THE IMPERATIVE REPORT: A NEW KIND OF NEWS BEYOND "BREAKING NEWS", SOUND BITES AND SILOS - PUBLIC AFFAIRS MEDIA THAT MATTERS
A BEGINNING
WELCOME
Though years of background study and conceptual preparation inform that vision, this site and the arc of its' intended realization process are anticipated to advance through a gradual expansion of content types; starting modestly with periodic blog entries and, concurrently, with a growing resource of curated content linkages. The next major enhancement will be the inclusion of regular podcasts to complement or expand on themes raised in the blog, or vice versa. Finally, the intent is for there to be multiple channels (YouTube, Vimeo, etc.) of originally-produced multi-media content; hopefully in concert and cooperation with a growing list of partner organizations and 'prosumer' content-production participants; whether professional, student, and/or citizen journalists, authors, scholars and other possible producers. The objective will be to establish the legitimacy, and to justify the boldness of our title and, through that process, of incrementally building a loyal global audience weary of tabloid and infotainment material being passed off as substantive news while the real driving forces of our future, and the crucial importance of the complexity of their interactions are barely, if ever, really explored. Indeed, providing content conceived and framed through the powerful, integrative lens of complexity and dynamic systems perspectives will be the very heart of The Imperative Report: A New Kind of News.
TWITTER-FREE ZONE
What will NOT be pursued here is an obsessive, knee-jerk response to every hot-button, emotion-bating distraction of the 24/7 "news" cycle. By no means does that mean that current events are excluded from coverage, but because the intention is for the content appearing here not to be driven by the 'tribal' tenor of so much of the short term topicality so characteristic of many other mass-media, and even 'alternative' news venues, it may also be useful to emphasize that this will be a Twitter-free zone. Why? Because of the conviction that there is real importance in not contributing further to the serious problem of a culture inflaming 'tribalism' with endless and increasingly frenzied distraction. In fact, there are highly non-trivial academic reasons to consider these issues to be a problem, in their own rite, of such significance, that it is highly likely to be the subject of a future blog entry.
That said, though the volume of content appearing here as of this inception point will be modest, if you find yourself drawn by the vision, you are cordially and enthusiastically invited to stay ‘tuned’ as this website, and the public affairs media venue it serves, develops, matures and grows richer in content-production, partnership and cooperation. If this sounds like a vision worthy of support, that would certainly be welcomed here.
More fully unpacking what is intended to be understood by the provocative boldness of the title will demand some space, but let me start more simply by briefly stating what animates the underlying vision for The Imperative Report: A New Kind of News.
Basically, that vision is predicated on three closely inter-linked factors:
- First:
We have, as a collective, global human community, entered upon a transformation, the scope, scale and multi-dimensional complexity of which is unprecedented in our entire history.
- Second:
Our conventional policy-formation, decision-making, and governance processes are generally insufficient for a reason which is directly related to the cited multi-dimensional complexity: almost universally, our most pressing challenges are dynamically and systemically emergent; they are not hermetically isolated silos amenable to narrowly or uniquely defined framing, nor to fixed and static policies and solutions.
- Third:
Though the inadequacy of the conventional pedagogy and practice of public affairs media/journalism to effectively comprehend this transformation amounts to a crisis for The Fourth Estate quite distinct from those sources of crisis ascribed to the business-model disruptions stemming from the disintermediating effects of the internet, both can be amended, significantly enhanced, and powerfully enriched in the service of achieving much greater effectiveness for fulfilling its' larger societal purpose by means of a conceptual infusion from the studies of complexity and dynamic systems. Providing this conceptual infusion, and establishing and expanding a venue to inspire, curate and create reportage which manifests that infusion is the guiding vision here; to go far beyond the incredibly narrow topicality and borderline-tabloid political muckraking which fills so much of the virtual or literal bandwidth of conventional public affairs content - at least via the mass media in the U.S.A. during the post-2016-election era of a Trump Administration - most of which makes little, if any, contribution to informing us of the nature and imperatives of the historic transformation which we find ourselves in the midst of; where we are compelled to navigate, analyze, integrally design and construct almost simultaneously.
A DEEPER DIVE
For those who would like to delve more deeply into a fuller characterization of a.) the nature of overlooked crisis in The Fourth Estate, and b.) the more complete and longer term vision for how The Imperative Report: A New Kind of News will strive to address that crisis, the following essay may be of interest. I have also used this essay as script to record a series of seven brief videos - each under fifteen minutes - covering the same material for those who may prefer this. The link to reach these videos is:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiS0eaethZdEcUJXIeT-vNaknwhTRPXTc
