Bernbach on Journalism

                                                                                                                        July 21, 2012  

Dear _________:

Professional training in Journalism is getting Big. That’s something to be happy about. But it’s something to worry about, too, and I don’t mind telling you I’m damned worried. I’m worried that we’re going to fall into the trap of bigness, that we’re going to worship structures instead of substance, that we’re going to dwell in history instead of making it, that we’re going to be drowned by responsibilities instead of buoyed up by recognition. I’m worried lest hardening of creative experimentations begin to set in.

There are a lot of great structure-abiding writers in journalism. And unfortunately they talk the best game. They know all the RULES. They can tell you that greater readership will give you more advertisements. They can tell you that a sentence should be this short or that long. They can tell you that story should be broken up for easier reading. They can give you fact after fact after FACT. They are the scientists of journalism. But there’s one little rub. Journalism is fundamentally about good writing and writing happens to be not a science, but an ART.     

It’s that creative spark that I’m so jealous of for our coursework and that I’m so desperately fearful of losing. I don’t want Academicians. I don’t want Scientists. I don’t want people who do the Right things. I don’t want people who do Inspiring things.

Look beneath structure and what do you find? A sameness, a mental weariness, a mediocrity of ideas and substance. But they could defend every article on the basis that it obeyed the rules of journalism. It is like worshipping a ritual instead of the God.

All this is not to say that structure is unimportant. Superior structural writing will make a good journalist better. But the danger is a preoccupation with structure or the mistaking of report structure for creative reportage.

The danger lies in the temptation to create routinized journalists who have a FORMULA for writing. The danger lies in the natural tendency to go after the Tried-and-Tested route to success, that will not make us stand out in competition but rather make us look like all the others.

If we, as journalists, are to advance we must emerge as a distinctive personality. We must develop our own philosophy (like the founding fathers of journalism) and not have the journalistic philosophy of others imposed on us.

Let us blaze new trails. Let us prove to the world that good ideas, good style and good writing can be good journalism.

Respectfully,

Bill Burn Back!

(PS: This is a Creative Variation of what was written originally by Bill Bernbach in the context of Advertising.)