Failure is my favourite word. Fail at 10 things a day and see how quickly failure loses its impact on you.
I’ve been inspired this evening and made to realise just how unbreakable that ceiling can be for citizen journalists or any media that doesn’t have millionaire backing.
“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better” – Samuel Beckett
And from Oprah:
Do the one thing you think you cannot do. Fail at it. Try again. The only people who never tumble are those who never mount the high wire. – Oprah Winfrey
10 years before a sports reporter was finally justified in his claims that Lance Armstrong was a drug cheat, the Sunday Times weathered a £1m lawsuit [link]. They stuck by their reporter though. They even put out an ad for questions Oprah should ask Lance on her program.
And that’s just a whole different world from citizen journalists. If we had a million pounds or three, we’d set up a paper or a magazine. We’d even be local newspaper owners.
But the very first criteria seems to be a lack of resources. You are limited by what you can fight in court, what you can say that the wealthiest don’t want you to say, and what stories you can break as a named authority.
There is a limit to what you can do without money.
