Fostering a shift from competitive to cooperative news media: The concept of “radical transparency”

Traditional news reporting is about “secrecy,” according to David Crumm, veteran journalist and founder of ReadtheSpirit.com. Mainstream reporting has always revolved around the scoop: The key to success as a journalist or news broadcaster is having the breaking story before everyone else, succeeding at everyone else’s expense.

In this model, the idea that news agencies can be successful by cooperating with each other so all present valuable information that they work together to build on and improve for the benefit of the public is a foreign concept.

Thankfully, there are a growing number of journalists and other mass communicators who are breaking out of this mold.

Many of them are affiliated with the Michigan Professional Communicators with interest in religion and cross-cultural issues (MPC). One of the topics of the MPC’s most recent meeting was what Crumm calls “radical transparency”—also known as crowd-sourcing—in news reporting. The key concept is that “Almost every idea in the world is better if it’s out in the world,” Crumm described. A perfect example of this is ReadtheSpirit.com, which focuses primarily on news and interest columns about religion, spirituality, values, community, and culture. ReadtheSpirit.com has a disclaimer inviting people to share their content, even linking it to other sites. This sharing also enables others to refine it, as Crumm said, without treating information intended for the public’s use as intellectual property.

“There are plenty of bad things going on in Detroit, and there are plenty of good things going on in Detroit,” said David Ashenfelter, former Detroit News and Free Press reporter. He feels there’s enough going on for everyone to have something valuable to cover.

This cooperative news model is about the difference between agencies being in a hurry to get out a fantastic piece of news before everyone else does, without consulting anyone else on if this story is complete, true, and accurately-depicted, and agencies who offer their stories in dialogue with other groups in a sort of peer-review exchange while promoting each other’s content at the same time, to the benefit of all of them.

It’s a shift that shows trust for others, both the public and other agencies, Crumm pointed out. There’s no jealous hoarding of information, or striving to make it more entertaining or otherwise “news-worthy” so it’ll get attention through shock value.

Interfaith peace activist Daniel Buttry presents a better explanation for the problem with mainstream news media, than simply saying the mainstream doesn’t like “good” or “happy” news, seeming to thrive mainly on what shocks, frightens, disgusts, and entertains us.

He stated that the mainstream news media focus on crises: Much of the work being done by more cooperative media agencies and individuals focuses behind the scenes, which is important (though often overlooked) for putting the big news in context. The less “interesting,” behind-the-scenes stuff is what helps people truly understand what the major cultural milestones, public policy changes, government overthrows, wars, and peace revolutions around the world are really about.

Behind-the-scenes work is done on the “incremental level,” Buttry says; since the mainstream news focus is on speed of delivery, the mainstream news is actually incapable of covering the kinds of stories presented on ReadtheSpirit.com and discussed at MPC meetings, stories which show gradual change and the dawning of hope in our communities and the world at large.

This is a fascinating paradigm shift away from treating the news as intellectual property. The idea that would-be competitors are welcome to re-brand each others’ content, and even add material to it that speaks directly to their target audience, is presently an unfamiliar approach to most people accustomed to the more traditional competitive news approach.

As such, it’s an approach I look forward to seeing more and more. My hope is that gradually, this cooperative model will begin to infiltrate the mainstream news, and the mainstream news will no longer be restricted by its need for speed and will have the freedom to offer more well-rounded, well-informed, inclusive news coverage that truly serves as a complete history of the world, rather than a history of seemingly-isolated incidents taken out of context and thus not really helping people understand anything.

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Illustration by Karla Joy Huber, 2004; colored pencil, metallic gel pen, ball point pen, feathers, dried flower petals

Metropolitan Detroit Celebrates Religious Unity in Diversity at the 16th Annual World Sabbath for Religious Reconciliation

The culmination of another successful year of interfaith peacemaking was the World Sabbath for Religious Reconciliation, a Detroit-area tradition since 2000. The World Sabbath is a yearly gathering of over a dozen different faith groups wishing to share prayers and praise music with each other, hosted at a different house of worship each year. On January 25, 2015, it was held in the beautiful main sanctuary of Adat Shalom Synagogue in Farmington Hills.

Originally held at Christ Church Cranbrook, which it outgrew several years ago, the World Sabbath was founded by Reverend Rodney Reinhart as a way for Detroit area congregations of various faiths to show their solidarity with each other for the shared goal of increasing inter-religious cooperation. It also gives faith groups, who each have their own separate holy days, the opportunity to share a holy day in common.

Reinhart used the energy from his passionate opposition to wars and other conflicts carried out in God’s name to found this wonderful event, which takes an interfaith committee the whole year to plan. This makes it much more than a once-per-year event: People of several different faiths meet regularly throughout the year to work toward the goal of showcasing the efforts of their congregations to celebrate how their differences make for a richer faith and cultural experience for everyone, in an area of the country that has a long history of both fierce segregation and great diversity.

Faiths represented by prayer, music, or dance this year were Judaism, Islam, Sikhism (Sikhi), Hinduism, Christianity, Native American spirituality, Buddhism, the Baha'i Faith, Unificationism (a religion of reconciliation from Japan), Jainism, and Zoroastrianism. Other faiths have also been represented in previous years, and the next World Sabbath may include faiths which are new to the event or which simply didn’t participate this year.

Another feature of each year’s World Sabbath is the presenting of the World Sabbath Peace Award, which this year was given to Robert (Bob) Bruttell. Bruttell is Chairman and President of the Interfaith Leadership Council of Metropolitan Detroit, and is also involved in and has helped co-found other interfaith initiatives. He’s been the recipient of other interfaith-related awards, and been recognized by DTE Energy and the THAW program for his support of their initiatives to help needy Detroiters with their home energy bills during the winter.

Other mainstays of the World Sabbath are the Interfaith Pledge said by clergy and other faith-community-leaders present, the Responsive Prayer for Peace led by one of the leaders of the host congregation, and the singing of the song “We Are the Children of Peace” by the children who participated by making peace banners to wave at the event.

The emphasis of the World Sabbath is and always has been the involvement of children, youth, and young adults in interfaith and intercultural education and peacemaking. Children and youths say the prayers, sing the songs, and perform the dances at the World Sabbath, and leading up to the event they are brought together to create peace banners. In previous years these banners have been sewn into quilts, which now number seven or eight, that are displayed at the event and available to be borrowed by area congregations who request them to display.

It was announced, amid cheers from the audience, that the World Sabbath Committee decided to change the date from late January to early November, so attendees won’t have to drive, some from long distances, to attend in the worst weather of the year. The next World Sabbath will be November 8, 2015, at Fort Street Presbyterian Church in Detroit.

Further adding to the colorfulness of the event was the bagpipe recessional, this year led by student Roland Hill of Harrison High School in full traditional Scottish regalia. An afterglow in the social hall concluded the event.

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Image: “Dove Ascending” by Karla Joy Huber, 2007, Prismacolor marker and Sharpie marker