Pursuing an Ethic of Empathy in Journalism by Janet Blank-Libra

Author:Janet Blank-Libra [Blank-Libra, Janet]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Media Studies, Language Arts & Disciplines, Journalism, Communication Studies
ISBN: 9781317272281
Google: LW19DAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2016-06-23T03:23:23+00:00

Nellie Bly

In 1887, John Cockerill, managing editor of Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World, hired Nellie Bly to feign insanity so that she could be committed to Blackwell’s Island Insane Asylum in order to reveal its horrors with details gathered during 10 days of firsthand observation. Bly’s (1887) work, “Ten Days in a Mad-House,” reflects the desire of the publisher to sell papers and the desire of the reporter to play a role in the pursuit of justice. Her work reveals, as well, a reporter who both did and did not understand that empathy could lead to accurate, deep representations of individuals and groups. Both in “Ten Days in a Mad-House” and in “Six Months in Mexico,” less so in the first than in the second, Bly made public the heart and mind of a writer influenced, as were Riis and Crane, by her own biases and despite her best intentions. She did not fully understand how an ethic of empathy could function constructively.

To some degree Bly’s “Ten Days” reflects the principles laid out by empathy theorists today. She was not influenced by the stereotype of the “crazy woman.” Rather, she was open to the possibility that some, perhaps many, of the women were sane. Rendered invisible in a society that had yet to be influenced by the vision and courage of the suffragettes, these women’s lives illustrated the worst kind of oppression: they had been disempowered and dehumanized by their fellow human beings, often for the sin of diverging from behavioral norms of the day.

If she possessed biases against these women, she apparently found a way to disable them, perhaps through her ability to empathize as a woman who understood the elusive nature of fairness and justice. Though not perfectly so, she does give to the women she meets in the asylum as authentic a voice as they were likely to get at the time. Her story offers rich detail that takes the reader into the lives of the women. Hearing Bly’s voice, we understand that she has listened for the verbal and the nonverbal, for the subtleties and the concrete details that could actually inspire reform—the ultimate empathetic and compassionate act.

The reader comprehends Bly’s ability to be open to others as she witnesses a conversation and describes a scene in which a woman named Miss Tillie Mayard asks a doctor why she has been committed to the asylum. Their conversation goes as follows:

“Have you just found out you are in an insane asylum?” asked the doctor.

“Yes; my friends said they were sending me to a convalescent ward to be treated for nervous debility, from which I am suffering since my illness. I want to get out of this place immediately.”

“Well, you won’t get out in a hurry,” he said, with a quick laugh.

“If you know anything,” she responded, “you should be able to tell that I am perfectly sane. Why don’t you test me?”

“We know all we want to on that score,” said the doctor, and he left the

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