I am a Journalist 3

Having integrity means that the reporter must watch his/her actions as an individual and not stray from the Path.
Ever since I was a child, I liked to write and read. The characters and stories in the books I read were more real than the real life around me.
I could have possibly chosen another career _ as long as writing was involved _ but what appealed the most about being a reporter was the honesty/integrity/selflessness of the job.
I've always wanted to live life/make a living with the assurance I was doing the Right Thing.
In that sense, journalism provides a logical solution.

I am a Journalist 2

The integrity of the reporter has always been important.
But as our industry enters financial difficulties, the raison d'etre of journalism is inevitably going to be questioned.
We have to answer the question: Why do we need news stories?
What does news offer that's not in video games, social networking, movie downloads, blogs?
Reporting has to be about a lot of things _ delivering information accurately and quickly, making complex faraway stories easy to understand, engaging readers in an entertaining meaningful way, etc.
But the bottom line is: Reporters serve the public good by getting the truth out.
That's why reporters must have integrity.
We can't hope to have any credibility if we are not good people with principles in our everyday lives.
This is where being a Poet/Journalist sees no conflict.
Poets speak the Truth. Poets pursue Goodness. Art is Life.

Auto workers in the U.S./Germany/Japan

In some ways, a farmer has more in common with farmers in other nations than with people of other occupations in the same country.
That can be said of other professions _ boxers, chief executives, carpenters, reporters.
That's because what we do to earn a living is such an all encompassing and fundamental part of our being that what is required to perform that job right comes to define how we think and act, and what we ARE.
Recently my colleagues and I did a project together to look at auto workers in the U.S., Germany and Japan, to see what they had in common, as well as what separated them.
The package together told a story that was more than each story on its own:

The U.S. story
The story from Germany
The story from Japan

I remember talking to farmers in Michigan and farmers in Japan and realizing how much farmers have in common, although they don't speak the same language and they live so far away from each other.
I also remember the point in I believe a book by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.: We are what we do every day (The way he put it was that we become what we pretend to be and so we must be careful.)
People can justify all they want in their minds to appease their guilt about what they do.
But sometimes matter overtakes mind.
Every little decision/act/word counts.