Vibrant debate and dissent exist in this country, but you are not reading or hearing about this in the… — Amy Goodman

Going to where the silence is. That is the responsibility of a journalist: giving a voice to those who have been forgotten, forsaken, and beaten down by the powerful. It is the best reason I know to carry our pens, cameras, and microphones into our own communities and out to the wider world.

The same could be said of Henry Kissinger. While many in the United States still see Nixon and Ford's former secretary of state as an elder statesman, the rest of the world sees him as a war criminal responsible for the deaths and suffering of millions in Chile, Vietnam, Laos, Argentina, East Timor, and Cambodia, to name a few.

Social change does not spring forth from the minds of generals or presidents-in fact, change is often blocked by the powerful. Change starts with ordinary people working in their communities. And that's where media should start as well.