New Jedis Out Of Undiscovered Country – Journalism For Expansive Development!

"Undiscovered Country" is the name of a new digital adventure series by the American Image Comics; here is its teaser[1]:

Journey into the near future, and an unknown nation that was once the United States of America – a land that’s become shrouded in mystery after walling itself off from the rest of the world without explanation over thirty years ago.

Actually, not only the US of A but also the Philippines and the rest of the world have walled off their journalism from serving their own people!

The term Undiscovered Country came to me a few minutes ago, at about half past 3 in the early morning of Monday, 30 December 2019 Manila time – I had thought of it independently of Image Comics' series of the same title first published 06 November 2019[2].

I am a science journalist, and I do use my wild imagination, but I do not write science fiction; rather, I write nonfiction, journeying into the future. I am actually thinking of the concept of journalism for inclusive development as an undiscovered country all over the world, much more undiscovered so by journalists in any of the arts and sciences.

I have just been reviewing and relearning from the mental and manual works of our National Hero Jose Rizal, as a result of which I published early the morning of 30 December 2019, the anniversary of his execution, the essay, "Jose Rizal Teaches Us The Heroic Business Of Inclusive Growth, Nay Development![3]"

Beginning today, after my science journalism of 44 years, starting 16 April 1975 when I became the Editor in Chief of the Forest Research Institute, FORI (now the Ecosystems Research & Development Bureau), based at the upper campus of the University of the Philippines Los Baños – I want to graduate from the mundane to the magical.

Now, I am going to make a surreal adventure out of this; so borrowing from the Star Wars series, I am thinking of each of the new science journalists for development as a jedi, acronym for journalist for expansive development initiatives, where according to the American Heritage Dictionary, the word expansivehas these senses[4]: 1. Capable of expanding. 2. Broad in size or extent; comprehensive. 3. Open and communicative; talkative or effusive. For the new science journalism, I have reinvented the concept of "inclusive development" into "expansive development."

The new science journalist, the jedi, is the new inspirer for the villages to rise from poverty and stay up there!

Meanwhile, old-style journalism continues to serve individual interests, not communal. I envy neither the media awards, singular, nor monetary rewards, plural, of Rappler in journalism exemplified by those of its CEO Maria Ressa. What Rappler is doing is simply investigative journalism, and has not discovered the higher form of journalism: expansive journalism.

It will take so many jedis to work the magic of journalism for so many villages to grow from poverty to prosperity for one and all.

Let us welcome the new jedis!
To begin to celebrate 2020.@517

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[1]https://imagecomics.com/comics/series/undiscovered-country

[2] https://imagecomics.com/comics/releases/undiscovered-country-1

[3]https://kitanijournalism.blogspot.com/2019/12/jose-rizal-teaches-us-heroic-business.html

[4]https://www.thefreedictionary.com/expansive