much of her strength after 11 births and seven miscarriages. As Sachs and Sanger's mother were not the only victims, spreading information about birth control was critical for preserving the lives and health of women who did not want to become mothers.

While many people sought to keep information about contraceptives away from working-class women, Sanger persisted and often managed to turn it to her advantage. When the authorities shut down her speaking appointments, she resisted, and while she was often arrested, she managed to get a greater audience and spread more awareness of the issues than she would have otherwise. She was willing to continue publishing until a warrant was issued for her arrest and she had to flee abroad. New ideas often encounter considerable resistance, and Sanger's perseverance enabled her to spread awareness to reach many more people.

The Internet presents many new opportunities for this kind of journalism. The lack of gatekeepers prevents people like Anthony Comstock from censoring this journalism or taking action against the producers, although it also lessens the possibility of oversight over such journalism. The Internet has a worldwide audience, which enables more people in more places to hear about obscure issues, making it a topic of discussion more easily. The Internet's capacity for two-way communication enables users to share their thoughts and spread the information, thus ensuring that the people who initially bring up the issue are not the only ones disseminating the information.

The mainstream media often fail to explore aspects of certain issues, like solutions to the economic crisis that have not been up for consideration in Congress, or fail to report others, like soldiers testifying in Winter Soldier sessions and the acts that many of those soldiers committed or witnessed. While it behooves the mainstream media to become more proactive in searching out the stories that matter, spreading awareness of obscure issues should not solely be up to them, as ordinary people with access to the proper information can and should help shed light on lesser known issues. As the Internet presents a platform to people with unprecedented accessibility and audience, and Sanger was able to make a considerable impact without that source, the time is right for citizen journalists to educate others about the issues that matter.

The Liberator: Courage Absent from Today's Press

While reading about The Liberator and other abolitionist publications, I had known that abolitionists faced considerable and often violent resistance to expressing their beliefs. Such bravery and persistence often stands in stark contrast to the modern day press, which often abandons the principles it is supposed to hold and backs down from publishing important stories under the slightest hint of pressure.

Garrison was repeatedly threatened with death, and once was nearly killed by a lynch mob for the stories he wrote. The corporate news media often do not apply the same scrutiny to conservatives that they do to liberals in order to avoid being associated with the "liberal media". Garrison put forward his strongly anti-slavery opinions without any hesitation or regret, and welcomed being criticized in an opposing paper's editorial page. By contrast, President Rochon apologized for Emily McNeill's article on the Israeli-Palestinian article, which did nothing more than explore a lesser-known side of the issue.

The difference between the Liberator and modern media in how they respond to attacks on what they publish is a matter of intentions. The Liberator primarily existed to end slavery, and thus, if it had compromised its principles out of fear or desire to ensure profit, it would have gone against the very reason it was created. By contrast, the mainstream press are often owned by companies that expect profit out of them, and thus are willing to put pressure on them to censor stories that would alienate advertisers too often to be merely for the outlet's survival. As a result, editors often confuse the decisions that are necessary to stay in business with the ones they do to avoid taking a risk on a principled stand. They are essentially no longer doing true journalism, but doing business, and have betrayed their principles out of fear of survival.

Keeping to one's journalistic principles requires keeping sight of them, and this can be a difficult task when competing needs come into play. The nonprofit press is less constrained by financial and advertising-related burdens than the mainstream press is, but they are still not free of ethical dilemmas and difficult decisions. It is ultimately up to the journalists themselves and the people in charge of them to remember why they are producing articles, and the Liberator provides a good example of the resolve that modern journalists should show.

Matt Taibbi: An Interesting Look at Alternative Journalism

I found Matt Taibbi's lecture on journalism to be an interesting look into alternate ways of getting into and writing journalism, which I had not considered doing in my more conventional entry into the profession, as well as the current nature of the mainstream and alternate press. Although I sometimes disagreed with his points, I found his talk to be informative, comprehensive and humorous.

While Taibbi was able to become a reporter without having studied journalism or worked for student media in college, I personally believe that an undergraduate degree in journalism can be very useful for journalists. Journalism students can learn the theory, professional skills and ethics of reporting in a classroom setting without being forced to learn on the job while being judged by their bosses. In this way, they can avoid some of Taibbi's early mistakes, such as not realizing what tone "hard news" outlets require leads to be. They can also realize far earlier whether journalism is an ideal career for them after getting some experience in the industry via internships, their coursework and student media.

Then again, if Taibbi had pursued this path, he may have internalized the values of objective journalism, and most likely would not have written as he did. I found his humorous writing style to be an intriguing way of pursuing journalism, and found his reactions to some of the press's flaws and absurdities amusing. One example is when he conveyed the viewers' shock that the "Great Democrat" displayed in a portrait was Boris Yeltsin by comparing it to the wedding of a death row inmate and cocktail waitress. Bits of writing like those are amusing ways of conveying the story, albeit ones not suitable for "hard news" media, and not ones that I would regularly use.

Taibbi brought up some highly concerning anecdotes about his reporting in Russia. He mentioned reporters who made fictitious man on the street interviews with the same person, knowing that their editors could never fact-check them, showing that they were wiling to break a fundamental journalistic taboo against fabrication to save time.

Taibbi's mentioning people internalizing the poor journalistic integrity of media outlets raises one of my primary concerns as a journalist to mind. While I recognize that it is natural and often necessary to question and re-evaluate one's principles, as I have done over time in the past, I sometimes fear that the pressures of the news industry, as well as employers who place profit before journalism, will slowly erode my resolve and ultimately leave me unable to make principled decisions.

Matt Taibbi's event was interesting because it helped me to look at the way the press works and the way we do journalism differently while still being humorously conveyed and containing much of his career story in it. Throughout my time at Ithaca College, much of the way I perceived journalism and the media has been redefined, and Taibbi's speech, by showing me a way of journalism I had not considered before, thus had its unique impact on my perceptions.

Dean Lynch's Talk

Dean Lynch's lecture on independent media on Tuesday was an interesting and comprehensive exploration into the various forms of online journalism that helped address many of my doubts about the changes to the news media.

I had initially been somewhat apprehensive of the rise of online journalism for a few reasons. Part of this was due to the belief that it would give rise to bloggers with little experience or training who believed that they could do better reporting than the media- although such people often criticized the media as "liberally biased" and ignored the true flaws- and people would stop believing in traditional journalistic values. The prospect of the rise of journalists who worked without pay concerned me, as I hope to do journalism for a livingI was also somewhat concerned about the possibility of having to change jobs, partly due to having to move and potentially not having a salary for a while, and partly because I hope to become a news editor, and having to switch jobs would hinder proving myself to my employers and learning how the newsroom operates.

However, the talk reminded me of how beneficial the Internet could be. After hearing about many of the ways Internet sites helped reporters, I remembered that I often did background research for my stories over the Internet, and came to appreciate how it could be useful for all journalists. Seeing the many ways internet journalism could add new dimensions to the story through multimedia, like simulating how airport security checks bags, in addition to what I learned in Digital Journalism Workshop last year, convinced me that even traditional media must make use of the Internet in order to survive. Dean Lynch's comment about how Walter Cronkite told it "how it was" surprised me, as I found it surprising how an entire generation could rely on a single news source. I came to the conclusion that the traditional media could benefit from citizen journalists watching over them, providing alternatives and reporting on subjects they do not, although this is partly dependent on media consumers exercising good judgment.

The Internet has not only provided a new means of transmitting news, but it, more than ever before, has forced traditional news media to reconsider how they do journalism. It also forces journalists to develop new skills and change how they do their work in order to remain able to deliver the most in-depth and effective reporting possible. While such a change can be daunting to journalists, if they are able to come to terms with it and adapt, they will realize that despite its challenges, it offers many new opportunities that will not only benefit the readers, but also benefit them.