I wish we'd taken a selfie or something -but of course, I knew I'd see him and Natalie again, soon. He was helping a friend with an art exhibit. To say it's been on my mind since is an understatement. I was heading to a wedding when my office gave me the news of Steve's murder and I nearly drove off the road. It certainly has given me an insight into the internal struggle waged by the people we interview on Dateline, particularly when they tell me 'things like this are the kind of thing that happens not to me, but to someone else.' Well, this feels exactly like that.Įxcept of course, it didn't. If you cover murder as much as I do, maybe it was only a matter of time before that touched me in some personal way. Maybe I shouldn't be surprised, I thought. But I've never before said the words 'my friend was murdered,' and it still sounds strange coming out of my mouth. In my case, I've seen friends and family members taken by cancer, automobile accidents, and plane crashes. I've lost people I cared about before - we all have. His death is a brutal loss for a lot of people, and I'm nowhere near the top of that list. He was only 59, engaged to be married to Natalie, a wonderful woman who adored him and the life they shared.
We must do the work, each of us, and the time is now to move ahead.Except now Steve is dead, murdered outside his office in Phoenix. No one will swoop down upon public life and politics like a knight on a white horse to “save” us. We fell back into our old, prevailing habits.Įach of us can help to set the new conditions we so desperately need and want through out daily words and actions. I believe, for instance, the reason that our pledges for change after 9/11 did not stick was that we did have enough of a foundation upon which to build a more robust, vibrant public life and politics. If you look back over the course of American history, moments of great change were always preceded by a collection of smaller actions that set the conditions – the right environment – to galvanize larger change. There are small everyday actions we can take to reweave the fabric of our communities – and to be citizens again, not just consumers.ĭuring a discussion last night here in Las Vegas, one person asked me if I thought such change could ever come about. Each of us as individuals can think about our relationship to our local schools, to children, and to our neighbors.Connie, the ex-wife of Dwight Lamon Jones, 56, told Dateline in an interview. Journalists can more accurately reflect the realities of people’s lives and move away from sensationalism, hype, and conflict-driven stories. The former wife of an Arizona man suspected of killing six people said he was her own personal terrorist. Dateline NBC Unraveled Play 40 min playlistadd In one of his most memorable classic episodes, Josh Mankiewicz reports on the race against time to make a connection between several.Private sector leaders can engage in their development work and community leadership in ways that reflect the values and aspirations of their communities – to view their work as part of the community rather separate from the community.This will require moving away from “mechanistic responses” and engaging in a new level of being “ruthlessly strategic” and spreading a sense of hope ( This was the subject of the previous entry).
Foundation officers and heads of non-profit groups can conduct their work in ways that both address core social needs and build community at the same time.For different people, such actions will take different forms. And it is only through our collective actions that change will emerge. I remember a woman from Richmond, VA., one of the people I interviewed for the book in 1998, turning to me and saying, “If you look at the whole picture of everything that is wrong, it is so overwhelming you just retreat back.” Many people share her feelings and sense of frustration.īut my response to the question about what each of us can do is this: none of us alone can “solve” the negative conditions in public life and politics there is too much work to be done. The negative conditions we face, and the sheer magnitude of the challenge, can be overwhelming. As I travel the country talking about Hope Unraveled and the conditions of American public life and politics, inevitably someone asks, “It’s all so overwhelming, what could I ever do to make a difference?”
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