Go make money….
My friend and Columbia classmate Barbara Selvin is a professor of journalism at Stony Brook on Long Island.
Every year, she invites me to come and talk to the class. Â I am going on Friday.
Yesterday, however, she emailed me and asked if I would also speak to a student about the Church/State separation issue. Â I have to admit I was at a loss for a while to understand what she was talking about.
This might be because I am reading Wolf Hall, Hillary Mantel’s new novel about Henry VII, Thomas More and Cromwell (pictured above). Â
Wolf Hall, which just won the Booker Prize,  is a fictionalized version of the life of Thomas Cromwell, the commoner who becomes Earl of Essex and the ‘fixer’ for King Henry VIII.
The great crisis during the reign of Henry (well known to anyone who watches either PBS or Showtime), was that Henry wanted to divorce Queen Catherine of Aragon and marry Anne Boelyn. the Pope refused to grant the divorce and Henry left the Catholic Church, taking England with him. Â It was the great Church & State Crisis. Â Before Henry VIII, there was a clear separation between The Church (based in Rome) and the State (based in the King). Â Henry drove the two together, so that he, in effect, became head of both.
This was no easy transition – there would be years (and years and years) of blood over the issue. Â A great deal of the hostility in Northern Ireland stems from this, in fact.
Henry, however, drove England (and much of Northern Europe) into a far more productive and liberal world by his actions. Â See Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.
Weber makes the case that freeing thought from the constraints of the Catholic Church liberated a kind of untrammeled capitalism that resulted in the greatest explosion of both wealth and productivity that the world had ever seen.
Now, along come the students at Stony Brook, about to ask about the age-old Journalism stricture about separating Church and State – that is, separating the ‘pure’ journalism from the ‘dirty’ business side.Â
Like Cromwell and Weber, I would also argue for the merging of Church and State – or rather the sublimation of Church to State. In this case, I would argue for the sublimation of ‘journalism’ to business.Â
If journalism is to survive at all, then we must first and foremost embrace the business side of this. In fact, we have to stop thinking of this as ‘the business side’ and ‘the journalism’ side. Â Without business, there is no journalism – except perhaps standing on the street corner and passing out xerox copies of your poems – which there seems to be a lot of here in Santa Barbara.
The journalism of the 21st century, if it is to survive, must become a business, first and foremost. Â And to argue that this somehow ‘corrupts’ the purity of our ‘religion’ – the ‘pursuit of truth’ is to live in a world of utter fantasy. Â
Journalism is and always has been a business. Â From Hearst to Pulitzer to Bill Paley to Rupert Murdoch, the people who created journalism were aggressive businessmen. Â And no crime in that. Â
We may have journalism pontiffs who inhabit the rarified halls of journalism schools and universities. They may present prizes and awards for ‘excellence’ in journalism, but at the end of the day, they live in a rarified world that does not have to pay the bills – save for their own rent, which is nicely covered by their students, whose tuition money they take. Â The least they can do is to tell those students the truth – journalism is a business, first, last and always.
The sooner we embrace this, not tolerate it, but embrace it and learn to love and honor financial success, the sooner we will not only survive, but finally thrive.
9 Comments
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Peter Smith November 06, 2009
My point is that the general public will not believe a word you say when they think you are bought and sold. Not too encouraging for the
fourth estate.
Last time I checked, JK Rowling wrote fiction and Tom Friedman wrote opinion. Do You “believe” them. Is Harry Potter believable?
I am talking about the aura of credibility.:)
Yes. Journalists need to make money to write.
I agree wholly. Again, I am not against making a profit.
Where we disagree is that I probably would love reading work by people who don’t count profit as their only motive.
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Michael Rosenblum November 05, 2009
Peter
You write:
“For people to believe what you write, they need to believe you are not doing it solely for profit.”
I am sorry to disturb your world view but JK Rowling wrote Harry Potter solely for profit.
Solely.
That she wrote it to make a lot of money is not a crime. Neither does it devalue the book in any way. Philip Roth also writes only for profit. OK by me. Tom Friedman in the NY TImes also writes only because he gets paid to do it. Does not devalue him a bit. In fact, I don’t think I am interested in reading someone who writes for the pure passion of it and is not interested in getting paid. They can, of course, come work for me.. any time.
Peter Smith November 05, 2009
Interesting, I agree and disagree with you :
For people to believe what you write, they need to believe you are not doing it solely for profit. Who is going to care about your movie reviews if you are “on the take.”
Not that movie reviews are the epicenter of great journalism, but we should at least think we are getting the real deal and not a paid for advertorial.
Blur the lines for everyone, including writers and editors, and that is what you wind up with, mediocre material to front for corporations.
I do agree that bills need to be paid. Capitalism is good. It gets the blood flowing.
Concerns arise when journalism, as a whole, loses respect for caving in.
Give them what they want vs. Give them what they need.
I did this yesterday with my nine-year-old son. He wanted french fries with the chicken. I told him broccoli will make him grow up strong.
Guess what he had.
Peter Smith November 05, 2009
Interesting, I agree and disagree with you :
For people to believe what you write, they need to believe you are not doing it solely for profit. Who is going to care about your movie reviews if you are “on the take.”
Not that movie reviews are the epicenter of great journalism, but we should at least think we are getting the real deal and not a paid for advertorial.
Blur the lines for everyone, including writers and editors, and that is what you wind up with, mediocre material to front for corporations.
I do agree that bills need to be paid. Capitalism is good. It gets the blood flowing.
Concerns arise when journalism, as a whole, loses respect for caving in.
Give them what they want vs. Give them what they need.
I did this yesterday with my nine year old son. He wanted french fries with the chicken. I told him broccoli will make him grow up strong.
Guess what he had.
Carol Tang November 05, 2009
Interesting. I was going to ask you your opinion about the separation of church and state during your visit tomorrow, but this has actually given me even more to think about.
Barbara Selvin November 01, 2009
Very much looking forward to Friday, Michael.