You're Either An Activist or A Journalist
You cannot be both.
At the beginning of my foray into photography, I took a serious interest in photojournalism. I was deeply captivated by the works of some of the most important photojournalists of our time (James Nachtwey and W. Eugene Smith, to name a few), and hoped to follow in their footsteps.
As I taught myself the foundations of photography: composition, lighting, making photographs that tell a story, and building compelling visual narratives, I took on personal projects of my own to establish myself on the scene. It was while doing this that I came to learn about the qualities that make a great journalist.
During this period, I was personally coming into my own as an activist, what I once upon a time aspired to. I was surrounded by peers who were activists or of that mindset. I read books, listened to lectures, and attended talks that informed my understanding of the world through the activist’s lens. From that worldview, everything was either black or white (racial), Left or Right (political), or ally or enemy (cultural).
Naturally, my photography interests and pursuits at this time reflected that bifurcated worldview. My first attempt at putting a compelling photography project together focused on gentrification. I’d gotten recommendations from fellow activist peers to focus on gentrification in connection to its effects on black residents, instead of doing what I’d been doing up until that point: wandering the streets curiously fascinated by the changing landscape in my neighborhood and documenting it with a camera for the sake of being able to have a record of the landmark period during which grand structures like the New York Wheel, now abandoned, were in development. With some convincing, I came to think that focusing on the gentrification story was the perfect way for me to kick off my journey into photojournalism. If you had my worldview at the time, and was surrounded by peers who shared a similar worldview, it was hard not to end up with that direction for a story. Furthermore, every story I’d seen published by major publications, and photographed by other black photographers at the time, had something to do with gentrification, race, protests, police, etc. I thought I had to follow in the footsteps of those who’d been at this kind of work before me. I thought I had to adopt their way of thinking, their politics, their point of view, and use that to frame the stories I was interested in telling as a photographer.
I quickly learned the greatest lesson I’d ever learned about the role of journalists when I dug into the research phase of that gentrification project. While peers actively advised that I enter the story with an already formulated conclusion—gentrification’s disproportionate impact on black communities, a recurring topic across publications at the time—all of my personal research revealed an entirely different story. The people I met and spoke with, the small business owners who lost their businesses and those who were on the verge of losing theirs, the residents who were at risk of displacement, and on and on—they all looked different, and had different stories to share. Slowly but surely, it became clear to me that to frame the story as only affecting a select group of people was at best, dishonest, and at worst, manipulative. You couldn't possibly approach a story with favorable conclusions already drawn and then work your way back to selectively justify those conclusions, I thought. But it occurred to me that this is exactly the methodology that many activists and ideological individuals often employ to make sense of the world around them; they begin with a conclusion that affirms their beliefs, and then search for the narratives that justify it. This, to me, was not the way of the journalist, or even that of honest actors in pursuit of the truth, and it was the beginning of my awakening from ideological trappings. Economist Roland Fryer’s story on his research into race and policing, the shocking discovery he did not expect to come out of it, and the subsequent turmoil that ensued in the aftermath when he chose to publish results that proved his own assumptions wrong, accurately illustrates why activism and ethical journalism cannot coexist. He chose ethics and the pursuit of truth over fealty to his cause as an activist. And he was pilloried for it by his own academic peers and administration.
Even though I never finished developing that story, that realization, along the way, completely transformed my outlook on everything including journalism, activism, politics, and so much more. The person I am today is a far cry from the person I was in 2017. I realized how our personal worldviews routinely distort our realities and keep us tunnel-visioned, blind from seeing anything else outside of what we want to see. I realized how deeply biased we can be when tethered to a fixed worldview, and how often we are driven to reinforce the narratives that affirm our already established worldviews. I realized that activism is flawed; that it is antithetical to ethical journalism (you cannot be an activist with a cause while, at the same time, be devoted to reporting critically on the causes you care about). I realized, then, that I never want to be imprisoned by ideological frameworks that box you into corners of thought (left or right, black or white, ally or enemy). I realized that, first and foremost, what matters to me is what is true, identity politics and allegiances be damned.
To navigate the world as an activist is to prevent your held positions from ever being challenged and to remove the possibility of discovering the wonders the world has yet to reveal to you. On the other hand, to navigate the world as a journalist, that is to say a skeptical and critical thinker, is to unlock all of the possibilities and wonders the world has to offer. I choose the latter.
While reflecting on the role of fierce and upstanding journalists months ago, I wrote a version of the following on a Twitter post, now available on my Notes right here on Substack. It’s the root of this article. I still stand by it. You must pick what you’re in allegiance to:
“You’re either an activist or a journalist.
You’re either partisan or a journalist.
You’re either a propagandist or a journalist.
You’re either a stenographer or a journalist.
You’re either pro-censorship or you’re a journalist.
You’re either serving the interests of elites or you’re a journalist.
You’re either fed narratives by the State or you’re a journalist.”