Dear Readers,
A few weeks ago, New York Times op-ed columnist and former executive editor Bill Keller proclaimed in the headline of one of his pieces that this is the “Golden Age of News.” He described the plethora of news outlets available at this time, using his morning routine of reading the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, BBC, The Guardian, AP, Al Jazeera English, as a prime example. He also mentioned getting analysis from The Atlantic, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy and news directly from publications in the countries that are of interest to him—not to forget Twitter, as well.
If you take a step back from all the contempt and criticism we have for the 24 hour news cycle, you really do gain a fonder appreciation for the current state of news. Think about it. From Chris Hughes’ purchase of the New Republic to Jeff Bezos’ Amazon Prime checkout of the Washington Post, exciting developments are constantly cropping up. More recently, Politico is entering the magazine business, the New York Times is launching a data journalism initiative, and Capital New York is reinventing itself as the Politico of the Empire State. And in the new year, Nate Silver is relaunching FiveThirtyEight with the help of ESPN.
But this isn’t to say there aren’t faults with our news today. As Keller warns, “[t]he profusion of unfiltered information can overwhelm without informing.” And it is the informing part that is the crucial key to this puzzle.
In another recent Keller column—I promise I read more than just one journalist—he publishes a correspondence with Glenn Greenwald, famous for reporting on the NSA mass surveillance scandal from over the summer with the Guardian. Greenwald, who is one of the founding members of a new journalism venture called Omidyar, and Keller sparred through email over the future of their field.
The two fundamentally disagreed over the question of objective news and what it means for reporting. Keller spoke highly of impartiality and objectivism. Greenwald countered by saying that such “reporting is reduced to ‘X says Y’ rather than ‘X says Y and that’s false.’”
I mention this particular exchange because it made me reconsider our own publication in the Harvard Political Review. As the magazine looks to celebrate its 45th anniversary in 2014, we are constantly reevaluating and reinventing.
We are truly excited to be a part of this golden age and to lead as one of the country’s premier college publications. In our capacity as students and millennials, we feel uniquely positioned to cover issues that no other publication in the country can. From the Economics 10 walkout to affirmative action in college admissions, the HPR has covered a wide range of politically salient issues and led in the debate and discussion over the past few years.
In discussions with the newly elected Masthead of this publication, I am optimistic for what they will bring to the table. From analyzing survey data of millennials to publishing profiles of Harvard administrators, the HPR staff has exciting new plans for the future. We are moving away from our old simple news analysis, in which we interviewed political figures to literally report, as Greenwald criticized, “X says Y.” We are now writing 2,500 word opinion pieces on Syria, reporting from the ground in Turkey, producing multimedia content for local elections, and weighing in on the importance of the humanities.
It’s an exciting time to be a journalist, and we’re thrilled to be in this position.
Andrew Seo
Editor-in-Chief