Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, wrote a book entitled Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead (about which I intend to write a little more another time). Why do I mention it? Sandberg devotes considerable attention to the figure of the mentor. A function that in Polish reality virtually does not exist at all. In the United States, at most seminars devoted to personal development, the function of the mentor is widely discussed. It is even said that finding a mentor is a precondition of success in climbing the rungs of the corporate ladder. A mentor — that is, someone who will advise us. Mentors feel the need to take younger generations under their wings, to point out their life path and to share their experience with them. The mentoring relationship in Sandberg’s understanding is rather a direct one, yet extremely popular are the career autobiographies and self-help books written by specialists in a given field for persons just entering the profession.

That Ryszard Kapuściński was an extraordinary figure needs reminding to no one, but that he was also a great civic-minded person who had the future of journalism at heart can be learned from a new book entitled “This Is Not a Job for Cynics”. Kapuściński enthusiastically undertook to run workshops for young Latin American journalists. “When I was taking my first steps in the profession I had great masters who did not forgive me even a mistaken adjective. Today young people write anyhow. No one has time to teach them.” The great journalist could merely have complained about the state of journalism and would certainly have been listened to attentively, but as a man of action he decided to act, to change reality — not for the first time.

Kapuściński reminds us that journalism has changed because the world we live in has changed. Once it was a more closed profession, whose practitioners enjoyed respect. Great writers who began with journalism — Hemingway, Churchill — never broke with it. We live faster; in the age of the internet information changes very quickly; a dozen people work on a single news item, and the consequence of this is the loss of the sense of pride in the personal stamp impressed on our work. “Manipulation distances us from the real problems appearing in different civilisations,” information has become a business and has ceased to be a value: what counts is the speed of its delivery.

“Undoubtedly this powerful centralisation of information has reduced our knowledge of the complexity of the world in which we live.” Kapuściński is critical towards the milieu — he points out ignorance, simplifications, and insufficient education; he encourages development. An important problem the writer mentions is the loss of passion — who today does anything for an idea? What counts is the rat race. Have not all professions lost their calling? Precisely such observations attest to the weight and universality of this book; they can be applied not only to journalism but to any profession you choose.

In many reviews the word “handbook” recurs, and it is hard to escape this comparison. Ryszard Kapuściński is a great teacher who is aware of the mission carried by his position. Finding the time — in today’s rushed world, that alone is worthy of admiration. Writing guidelines for others, leaving behind something more, giving something of oneself, something important — that means having a mission. Kapuściński is a person who does not fob off a student with a single sentence but tries to explain the world to him. It is a pleasure to read the words of the great erudite — not only commenting on his own profession but also on globalisation and the state of humanity. Not only journalism “is not a job for cynics,” and not only journalists need a great mentor. Highly recommended.

P.S. In the context of the review it is worth watching the TV series Newsroom, written by Aaron Sorkin, about idealists who do not want to allow the tabloidisation of the media and for whom the honest presentation of the facts is the most important goal.

Source: http://czytatnikagi.blogspot.com/2013/06/w-poszukiwaniu-mentora-to-nie-jest.html

source: kapuscinski.info