The school offers hands-on media training that gives students the skills to handle professional video- and photo cameras, and editing software. In addition, the curriculum offers courses in entrepreneurship, web design, writing, and media ethics. One of the goals is to prepare students to become community journalists, enabling them to tell the stories of the small communities around them. Ideally, the graduates would not only witness the development and reconstruction – or lack thereof – of their country, but also investigate and critically reflect upon it. Not only as community journalists, but also as civic journalists they could start making products that can function as forums for discussion and that can build up both their own as well as others’ social capital in the process.

In the daily practice of Haiti, this is all easier said than done. While it would be a challenge to give a similar 4-month crash course to any group of young people, trying to do it in Haiti exposes one to the country’s idiosyncratic trials.

Haitian media – they mainly exist in the form of radio and newspapers – have a long history of being mere tools to earn and secure political power. Only in the 1970s, still under Duvalier’s dictatorship, did one radio station start to air local and international news in Creole, the language of the majority of Haitians, instead of French, the language of the elite. It took until 1986, the year of Duvalier’s fall, before journalists enjoyed a meaningful freedom of the press and played a supporting role in the newly developing civil society. The military coup of 1991 that forced out Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the country’s first popularly chosen president, reintroduced the old repression of the media.

The return of Aristide and the rule of his successors have not necessarily laid the groundwork for a strong role for the media in the developing democracy. The damage to the media has endured. The well-known Haitian journalist Michele Montas-Dominique – widow of Jean Dominique who was murdered in 2000 – has lamented the “balkanization of the press.” In the 1990s, many frequencies on the FM band had been doled out to the military and the elite and many of these stations are still controlled by sponsors who do not support democratic rules of government. In addition, Montas-Dominique has long been worried about the lack of objectivity and professional ethics of Haitian journalists, many of whom are not bothered by working on the side for private and government employers.

Under the country’s ever demanding circumstances, Haiti Reporters is trying to work on the grassroots level. All the issues that have plagued Haitian journalism have been hampering speedy progress. Also, the school and its staff are significantly challenged by a lack of entrepreneurship in general and a struggle with the existing power relations – both between and among the different classes and groups. But even in these tough conditions, there is plenty of reason for optimism. Not in the least because of the highly motivated students, a few of whom have already shown that they can land jobs and internships.

So far, the school has attracted mainly students from the country’s tentatively developing middle class that, if they stay in Haiti – as opposed to fleeing or emigrating – can become a vital engine for development. For example, it has been an interesting experience for the students to make a short film about the Dance Company Tchaka Dance, that performs in the refugee camps or filming a project in Port-au-Prince’s Cité Soleil, one of the world’s biggest slums. It forced the students to be exposed to the difficult living conditions of many of their compatriots. Vriens, the school’s director, who has been traveling and working in Haiti for many years, has pointed out the apparent denial by the rich of the existence of the poor. It is one of the unsettling realities of Haitian society, which needs attention if a majority of the populations is ever going to be a meaningful participant in the political process.

The school’s goal is to give young people a practical education that gives them the tools to earn a living in Haiti. Although foreigners are currently in charge of the school, Haitian lecturers play an important role. Sooner rather than later, the Haitians themselves will have to take over the school’s management. In addition, a Haitian association has been created that can function as an independent production company for its alumni. The fact that it is a small-scale operation, located in a fairly poor but decent neighborhood, is working in its favor as compared to the slowly moving, bureaucratic multi-million dollar projects of the aid industry.

The loose network of big NGOs has grown into a powerful outside force that is not centrally organized, operating next to, instead of in tandem with, the weak Haitian government. As well intentioned as the aid may be, it contributes to a form of second-hand democracy that isn’t locally instigated. Since the end of 1990s, Haitians have spoken about their demokrasi pepe, or second-hand democracy, after the Creole description of the loads of used clothing from the United States that are resold on the streets. Haiti Reporters is trying to design a new boutique, owned and staffed by Haitians, addressing a pressing need in Haitian society.

Last week I went to MoMA. Since I came to New York I got more
 “culture” than ever before. It isn’t that Los Angeles had no great
 museums, but something about New York—or perhaps the fantasies of the
 city that I had—spurred me to go to museums much more. The exhibition I
 went to was Abstract Expressionist New York, which I was particularly 
excited about: New York art, shown in New York.

In other words, it is a
 bit like listening to the Red Hot Chili Peppers in California, only far
 more highbrow.

 As my partner and I were walking around, we were trying to make sense of
 the paintings, to decide if we like De Kooning and Motherwell, to “get a
 feel” for this kind of art. Though we both come from middle-class
 families, neither of us feels really comfortable around modern art, say, 
after early Expressionism or Cubism.

It isn’t that we don’t like it,
 it’s just that we don’t feel like we know how to evaluate it. It 
isn’t that we aren’t moved, it is almost as if we don’t know how to
 be moved. It is a strange sensation, looking at a painting and trying
 hard to be moved. Being moved, after all, shouldn’t involve trying.
 That’s the whole idea with emotion.

In fact, we do learn to be moved. More precisely, we learn ways to open 
ourselves to the possibility of being moved. Through the process known in sociology as “socialization,” we learn the knowledge, skills and preferences that will shape the choices we make, the direction we take.

This isn’t only a nice 
sociological idea, but something that we found out first hand when we were leaving
 the exhibition. At the entry to the exhibition, we saw a little work
sheet titled “Family Activity Guide.” On the side, to make sure we knew 
who it was intended to, it read “MoMA KIDS.”

In sleek paper, it had
 quotes from the artists and activities for children.  On the first page, 
there were quotes by Jackson Pollock. Kids had to look at one of the 
paintings, and see where the paint is “Dripped, Splashed, Poured,
 Splattered, Flung, and Layered.” Next came a page dedicated to sculptor 
David Smith. Here children were asked to draw an animal (there was a 
blank space for that purpose) and then re-draw it “using just five
 lines.”

But the one that really got to me was the page dedicated to Mark Rothko. 
Kids were instructed to look at the paintings, and at the big floating
 rectangles (explained in the booklet as “color fields.” Useful, that). Then, they 
were asked to choose a painting, and told to “take turns sharing words 
you think of while you are looking at it.” Below, they had a quote by
 Rothko: “I’m interested in expressing basic human emotions.”

The fourth sheet was detachable, with perforations made so you can tear
 it into 12 blank cards. The Rothko activity was to take the 12 cards,
and write “words that come to mind” as the kids are looking at the
 painting. Having written the words, children were told to scramble them,
 and voila, abstract-expressionist poetry was made.

Having done so, kids
 were suggested to look at a different Rothko painting, try to figure out
 the mood it conveys, and write another expressionist poem (on the back
side of the cards they just used).

 Sitting in the MoMA café, we were puzzling over what it felt like to be
 a kid working on this activity sheet. Looking through it children
 obviously learned several things. They learned how to name elements of modern art—color fields, for example.

They were also told what aspects of
 the paintings they should pay attention to—how the paint was being 
splattered, and later (in a page dedicated to De Kooning) how the 
painter moved as he painted. In an elegant way, they learned what was of
 essence.  It didn’t make them art experts, of course, but it made them 
conversant with the painting, a way to relate to them that my partner 
and I didn’t really have.

But this exercise provided more than instruction. Especially in the Rothko page, but in others 
as well, it taught children how they could feel. It taught them that when they looked at the pictures, they should have basic moods conveyed to them. More, 
that they should let themselves be swept up by these moods, to lose 
themselves in basic emotions. Sociologists often note that people learn
 to like different things, that this is part of being “socialized.”

Upper
middle-class children learn about abstract expressionism, working-class
 children don’t. This is part of how classes are differentiated.  As the 
activity sheet at the MoMA makes clear, it goes deeper than knowledge and skills.

It’s 
not only that children learn different things, it is that they also 
learn to enjoy them. They learn to enjoy them, by learning what kind of 
attitude they could take when looking at a painting, when sitting in a
 baseball stadium, when ordering sushi. They learn not only what to look 
for, but how they can derive pleasure—real pleasure—from it.