With attacks on the rule of law, and calls for authoritarianism coming from multiple sources, the unthinkable has become a distinct possibility. Democracy is clearly under attack. Those of us who believe in democracy need to stand firm now, not wait to protect the way of life we believe in. If authoritarianism is adopted, the rule of law disappears, If the rule of law disappears, lawyers do not have a job anymore.
If authoritarianism is put in place to replace democracy, the economy falls apart. Capitalism depends on democracy. Democracy is what protects the rule of law and the right of individuals to own companies. We need to come together as a whole and defend democracy with a single-minded purpose.
John B Livingstone, MD, FRSH. has a plan to create workshops for journalists that address the polarization getting traction in the US political environment. John is seeking to provide journalists with new insight into how to manage emotion. John is on the Harvard Medical School Faculty Academy; Founding Director of Child Psychiatry Service -McLean; Coauthor- of “Relationship Power in Health Care.”
A team of us, many involved at Harvard, have designed a set of continuing education workshops to support journalists in their portrayal of democracy, the development, and communication skills that work for people on a local level and in a democratic society. In an era of unprecedented attacks on democracy, those attacks are likely to succeed because of the very high levels of funding given to these attacks there is real concern about the viability of democracy going forward.
We need to train journalists who are at the forefront of the battle to protect democracy. The workshops are informed by professionals in communities and leaders through journalists, by providing the newest psychological skills for preventing and decreasing combative attitudes and polarization in the public and preventing journalist burnout. We are responding to a current need. There is enormous urgency to get these journalist training workshops going.
Years ago, John Livingstone spent lunches with the Nieman Fellows when Bill Headline (then CNN Washington Bureau Chief) was at Nieman. The lunches were able to change journalist behavior with respect to the management of murder reporting. John is looking to replicate the positive effect on journalist behavior by funding new workshops and connecting with someone who could engage workshop participants.
Trying to find a single strategy that can be adopted by everyone is bound to be more effective than disjointed efforts to find different ways of trying to defend democracy. By working together to achieve the desired goal, it is more certain to protect the rule of law.
Now the effort to defeat any authoritarianism movement in the US needs a concerted focused effort. Why not try to reach journalists with workshops that provide new insights into how to manage emotions? After all, journalism is truly an approach to appealing to the reader's emotions. The emotions being brought by a concerted concentration on fear and anger in an effort to defeat democracy are truly different than what democracy has encountered before. If we all work together with the same aim, we have more likelihood of protecting democracy. Could we not agree on the aim of reaching journalists through workshops?