The panel, “Covering Race and Gender in the New Millennium,” Tuesday in Giffels Auditorium sparked important discussion on the place of journalism and purely fact-based reporting in this social media, commentary-loving age.

The main argument centered on whether journalists have an obligation to not only report and publish articles, but crafts an audience. Lisa Corrigan, director of gender studies used the “if a tree falls in the forest” metaphor to imply that the work of journalists is ultimately meaningless, not performing it’s basic function of informing the public. On this, I agree with Corrigan in that the profession must bend somehow if we are not to break. We cannot cling onto the self-righteous notion that Jesse Holland seems to have that we should report a story and walk away satisfied. We need to care about impact. However, I disagree with Corrigan on the how; she believes journalism’s inherent objective is to persuade and that we should embrace bias and the commentary-style reporting. I love Jon Stewart, but a line needs to be drawn between commentary/opinion and hard-news journalism, which was Holland’s point.

Still, Corrigan, who does not have a journalism background, inadvertently brought up a great point when she said U.S. journalists did not write about the hand the country played in creating the terrorists of 9/11 and Holland retorted, “We wrote about it, but people didn’t read it.” I disagree that long-form is dying, which is another point Corrigan made. The platform and execution is merely changing. Look at the work the New York Times has done on mass shootings just in the last few months. It’s online, it’s interactive and –wait for it – it’s thousands of words long and viewers blasted the articles social media. The full answer is not that simply though and the future still remains unclear. As Corrigan phrased it, this is “our Watergate”; this is a time in history, particularly with this political election, that people study both what was happening in society and also how journalist handled it.

All three speakers had advice to share with the crowd on how we should change to increase the impact of our reporting. Calvin White, the history chair and affiliated faculty in African American studies, said simply, “know your craft and be always a student of it.” This fed into a common theme of the need to develop empathy for sources and historical context for stories; these feed one another and present a more whole truth to readers. No event happens in a vacuum, Holland said. Along with having an historical perspective in mind – which comes from prior preparation (something harder in this 24/7 news world) – journalists must prepare for different scenarios with their editors before going out to cover a topic. “The worst decision is a rushed decision.” Rushed decision-making is how reporters call “unrest” a “riot” and “a man with a gun” an “active shooter.” This leads into another unanimous tip: fact checking.

“Media will have to adjust,” Holland said, referring specifically to the election in this case, and learn how to tell the narrative again instead of merely “following” and “reacting” to what is already presented. Fact checking is essential in reporters’ work, but has been used in a way this election that it never has before. Major news outlets are now a place for the public to go to fact check candidates’ speeches – once again, in my mind, affirming our essential nature as the fourth branch of government and impact on the people. Or so we would hope.

While I contemplated leaving this paper on a positive note, the assignment is to write a response to the panel, and what I walked away with was a feeling of uncertainty, an anxiety about the future of my chosen profession. Do facts even have impact anymore? When a brief, speech, or (trying to type this without utter disgust) a Buzzfeed article goes viral, does anyone read the in-depth story or day-after corrections?

“We are living in a highly anti-intellectual moment,” Corrigan said. And I can’t disagree. I’m just hoping that when we starting watering our plants with Gatorade, someone reads my article on how it’s not what plants crave.

*If you have not seen the classic Mike Judge movie this quote is from, I’m sorry that this reference is lost on you.