This weekend, I bought a newspaper.

Sure, I’ve bought them in the past. But this time, it was more than the simple business transaction it used to be. When I handed over my $1.50, I swelled with the same sense of noble do-gooding I feel when I donate money to save an endangered animal or a threatened rainforest. Sure, I believe in those causes, but right now, I think journalism needs to be reminded that I believe in it, too.

I have wanted to be a journalist since I was 11 years old. OK, that’s not quite true. I wanted to sit at a desk with a camera pointed at me, my hair perfectly coiffed and my power suit starched, reading the news in a way that suggested my deep-seated distress for the kitten in the tree one minute and the heartfelt accolades for the girl who won the local spelling bee the next. To me, journalism was a combination of deftly executed facial expressions, all subtle brow wrinkles and head tilts.

It wasn’t until I got to college that my ambitions took a loftier turn. Since my university lacked a broadcast journalism major, I reluctantly enrolled in the next closest thing: print journalism. Though my dreams of staring meaningfully into the camera might not come to pass, the glory of my byline radiating from atop the page would suffice. I pictured the trench coats I would wear as I prowled the campus for the “scoop.” I pictured myself using words like “scoop.” This possibility was more inviting than the starched power suit: I was sold.

A number of journalism classes later, I was disappointed to discover that journalism wasn’t the glamorous profession I’d envisioned. After covering such trifling events as “parent’s weekend,” I began a mental tally of the number of these stories I’d have to cover before I could expect to see my face plastered beside Maureen Dowd’s. I won’t bore you with the calculations, but the answer was, succinctly, a lot.

But I discovered something. Journalism — real journalism — means finding the interesting, the obscure, the truth in the seemingly banal. Anyone can report facts. A journalist looks past the facts and asks “why?”

There is nothing glamorous about sitting in front of a computer at 3 a.m, surrounded by mounds of scribbled notes, with a blank page staring at you, the cursor blinking expectantly like a foot tapping, waiting for you to type something true and real, something that captures the essence of all those notes. It is a grave responsibility. It is a daunting responsibility, and nothing is further removed from the glow of the studio lights or the flick of the touch-up brush.

When I handed over my $1.50 for my newspaper, I did it because I believe in journalism. Sure, I love newspapers. They make handy fly swatters, and I can think of no better material with which to housetrain my hypothetical puppy. But I don’t care if my news comes printed on a souvenir grain of rice or expelled in smoke from the back of a plane. To obsess over the delivery is to miss the point. No matter how it’s told, journalism will live on. There are enough people willing to do the unglamorous dirty work — who want to know “why” so much that it doesn’t matter that it’s difficult, lonely and often thankless. Journalists have endured torture and imprisonment. You think these people are going to stop telling stories because the paper is gone? Losing the paper isn’t going to silence journalism. As long as there are stories, there are journalists who will risk life and limb to tell them.

“How do you know?” you ask, the incredulous reporter that you are. “Who are these people who are willing to do so much, just for a story?”

This is one “who” that’s easy to answer: Because I’m one of them.

Original Post

On Feb. 27 to March 2, almost 12,000 young people gathered at the Convention Center in Washington D.C. for Power Shift 2009.

Power Shift is an annual event that encourages young people to lobby for environmental causes. This year, participants attended three days of forums, lectures and workshops about environmental issues and lobbying. The event culminated on March 2 with a day of lobbying on capitol hill.

The lobby of the Washington Convention Center was filled with people passionate about the environment during PowerShift 2009.Photo by Christopher Toothman

The second largest student group at Power Shift 2009 came from Middlebury College, a small liberal arts college in Vermont. Nearly 10% of Middlebury’s student population—194 students—travelled 500 miles to attend Power Shift.

Middlebury’s enthusiastic participation is due, in part, to a campus-based environmental activist group called the Saturday Night Group, or SNG. As Middlebury senior Chester Harvey explains, “SNG is a group of kids on the Middlebury Campus—anywhere from 15 kids on a night to 150 kids on a night—that meet in a room on campus every Sunday night at 9pm. And we talk about issues related to climate change, energy use, and other environmental issues.”

Nate Blumenshine, another senior member of SNG, calls Power Shift the “logical national coalition for us [SNG] to be a part of.” Both groups focus on empowering individuals within the environmental movement. “That’s what I think a grassroots movement is all about,” Blumenshine says. “People feeling really important in their role, and feeling really unique in their role, but at the same time being way, way bigger.”

Nate Blumenshine attends a PowerShift rally on the lawn of the U.S. Capitol. Photo by Christopher Toothman

At the end of their second day at Power Shift, the students from Middlebury College gathered in the Convention Center Lobby and walked to the National Mall to take pictures of the group in front of the capitol. While walking downtown, first-year student Kelsey Calhoun told me about the lasting impression Power Shift had made on her. The panels and speakers had convinced her to continue lobbying after she returned to Vermont. “I’m going to go home and start writing letters, start talking, start making my voice heard—to use the cliché,” Calhoun said.

One of the panels that made such a strong impression on Calhoun was “The Road To Copenhagen.” The panel featured several speakers including Middlebury professor Bill McKibben. The forum was so popular that it filled to capacity both days that it ran, and organizers had to turn away people at the door. The panel discussed the expectations and goals that need to be met in the upcoming global Climate Conference in Copenhagen in December 2009.

McKibben is one of the founders of www.350.org, an organization focused on reducing carbon emissions and combating climate change. 350.org emphasizes the need to reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide to 350 parts per million—a number identified by some scientists as the upper limit of CO2 that can exist in the atmosphere without catastrophic results.

McKibben re-iterated the timely importance of Power Shift: “2009 is the most important year we’ve ever had in dealing with climate,” McKibben insists. “We’ve got this huge international meeting in Copenhagen coming up, we’ve got the Obama administration so there’s the possibility of doing something right—we’ve got to make it happen.”

Posted by Christopher Toothman

Whitney Gratton: Photographer
Jason Sparks: Audio Reporter

Inaugural Dance Party from Jason Sparks on Vimeo

This piece is featured in the IE Premiere.