A Well-Informed Approach to Journalistic Patronage

Your patronage reflects your qualities as a leader.  It reflects your ethics.  It reflects your aesthetic preferences.  It reflects your knowledge and your interests and your hopes.  It may even reflect your social status and/or financial status, but not necessarily.

In most situations, if you are a relatively enlightened being, demonstrating your skills as an enlightened moderator, an enlightened patron, or as an enlightened leader of another description, or practicing your enlightenment through any other appropriate expression, will cost you nothing more than a few moments of your time, yet the rewards are likely to be substantial in terms of societal improvement.

Perhaps you assess news in the same way you assess music, literature and the visual arts.

Enlightened initiative is the most important quality of any leader, but what does that really mean in practice?

What do you know about initiative in relation to art, society, religion, politics, journalism and patronage?

If you are already acquainted with the work of the Adelaide Adagia News Ensemble, you will be aware of the cultural guidance its members receive from Professor Warra of the International Training Centre for the Harmonious Interplay of Beauty, Understanding and Magnificence.

From whom do you usually receive cultural guidance, and why?

How have you compared your patronages with your memberships and other social connections? 

How do you usually regard conveyors and purveyors of news?

How do you usually decide which news is most relevant to you?

Perhaps you do not regard the Adelaide Adagia News Ensemble as the most relevant entity to support at present.

Perhaps you do not trust the ensemble.

Perhaps you are unfamiliar with its work.

Perhaps you can see no value in what it does.

Perhaps the ensemble does not entertain you as much as you would prefer.  

Perhaps the ensemble indirectly reminds you of your ignorance too much.

Perhaps the ensemble indirectly reminds you of your arrogance too much.

Perhaps the ensemble indirectly contributes to your feelings of irrelevance and/or worthlessness.

Perhaps you regard the members of the ensemble as too remote from you and your current way of life, and possibly even from your current system of beliefs.

The Adelaide Adagia News Ensemble is not associated with broadcasts or divination or advertising campaigns, in any way whatsoever.  Its members take a reasonably skeptical approach to the assessment of purportedly scientific models.  They regard economic models as much the same as divination in most contexts.

How have you assessed your ideological stance, and who else has done so?

How do you assess the quality of a composition?

How do you prevent yourself from expressing excessive formalism and excessive eclecticism?

How do you prevent yourself from expressing excessive formality and excessive informality?

Perhaps you are too modest about your accumulation and expression of enlightenment.

Perhaps you experience impostor syndrome in the presence of (other) enlightened beings.

You may or may not currently have the ability to compare one image with another in an informed way. 

Do you usually regard journalism as the interpretation of images?

Perhaps you are seeking help to improve your abilities as a leader, a patron, a moderator, and possibly even as a journalist, an editor, an educator, an anti-corruption activist, a social critic, a political commentator and/or policy analyst.

How does your enlightened moderation and enlightened patronage support the public interest, including public interest journalism?

Enlightened moderation supports political pleasantness, in the public interests.  It reduces conflicts of interest.  It improves manners.  It frightens charlatans.  It reduces hypocrisy and hubris. 

Indeed, public interest journalism of sufficient quality is one of the most important societal expressions of enlightened moderation.

That type of journalism also provides one of the main sureties in support of political pleasantness, in the public interest.

Perhaps you are not interested in supporting enlightened moderation.

Perhaps you usually prefer unquestioned hyperbole, pun-filled purple prose and/or poorly composed pop songs, even during dark and stormy disasters betwixt and between the survival rule of threes and the literary rule of three.

Perhaps you enjoy alliterative expressions of journalese and the drama of sensationalist reporting.

Perhaps your journalistic preferences are reflective of aesthetic and intellectual eclecticism.

The Adelaide Adagia News Ensemble is at the forefront of transformative journalistic practices towards the greater good.

How philosophical or otherwise is your approach towards ethical and aesthetic harmony and disharmony?

How does your preferred experience of journalism convey assonance and dissonance, and why does it do so?

Which aspects of journalism strike a chord with you, and how, and why?

What is journalistic formalism, in your view?

How, if at all, do you prefer news reports to reflect scientific formalism? 

How, if at all, do your interpretations of journalism reflect artistic formalism and literary formalism and possibly even musical formalism?

How do you compare journalistic genres with music genres?

What do you know about the sociology of taste in relation to news and entertainment?

You may or may not seek publicly-available answers to your questions before (and after) seeking knowledge (or opinions) in other ways. 

Will you do so with relative formality or relative informality? 

How do you compare interpretations of relatives at one time and another?

Without enlightened moderation, and the quality supervision it implies, rudeness and incompetence, if not corruption, are usually inevitable.

Unfortunately, in every society, rudeness and incompetence are even more widespread than corruption, hence the importance of supporting enlightened moderation and public interest journalism to the best of your ability. 

But how will you do so over the months and years ahead?

Enlightened moderation, whether through public interest journalism or good leadership more generally, encourages people in positions of authority to act with diligence at all times.  Such moderation provides the necessary, independent, societal supervision, accurately critiquing expressions of authority, power and influence.

You may or may not have the initiative to informed yourself adequately about impostor syndrome, real charlatans, the overconfidence effect, diligence, surety, moderation, patronage and many other important concepts.  

Perhaps you believe you have nothing of value to offer in terms of enlightenment and patronage.

For a while now, you have been invited to initiate your patronage of the Adelaide Adagia News Ensemble.

You have apparently not yet done so.  That is obviously most disappointing to the members of the ensemble.

How, then, will you make amends?

The Adelaide Adagia News Ensemble only accepts offers of patronage from truly enlightened beings.

There is no enlightened patronage without enlightened patrons.

If you regard all your patronages to be in the public interest, how do you know that to be true?

What does enlightened initiative involve, from your point of view, apart from the consistent expression of enlightened moderation?

What do you know about the psychology of curiosity in relation to news, the arts, other sources of knowledge and various entertainments?

How do you distinguish between serious news and soft media?

In the context of journalism, how do you compare literary consonance with musical consonance and dissonance, and with political reality?

How do your various patronages reflect your experiences of cognitive dissonance?

How do you various patronages reflect your experiences of cultural dissonance?

How do you attempt to prevent yourself from developing and expressing faulty generalisations about cultural experiences, cultural preferences, politics, ethics, aesthetics, religion?

How do you prevent yourself from jumping to conclusions, or otherwise jumping around dangerously?

Perhaps you regard most journalism to be a simulacrum, a bricolage and possibly even a pastiche.

Perhaps you are contented with infotainment and churnalism rather than quality news.

All journalism by the Adelaide Adagia News Ensemble is original.  In fact, it is highly original, even when it may, at least occasionally, be mistaken for satire.

Whether as a producer or consumer of journalism, moving away from the obscene memes of aggressive headlinese, and towards ethical and aesthetic practices associated with well-informed kindness, is enlightened in itself.

Perhaps you interpret well-informed kindness as a glittering generality rather than as a measurable improvement on prior practices

How do you distinguish between:

a) supporting quality presentations of news and other information, and 

b) supporting a cacophony of ill-informed opinions, exaggerations and euphemisms?

How useful is journalistic euphony in your view, and what is it?

Perhaps you usually consume music with your experiences of news. 

How have you informed yourself about the aesthetics of journalism and the aesthetics of music?

How have you informed yourself about the ethics of journalism and the ethics of music? 

While some journalists, other writers, and artists, musicians and politicians become relatively well-known to the public, through the mass media and/or social media, some never become well known.

Some people have a desire to be well-known by strangers.  Other people have no desire whatsoever to achieve notability, notoriety or celebrity status.

Perhaps you regard the truthful reporting of relevant news as a sacred practice.

What is your attitude towards secularity?

What is your attitude towards the separation of religion and politics in the public sphere?

How do you define the words religion and politics, and why? 

What is your acquaintance with the philosophy of formalism? 

Instead of answering philosophical questions, perhaps you would rather listen to popular music and/or folk music or whatever genre of vernacular music you happen to prefer at present, at least if you happen to have the ability to hear sounds.

Perhaps you would rather inform yourself further about the composition of paintings and/or the composition of music rather than the composition of governments.

Enlightened moderation prevents relatively reasonable people from irresponsibly jumping to conclusions.  It also prevents them from dangerously jumping on bandwagons.  It encourages them to think better.  It encourages people to act more wisely.

Perhaps you practice the fallacy of composition quite regularly, and even the fallacy of division.

How do you compare low culture with high culture, and for what reasons?

How do you compare mainstream culture with alternative cultures, and why?

What is your acquaintance with reasonable freedom of the media, and the lack of it, in various parts of the world?

How do you distinguish between lightness and seriousness in various situations. including musically?

What is your knowledge of Indigenous music, Indigenous languages and Indigenous religious and political beliefs and practices, in any part of the world?

How do you distinguish between art music and other types of music?

Perhaps you are mostly interested in particular types of religious music, religious images and religious opinions.

How do you distinguish between non-religious practices and anti-religious practices?

What is your acquaintance with the history of secular music and societal secularism?

If you are relatively reasonable and responsible, you are likely to regard the enlightened moderation of quality journalism as the only possible guarantee of peace and fairness.

If you are relatively unreasonable and irresponsible, you are likely to regard enlightened moderation as boring.  You are likely to be more interested in hearing about scandals, including journalistic scandals, than in preventing scandals from arising.

Preventing corrupt practices requires advocacy of a better society, whether through advocacy journalism or reformist activism.

 What have you been learning from Hans Holbein the Elder, Hans Holbein the Younger, Ambrosius Holbein, and Margaret Roper?

What have you been learning from the art market, the music industry and political consultants?

What have you been learning about politics from and through political satire?

How do you contribute to essential civil discourse, whether through the civility of enlightened journalism or through the necessity of enlightening satire?

How is your well-informed approach to journalistic patronage a reflection of your political philanthropy?

How do you distinguish between political disasters and political diamonds? 

How do you usually assess politics, privacy and public life?

How do you contribute to enlightened educational enhancements?

How do you know you are in the picture regarding the necessity for quality journalistic patronage?

You may prefer to be a solitary patron, in which case you are unlikely to have a desire to interact with other enlightened patrons.  That is certainly your right.  Privacy is always an important consideration.

Little can be done to discourage relatively unreasonable people from acting irresponsibly, dangerously and otherwise unwisely.  Preventative measures are ignored by such individuals, and by the people encouraging their unreasonableness.

Relatively unreasonable people easily persuade themselves to rebel against any reasonable presentations of evidence.  They are not interested in advice relating to caution and precautions.

The stupidity of overly powerful people is endlessly reported upon as news at the lower end of the journalism spectrum.  That gossip is often entertaining to unreasonable people.  

Access to such gossip may even make relatively powerless people feel relevant and worthy and important.  Such delusional thinking dupes the gullible into feeling that any associated advertising is beneficial to them.

What have you discovered about gaining and maintaining a quality following, whether as an artist, musician, politician or journalist, or as any other type of communication practitioner?

What have you discovered about the enlightened being of political kindness?

How do you know you have been paying attention properly?

Perhaps you are only interested in expressing your journalistic patronage through tax deductions.  If so, why are you motivated to do so in that way?

Perhaps you care more avoid avoiding tax than improving societies.

The Adelaide Adagia News Ensemble expects all its patrons to have a well-informed approach to journalistic patronage.

The ensemble also expects enlightened patrons to have a well-informed approach to their own needs, and the needs of other people, and towards environments and other species.

Who is paying for public interest journalism appropriately and who is not?

Who is not paying for public interest journalism at all, and why?

Who is preventing public interest journalism from thriving, and for what reasons?