Gregory Favre on Honorable Work

Teachers aren’t in education for the paycheck. There are certainly easier ways to make a living.  Maybe we went into it because of a love for the subject matter. Maybe it was because we love working with kids. Maybe one of our deepest desires is work that has value and integrity.

What we are faced with though, is a culture that undervalues our work, often vocally. And journalism education, with its fragile status as an elective, is especially vulnerable to budget cuts.  Not to mention the censorship that Hazelwood opened the door to.

So it was a real treat to hear a speaker as inspiring as Gregory Favre, Former ASNE President and Distinguished Fellow of Journalism Values for the Poynter Institute.  Favre called teaching “honorable work,” and made it clear that the teachers who educate the future journalists are part of the larger journalism field, too. 

I was deeply moved by Favre’s statement that we live in “a world in which the echoes of violence sound loudly in our lives.”  As I have mentioned in the workshop, one of our students was murdered this year.  Guiding my students through the process of reporting her death was the most difficult thing I have ever had to do in my professional career.  I still don’t know if we did it the “right” way.  But I also don’t know if there is a single “right” way in such circumstances.  All we can do is be truthful and thorough, but equally, sensitive and humane.  Favre quoted Eli Wiesel: “To live through a catastrophe is bad.  To forget it is worse.” By reporting the truth, we help preserve.  And that too is honorable work.

Jessica Nassau

Rockville High School

Rockville, Md.