“Did you enjoy the cocaine?” my fellow traveler asked in a half-laugh, amused by my naiveté in inquiring about whether he, too, had tried the coca tea in any local restaurants during the conference.

Moments before, I’d hurriedly approached a series of airport retail stores inquiring about whether they sold the Ecuadorian drink – a novelty to me I’d had no idea had any stimulant properties – so I could bring some home for family.

I don’t understand why you are even asking me this, the clerks’ eyes entreated.

I don’t understand why stores at the airport don’t clamor to sell coca tea, my eyes retorted. Do you want to lose business?

Even though the tea I’d been served earlier in the week hadn’t seemed to have any effect on me (Hm, coca … must be like cocoa, I’d reasoned, seeing it featured on a restaurant menu), I was under the influence of my ignorance about Quitoan café fare.

Sometimes I feel as though the suppression of experiences and ideas that have come out of the journalism industry are preventing meaningful communication and policy-making regarding many of the most pressing challenges facing the world by overlaying a screen of ignorance on what could, otherwise, be a more even playing field for problem-solving and debate; and I still feel that this suppression has everything to do with the influence of a stock market-integrated journalism business model.

Although, in recent weeks, news outlets have seemed to relax their defenses against proposed business model alternatives, even turning down the warped form of hyper-wokeness seemingly deployed in recent years to preempt legitimate critiques of the sincerity of their support for concepts of basic human rights, it still feels to me as though these critiques may need to be articulated – and acknowledged – for the country to feel, even intuitively, able to move forward in solidarity.

And, given that the narrative marketed by many of these organizations in recent years – that predation in the social, economic, and political spheres, while a real problem – is somehow integrated into the basic premise of American democracy when it is arguable the exact opposite is true and that it is these media corporations’ operations, which have long tended to systematically engage in civil rights abuses, outside of the parameters put forward by the American Constitution in the spirit of the Declaration of Independence that have caused such polarization in recent years, the disentanglement of what I continue to believe have been intentionally conflated problems – a great need for continued progress in the realization of civil rights in the United States and a need for the compatibility of a stock market-integrated journalistic business model and a more hopeful and unified country to be considered in an informed way – is essential, and timely.

On Sportsmanship

For some reason, especially as more punches and kick boxing-like movements have been integrated into my workout routines, I’ve found myself thinking more and more often about the example of my grandfather, whose childhood brawls with rival neighbors in immigrant-filled downtown Baltimore prepared him not only to succeed as a boxer but as a warrior for an unquestionably noble cause as a young adult. In pondering his sacrifices and contributions in this realm, it feels difficult sometimes to consider my own training and contributions to be worthy of his and others’ legacy.

I know modern fights are not physical, but they can still feature rules.

The world is filled today with those who would hunt vulnerability, mine insecurity, or appropriate the ideas of the voiceless in order to obtain power; but you can name your baby after a monarch or slap your company’s logo over the face of a renegade and still not automatically qualify to become a world leader. In the absence of a functional journalism sector, how many in power and attempting to lead today are anything but followers in disguise? There are times when individuals need to separate themselves from the larger group and say what no one wants to hear, but this needs to be for the purpose of informing and empowering – not domination.

I know I personally do not want to damage or banish any organization today, and especially not any that have done immense good for the world over the years. My hope is simply to say I hope they consider getting in the ring. Not to strike personal blows or alienate anyone, but to test ideas so we can forge more durable relationships and move forward. Societies in which only personality followers hold power either break apart or move in circles. (God save us from influencers.)

Still, today’s debate about journalism business models cannot effectively take place in the shadow, proxy, and vigilante world of powerful, but virtually accountability-free, corporate media politics. Given its relevance to the well-being and productivity of so many invaluable individuals – and even society as a whole – it will be worth engaging in civilly, certainly, but openly.

I continue to feel like a lone voice on this topic but I do not believe what has seemed to morph into a sort of apathy on the subject on the part of Americans is really permanent. It seems, to me, much more of a sort of ignorance – and not one people have actively sought. Many, today, just seem much more under the influence of it.