A statue of Bruce Lee displayed on Hong Kong's Avenue of Stars.Bruce Lee? What’s he got to do with journalism? It’ll make sense. I promise.
It wasn’t that long ago that I was a wanna-be journalist desperate for pointers on how to become a published writer. I still listen pretty intently to everyone who has writing advice to give. So you can probably imagine my surprise when other students started asking me about how they could get their work published.
“You’re looking for help from who? Really?”
After writing for The News Record, Cincinnati Magazine, and blogging for the The Root, perhaps I do have some decent experience under my belt. But it’s still surreal to be the adviser instead of the advisee. I’m not sure the learner has quite become the master yet.
But students like me – who still freshly remember having never been published before – might just have some really useful insights for new journalists. I’m that step between where they are and where they want to be.
So I started thinking about everything I learned from all the wiser, more experienced journalists I’ve been able to study with. Everything Kathy Wilson taught me about protecting no one in the pursuit of truth and developing a distinctive voice. What Elissa Sonnenberg told me about being versatile and well-rounded. The lessons from Len Penix about style and solid reporting skills and what Aiesha Little taught about imagery and pacing. The insights I picked up from Jenny Wohlfarth about casting a wide net with research and how to synthesize all the information into something relevant and useful. Finally, with all the experience of the last couple years swimming in my head and Jon Hughes’ driving passion for journalism compelling me, the great piece of advice I was looking for finally came.
So here it is:
Of all the great kung-fu legends out there, Bruce Lee has to be one of the greatest. He wasn’t just a fighter and an actor; he was a philosopher, a teacher, and an author, too.
He came up with his own approach to martial arts (which is still pretty widely practiced today) called Jeet Kune Do – “the way of the intercepting fist.” It grew out of his broader philosophy – using “no way as way.” Lee said that to express themselves completely and effectively, people had to grow beyond “styles.” He argued that the ultimate goal of training was self knowledge. Once you mastered everything you’re capable of doing, you could improvise naturally to whatever presented itself and not have to rely on some kind of artificial playbook to win a fight – or perhaps even a job, or a relationship.
One of the best illustrations Lee used to explain this was water. You can watch a fascinating interview here from the early ‘70s where he talked about it at length. “You put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put it into a bottle it becomes the bottle. Put it into a teapot, it becomes the teapot,” Lee said.
You can use water to clean a dish, or put it in a pitcher and drink it, or grow flowers with it, or swim in it, or wear down a mountainside with it, or fight a fire with it, or freeze a fish with it, or us a dam to power a city with it... but whatever you’re doing with it, it’s still just H2O. And no guidebook, method, or training course in the world is ever going to tell you everything you could possibly do with it. You use water most effectively when you have an open mind about what water can do.
To make it in the media climate out there right now, when it seems like every week there’s talk of another newspaper going under and everyone is scrambling to adapt to the web, being formless like water is the name of the game. New writers (and plenty of experienced writers, too, now that I think about it) have to learn to fit into whatever a publication or website needs and be willing to change shape as the situation demands. We have to learn every formal journalistic medium we can – not because one of them will be some 12-step, 5-year path to success, but instead so we can improvise with whatever opportunity presents itself.
But it’s important to know that Lee spent years studying conventional styles – Kung-Fu, Jujitsu, western boxing, even fencing – before he arrived at Jeet Kune Do. You have to understand the formal styles so that even when you break the rules, you do it in a way that means something. You have to know AP style backwards and forwards but be able to go with the flow when somebody springs some Chicago style on your butt (or better yet, maybe you should know both). After years of newspapers and blogging and TV work, be ready and willing when they tell you to twitter and podcast.
At the same time, each of us has to maintain an original personality and create a brand out of our talents to stand out from the crowd. If you lose yourself completely in the work, your perspective on the truth becomes less reliable. You also won’t have any more to offer as an individual than the next cookie-cutter, jack-of-all-trades that comes through the door. And if your identity gets lost in the shuffle, is doing what you do even worth it anymore? You still have to be H2O.
But a funny thing happens when you throw everything you got into whatever story that’s in front of you. When I wrote things for The Root, all I wanted was to tell the truth and give that publication what it wanted. When I wrote things for Cincinnati Magazine, all I wanted was to tell the truth and give that publication what it wanted. Each genre or publication required very different things. But somehow, without ever intending it, Star Wars kept showing up. I just happen to be an incurable nerd. The less I tried to make it sound like me, the more the final product ended up sounding like me.
“Water can flow or creep or drip or crash,” Lee said. But I guess whatever its doing, water is still water.
~ Geoffrey Dobbins
Vice President, UCABJ
