By: Christopher Allen
Lynden Steele and Jeanette Porter came to the Missouri Scholars Academy to provide a lecture on journalism and the events in Ferguson, MO. Lynden Steele is a Professor of Photojournalism and was a director of photography at the Saint Louis Post Dispatch during these events and won a Pulitzer Prize in 2015 for his work. Jeanette Porter has worked as a journalist for years and is an assistant professor at the University of Missouri Columbia. Her current research focuses on mental health help seeking in African American Communities. I attended their lecture and was lucky enough to be allowed an interview afterwards to hear further thoughts on the topic.
Christopher R. Allen
So what got you guys interested in journalism?
Lynden R. Steele
I got interested in journalism through photography and through the ability to capture something that is real and partners life. But in a picture it becomes something more, something we can hold on to. That makes it unique to still photography in that you can actually have something you can hold and reflect on your own life; your own experiences, but also as a journalist, then on the community. So for me, that was it, that was the ability to do that was kinda magic.
Jeanette H. Porter
For me, it was always...words are my thing. I'm very comfortable and happy with texts, but I’m also a political, a politics junkie and you can't have a democracy without a free press and active press, and I just thought it was important to tell stories so that people could hold government accountable and be good citizens.
Christopher R. Allen
What was the hardest part about the events in Ferguson for you guys?
Jeanette H. Porter
I experienced Ferguson strictly as a viewer. I was living in North Carolina at the time that they happened. But as a black woman I felt a combination of “here we go again” and powerlessness and anger and futility and sadness, so my emotional reaction as a viewer, but as a black American woman was difficult for me.
Lynden R. Steele
So as a person responsible for part of the coverage at Ferguson and making decisions that are going to impact how people view it, you know, I saw that it's not a hard burden. That's a responsibility that I take very seriously, so we want to get it right the best we can and we know we're not going to have time and just hope that we can learn when we do make mistakes so that we don't make those again. And the emotional toll that you have kind of spreads throughout the city and so it's something that many of the staff felt in their own ways and see the community so you feel a responsibility to them to get it right.
Christopher R. Allen
All right. So what was the most biased challenging part of this?
Lynden R. Steele
Most biased challenging?
Christopher R. Allen
Did you guys have any preconceived biases that were completely changed by this event or did your views pretty much stay the same?
Lynden R. Steele
How did Ferguson change us, me as an editor of a newspaper? The biggest thing that happened was the realization that media now needs to share their space with citizens and citizen journalists and if we can do that, when we do that [that] makes us better. We had to direct conversations with a lot of people who had access to things that we didn't have and they were reporting things that sometimes we print and in ways that we didn't. So, I have a lot of respect for that. So it changed the landscape of how you do your job. And so if you're not at peace with that you're going to have a really hard time. So, so there's a lot of things you have to break quickly in that manner.
Jeanette H. Porter
For me it was the understanding that Michael Brown had not been a completely innocent individual. I don't think he deserved to die for what happened. I think that the shooting was unjustified. But that there was anything at fault with his behavior was hard for me to take when the store video was released. I had a hard time integrating that into my understanding of the whole situation.
Christopher R. Allen
All right. So what was there ever a point where you doubted your career?
Lynden R. Steele
Doubted our career?
Christopher R. Allen
Doubted your decision to be a journalist.
Lynden R. Steele
(Laughs) The economics of our industry makes everybody doubt that and you cannot escape it and the fact that newsroom after newsroom, in different parts of the country kind of pull it together to cover their big story in the face of less resources, less people, you know, animosity from all sides, a management that might be actually against you because it might be a hedge fund now, I mean, there's so many things against doing this.
Those people who are doing it, they're committed and so very thankful. So, those are things that they make you doubt it, but certainly the good things that this is a job with a purpose. Not every job has a purpose. And if you can leave that stuff at the door and go do the reporting, focus on that, that's a good day. That’s a purpose.
Jeanette H. Porter
I was working for a rural newspaper in Virginia and at the height of the credit crunch of 2008-2009. For like a year and a half my paycheck was consistently late.
Lynden R. Steele
That's hard.
Jeanette H. Porter
That was hard.
Christopher R. Allen
And then Lynden you kind of already answered this a bit but what was the high point? What's the high point where you knew this was the job for you?
Lynden R. Steele
Well, I think it's when things do work out and you get paid to go do something that you love, to meet people, to have a conversation about something you know nothing about.
To have a chance to have your mind changed, to have an experience that's an adventure even if it's just that it's somebody's home, all that is the best part.
Jeanette H. Porter
I did a story about something that really matters to me and I got calls from people saying that they read it and they found out things that they didn't know before and thanking me.
Christopher R. Allen
Any words of advice for Scholars?
Lynden R. Steele
In regards to being a journalist?
Christopher R. Allen
In general, in regards to being a journalist. Just any parting words if you will for 2019.
Lynden R. Steele
The thing that defines a good journalist is the thing that could define anybody. That is persistence. Don't stop. If you are going after something. Don't stop if it’s important. Don't stop till you know.
Don't stop when you doubt yourself. Don't stop when you have trouble. It may take a lot longer than you wanted to, but keep chipping away at it and something will open up. Someone will come to your aid. Something will happen that I will bring together. Just don’t stop.
Jeanette H. Porter
For me, it would be not just persistence although persistence is about half of it. But then the other half would be empathy. That is we move through a world that's increasingly polarized and otherwise to try to remember the humanness and the peopleness of the people that you interact with as you are persistent. And keeping your nose to the grindstone, but also with an understanding that we're all in this together.
Lynden
Be human.
Jeanette
Yeah, be human.
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