ABSTRACT
The conversation I was invited to lead would have an edge to it-that was for sure. It would also provide an example of how the craft of journalism can clarify-or confuse-discourse in this increasingly pluralistic country. I’d led hundreds of these conversations over the previous 20 years, most of them with journalists, professors and students of journalism and mass communication. I’d come to the view early in my time training professionals at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies that this thing called talking across difference was an essential skill. Do it well, and deeper, more meaningful and-most importantly-more accurate storytelling results. Like any skill, though, it’s developed over time through learning and practice.
