This post was amended July 16, 2022

Dedicated True Writer readers may recall I wrote a new statement of purpose late last year. While my brain liked the angle, my heart and soul did not. Something was missing.

One part of me wondered why few Americans view human conduct through the lens of the four cardinal virtues. Another part wondered why few nonfiction writers anymore produce the independent, objective stories that excite readers’ hearts and minds. Was I a confused soul, or were my two concerns related?

My provisional thesis is that too much of the nonfiction world has become stale and tired; decadent you might say. The same stories are repeated over and over. To be sure, some non-academic writers such as journalists have produced great works over the last generation. Yet too many stories either are egotistic or predictably partisan.  There’s a lack of boldness, vigor, realism, and originality. While TV enjoys a golden age with realism-soaked shows such as “Better Call Saul,” too many non-fiction books and articles are overly simplistic. 

To be sure, the reasons for the malaise are many, but the diagnosis remains the same. The old boy needs to be reinvigorated and renewed. 

With that in mind, I drew up a new statement of purpose. Please let me know your thoughts.

True Writer provides tools for aspiring and professional writers and reporters. Some are for professional development—productivity, research, style, organization. Others are for growth in virtue and character.

The site aims to help writers become not only good but also good at being writers. It differs from other writing and journalism blogs by producing articles that are practical, non-ideological, fair, thoughtful, and meaningful.

The site is dedicated to two principles.

1. Independent and objective writing should provide value to readers, especially by showing and explaining to them sub-cultures and worlds they knew little or nothing about.

2. Practicing the four cardinal virtues–prudence, justice, courage, and temperance–is essential to producing transcendent work.

Think of the qualities displayed in George Orwell’s best books, Joan Didion’s early-to-mid career essays, Robert Hayden’s “Those Winter Sundays,” Michael Kelly’s dispatches on the Gulf War, Nicholas Lemann’s The Promised Land, David Simon’s Homicide, Lawrence Wright’s book on Scientology, and John Carreyrou’s Bad Blood.

Of the two principles, the professional one is under the most obvious attack in a digital age. The internet has been a high tide for commentators but a low ebb for reporters. Readers read to confirm their biases rather than to seek different points of view. Social media tempts writers, in the spirit of Narcissus before the reflecting pool, to write for themselves rather than for readers. And artificial intelligence threatens to produce computers that write creatively.

 The site’s moral vision runs contrary to human nature in general and journalists’ skeptical nature specifically. Yet True Writer believes virtue ethics are broadly compatible with the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics, based as they are on the principles of seeking truth, minimizing harm, acting independently, and being accountable and transparent.

Any worthwhile venture has obstacles. One hundred years ago, they were physical as much as anything else. “Men wanted for hazardous journey,” British explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton wrote allegedly in a recruitment ad to the South Pole. “Small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger.”

 Today, the obstacles are more emotional and spiritual. True Writer aims to show the way forward.

 Please sign up for my email list. Go to the home page, type in your address, check your email, and confirm.