Anthropology

In my day job, I've been forced to think a good deal about journalism and the future of journalism. One thing I've been thinking--one thing that occurs to me--is that we need a more anthropological approach to journalism. By which I mean, journalists should approach the things they cover as cultural phenomena which they cannot possibly experience as an insider and can only approach as an outsider; hopefully, their stories would then produce the same kind of disorienting effect in the reader I get from reading ethnographies about cultures in which, say, infanticide is not only not a crime, but is regarded as a rational and exemplary choice.