It began with a much needed break from the rhythm of the newsroom, a 10-hour drive across New Mexico into Colorado detached from the day’s news.
It ended at the famous Denver Press Club, a lovely old pub atmosphere more crowded than I was used to after two years reporting mostly from the attic over my garage, thanks to SARS-CoV-2.
Algernon D’Ammassa
Happily, the club had a strict guest list policy and the coronavirus was not invited, so surely it was safe to congregate for an awards ceremony and party.
The title of this regional SPJ conference was “Face to Face: Local Journalism in a Virtual World,” and one of the many things I contemplated during the drive from Deming to Denver was what we mean by “virtual world.”
We now apply that adjective to digital spaces as well as the bridge between them, as for all those participating via video stream. It’s an interesting adaptation of an old word that originally referred to virtue — perhaps morals or values, but also strengths and qualities — and later to mean holding the effect or essence of something without actually being that thing: Essence as opposed to counterfeit.
I bring this up because a recurring theme on panels and while socializing was how sick many of us are with depending on the internet and Zoom, despite how useful these tools have proven for covering public meetings and retrieving documents. Many of us missed on-scene reporting and engaging with people in person.
No surprise there. “There’s no news in the newsroom,” the ancients said, and even less so in my garage.
At the same time, panels addressed various aspects of our “virtual world” in the sense of ethics, priorities, skills and tools — all these virtues. There were valuable discussions about diversity in the news industry and emotional health, juxtaposed with professional development and tips for freelancers, solutions-oriented story development and the enduring value of local community papers despite the industry’s shift to the internet.
Yet one of the most highly-attended workshops I observed — with every seat filled and people swarming the doorway and the hall outside the classroom at the Auraria campus center — was a basics-of-investigative-journalism panel with veteran reporters who taught through stories, laughing often and boisterously. The sense of fun in our work, I’m convinced, is an oft-neglected virtue.
I returned with a greater appreciation for New Mexico’s sunshine laws, even though struggles persist. I learned a good deal about a profession I entered only a few years ago. I met and listened to reporters from New Mexico, Colorado, Utah and Wyoming — a good swath of the American west.
And I took the reminder to have fun. Reporting on climate destruction, a pandemic, deeply disordered political culture, economic instability and war can often feel like drafting the human species’ obituary; yet there are solutions, ideas and insights, new generations mixing with the old, and technologies that help us seek truth and report it. The grounds for optimism and humor are there, and they deserve pride of place in a truly virtual world —online and in person.
And the physical world made its presence known as ever at the end of the conference.
When I left the Denver Press Club Saturday night, police cars had just arrived outside on Glenarm. One of the SPJ members was giving a report alongside her boyfriend, whose car had been vandalized. Witnesses said a woman had been expressing herself by chucking rocks and hunks of granite at passing traffic and cars parked nearby before she ran off, declining to comment.
