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Danielle Batist is an experienced freelance journalist, founder of Journopreneur and co-founder of the Constructive Journalism Project. She lived and worked all around the globe and covered global and local stories of poverty, exclusion and injustice. Increasingly, she moved beyond ‘problem-reporting’ to include stories about the solutions she found. She witnessed the birth of the new nation of South Sudan and interviewed the Dalai Lama. She reported for Al Jazeera, BBC and the Guardian and regularly advises independent media organisations on innovation and sustainability. She loves bringing stories to the world and finding the appropriate platforms to do so. The transformation of traditional media fascinates rather than scares her. While both the medium and the message are changing, she believes the need for good storytelling remains.
What It’s Like To Be An Airport Security Guard
Being patted down at airport security is hardly anyone’s favourite thing about flying. Uncomfortable for most, some people experience worse than others and actually feel frightened or dehumanised.
Author Edward Schwarzschild wondered what it would be like to be that person having to do the job. So he applied for it, and skilfully documented his experience for online literary magazine Hazlitt.
He explain how becoming a father drew him to the job, as he asked himself tough questions:
“What does it mean to be a parent during the 'War on Terror'? I felt as haunted by the collective tragedy of 9/11 as anyone, but I was also haunted by the ways daily living in the United States had changed from 9/12 forward. I bristled at the bunkering of public buildings (like the state capitol buildings a few blocks away from my house), the pervasiveness of surveillance and searches, the sudden expansion of airport checkpoints.”
The longform piece almost reads like a novel, and you’ve got to remind yourself that Schwarzschildb actually did step out of his regular life as a university professor to see airport security life from the inside.
