Haines Falls, New York
4 October 2002

My dear friends in media, journalism, and the arts,

I have been thinking recently about the call we answered when we chose to do the work we do – to make art, report news stories, stage dramas, produce films and television programs, make music, and so on. I used to laugh with my friends and say, “I’m so glad I am not in medicine. No one dies if I make a mistake.” But over the past several years as I have talked with hundreds of you in various cities and reflected on the impact of our work, I am beginning to question this. Perhaps ours is a life and death businesses – though life and death of a different order.

As I have thought about the work we do and the impact we have, I have remembered some of the most powerful messages of our times – the photo of Nelson Mandela and F.W. de Klerk holding hands in a soccer stadium, images from space of the earth spinning slowly like a blue marble in a sea of black, speeches by Czechoslovakian president and playwright Vaclav Havel about courage and vision, accounts by Victor Frankl of man’s search for meaning in the concentration camps of Nazi Germany. I get a shiver of excitement when I see the parade of nations before the Olympic games and a lump in my throat when I hear a children’s choir. I think, on reflection, that ours may be a life and death business, giving hope on the one hand and snuffing it out on the other.

Some journalists insist, “We just report on what happens in the world. We don’t make these images or tell these stories. We just show up with our camera or word processor and capture them. It is others who take the action; all we do is recount what happened – spread the word, pass along the account so others can know about it too. In fact some say it isn’t even professional for us to put ourselves into the story or the image. We are just the eyes and ears of the societies we represent.

However, I know that isn’t so, because if that were true there would be no heroes or visionary leaders in our midst. And that simply isn’t the case. There is Veran Matick who with others started B92 radio in Belgrade to keep the voice of freedom alive. There is Nick Ut, the Associated Press photographer who took the photo of Kim Phuc in Viet Nam when she was covered with shrapnel and then put down his camera and rushed her to the nearest hospital. There was the creative team at McCann Erickson who with Coca Cola created the ad singing, “I want to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony” and the musicians who came together for the first Live Aid concert to raise money for famine relief in Africa.

On any given day in any given place in the world there are hundreds and thousands of events taking place, of histories unfolding. Most go unrecorded. Most are of kind and civil people living lives of quiet dignity – raising their children, supporting their communities, worshipping in their churches, temples or mosques. These people are our friends and our neighbors and we move among them on the roads, in restaurants and shops exchanging greetings and stories, creating our own lives.

The only difference is that when we go to do our jobs, our work has to do with capturing the stories and images of their lives and amplifying them, sharing their stories with a bigger audience. Out of all that happens we choose which ones are worthy of retelling and this is where we distinguish ourselves: in the choices we make and how well we convey their stories.

There is a mystery to this process. Two photographers can be standing at the same site, yet they will see and capture two different images. Hundreds of journalists can be at the same event. They will come away with hundreds of different renditions of what happened. How many songwriters have written about imaging the future? But only John Lennon wrote the song “Imagine”. As is our vision, so is our world. We cannot write about something we cannot see.

This takes us to the subject of what we might call our inner media and the quality of mind that distinguishes greatness. Within each of us there is a stream running all the time, it bubbles along – sometimes louder, sometimes softer – but always running. It is a running commentary about our lives and the world of which we’re apart. In some it is a stream of regrets – paths not taken, opportunities lost, and of fear – ominous futures leading to foreboding places. In others it is a stream of possibilities – doors standing open, paths leading to new beginnings, warm memories of those who have loved us and counted us as important in their lives. The minds populated by these different qualities of streams cannot have the same kind of vision and they cannot create the same quality of story or image. One kind of vision makes us weary. Another makes us strong.

I started by talking about media and how glad I am that it is not a life and death business, but clearly giving hope to the world is a life and death business – especially in times as fragile as ours. While it is true that many of us do work for businesses and those businesses have to make money, it is also true that we are in service to the world – our world – the one we live in with all of the people we write about, sing about, and photograph.

Societies turn to their artists and media when they need to make sense of what is happening around them: they want to know which of the things happening are most important, which they should be paying attention to. They want to know how to interpret what happened and perhaps most important they want to know what they can do.

When the World Trade Center was struck by two planes on September 11 last year, the citizens of New York City began to form lines at Red Cross Centers and hospitals around the city. As the hours after the attack wore on, the lines grew longer. The staffs at the centers came out and told the people to go home. There was no one to collect their blood, nothing to put their blood in and no one to receive their blood. But they continued to stand in line for hours because they wanted to be of service and they couldn’t think of anything else to do. This same thing happens in earthquakes in Turkey, in train crashes in Peru, in all human tragedies. This is one of the wonderful things about humans – we want to be of service. And that is equally true of those of us in journalism, media and the arts.

We are at a time in history when humanity needs a sense of what is best in the world, of what kind of a future might lie ahead and of what we might do together to create that kind of future. We can do a great deal towards clarifying this. But first we must clear the streams of thought running through our own minds. We cannot shine a light on current events or future possibilities if there is no light in our own minds. We cannot see and amplify the thousands of small acts of kindness and heroism if we are not feeling charity in our own hearts.

Images and Voices of Hope is a call for engagement in the life-giving work of creating images and stories of possibility and hope. And let me be clear. This is not about happy talk – about pretending that bad things don’t happen. It is about cultivating minds that have a quality of compassion and generosity, and vision that can see what’s best in the world –even in difficult situations. It is about being wise enough to recognize that cynicism often passes for sophistication and it is about being courageous enough to know that creating images and voices of hope is what gives life to our world.

We have not come together today to listen to speeches from experts. We have come together for a dialogue among colleagues – to reflect on the impact of media in South Africa and to think together about what we might do to be agents of benefit, so the societies we serve might cultivate strength and imagination for the road ahead.

Let’s take full advantage of our time together.

With warmest regards,

Judy Rodgers
Director
Images & Voices of Hope