Sometimes journalism can help expose a problem -- like the jailing of
people simply for being in debt -- thereby leading to reform. But other
journalists -- years or generations later -- may have to keep exposing
the issue...as these
investigative journalists for the big mainstream daily in Minneapolis recently did.
"It's
not a crime to owe money, and debtors' prisons were abolished in the
United States in the 19th century. But people are routinely being thrown
in jail for failing to pay debts. In Minnesota, which has some of the
most creditor-friendly laws in the country, the use of arrest warrants
against debtors has jumped 60 percent over the past four years, with 845
cases in 2009, a Star Tribune analysis of state court data has found."
I.F.
Stone pointed out that some reforms don't happen except through the
work of generations of journalists and democracy activists:
“The
only kinds of fights worth fighting are those you are going to lose,
because somebody has to fight them and lose and lose and lose until
someday, somebody who believes as you do wins. In order for somebody to
win an important, major fight 100 years hence, a lot of other people
have got to be willing - for the sheer fun and joy of it - to go right
ahead and fight, knowing you're going to lose. You mustn't feel like a
martyr. You've got to enjoy it.”
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