ReligionDispatches.org

Unlike wannabes from Wall Street to Hollywood, aspiring reporters don't lust for fame or fortune. Their goals are lofty: Speak truth to power; comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. Most journalists are true believers and they want to make a difference. At least, that's how they start out.

But where do they end up? And the follow-up: Where might they rather be?

The two stories most likely to dominate the news for the foreseeable future are the recession and the Middle East. In the past, key aspects of these stories have been blurred, marginalized and missed. No need to recount the coverage of WMD, Dubya's "mission accomplished" or the mortgage boom, when we can just as easily consider reporting on the bank collapse or the fate of Afghanistan. Are you reading stories that speak truth to Wall Street's power? I am not talking about the lifestyle changes that a $500,000 salary cap might require. (Can schaudenfraude alone explain why this is the New York Times' most emailed story?) Nor is Bernie Madoff the only villain. I'd like to know more about men like John Thain, Robert Rubin, Richard Fuld and the culture of greed, entitlement and soullessness that they helped to create. (Okay, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt, it's a culture that these captains of industry did not create but did nothing to change.)And what about Afghanistan? According to Richard Holbrooke, head of the administration's Pakistan and Afghanistan clean-up crew. "I've never seen anything like the mess we've inherited." But while the New York Times reports that Obama and company are disenchanted with President Karzai, the paper says he "has successfully presided over the transition of the Afghan state from the devastated, pre-modern institution it was under the Taliban to the deeply troubled but largely democratic one it is today." So who and what to believe?Would that journalists would reclaim the idealism that motivated them in the first place and tell stories that more accurately reflect our world. That won't be easy because the same corporate interests that strangled the economy also hold sway at our nation's pre-eminent news organizations. In some newsrooms, these interests are experienced as limits to what, which and how stories are told. An editor doesn't have to say "No," because reporters understand what will or won't make the cut.How to get past those restrictions is a challenge. Speaking truth to power is hard to do at home, but it is the most important religion story—that is, if you count social ethics as a spiritual good—today.Diane Winston