Today I went to the grocery store to buy flowers, kettle chips and green grapes. When I was in the check-out line, my cashier engaged me in a few minutes of polite conversation - what I was doing for Thanksgiving, where I was from, and so on.
Then, she asked me, "So what do you want to be when you grow up?"
Immediately, I responded, "A journalist."
After I thanked her and started walking to my car, I started thinking about that little snippet of conversation. First of all, I realized I wasn't offended by the fact that she didn't consider me "grown up" yet. In my mind, I'm never going to reach a point in my life where I'm like, "Oh, this is what I wanted to be when I grew up." I think I'm always going to be challenging myself and finding new ways to use my skills to help others. The job that I start out with will be nowhere near the job that I'll end with. And I'm more than okay with that.
Secondly, I thought about my response to her question. The first thing that came to my mind wasn't "reporter" or "copy editor" or "ad salesman." First and foremost in my mind, I am a journalist. So what is a journalist and what does that make me?
Wikipedia says that a journalist (or newspaperman?) is "a person who practices journalism, the gathering and dissemination of information about current events, trends, issues, and people while striving for non-bias viewpoint."
In that sense, yes, I definitely consider myself a journalist. But I feel like being a journalist today is so much more than just gathering and disseminating news.
Being a journalist is giving people the tools they need to live life to the fullest. Being a journalist is being a citizen. It's serving your country. It's doing what you know is right. It's providing information in all forms. It's being a neighbor. It's creating a safe haven for people to share their views and talk with each other. It's truth, and it's justice.
And I'm going to continue being a journalist, whether I'm grown up or not.
Showing posts with label unbiased. Show all posts
Showing posts with label unbiased. Show all posts
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Monday, November 10, 2008
Truth
My roommate asked me a really interesting question today.
How will George W. Bush's presidency be viewed down the road?
Of course, 69 percent of Americans are happy to see him go. He has the lowest approval rating of any president. He's been virtually snuffed out of the news. No one really cares about him anymore. But what will the history books say?
My roommate's hypothetical situation: Say we ultimately "win the war" on terror. Will Bush be better liked? Or will people still see his decisions as wrong?
My response (after clarifying to her that this is a purely hypothetical situation) was yes and no. I think our generation - mine and my roommate's and anyone older than us - will always see Bush's actions in a negative light, no matter what happens. We're old enough to have friends in Iraq or family members in Afghanistan and those are things you just don't forget. Even if there's a positive outcome to this war, people will still say, "Well, it shouldn't have ever happened in the first place" or "Bush started it but he didn't fix it."
But my 18-year-old brother and his friends are a different story. If something good does happen, their education will focus on the end, not on the initial years. Slowly, people's perceptions of the war will become composed of facts, not emotions. My knowledge of Vietnam and the Persian Gulf wars is based on the facts that I learned in high school, and they don't teach you how close my friends' fathers came to being drafted or how many lives of kids our age were lost. We become detached. And then we forget. And then we make the same mistakes years later. I don't know how many more mistakes we can afford to make.
I think it comes down to the media's responsibility. Unbiased reporting is the core of any story. Yes, opinions are essential and they are the foundation of this country. But leave the opinions on the op-ed page. We need to give people the facts so that years from now, they'll be able to form their opinions based off of truth and not the opinions of 69 percent of the population, however true they may be.
How will George W. Bush's presidency be viewed down the road?
Of course, 69 percent of Americans are happy to see him go. He has the lowest approval rating of any president. He's been virtually snuffed out of the news. No one really cares about him anymore. But what will the history books say?
My roommate's hypothetical situation: Say we ultimately "win the war" on terror. Will Bush be better liked? Or will people still see his decisions as wrong?
My response (after clarifying to her that this is a purely hypothetical situation) was yes and no. I think our generation - mine and my roommate's and anyone older than us - will always see Bush's actions in a negative light, no matter what happens. We're old enough to have friends in Iraq or family members in Afghanistan and those are things you just don't forget. Even if there's a positive outcome to this war, people will still say, "Well, it shouldn't have ever happened in the first place" or "Bush started it but he didn't fix it."
But my 18-year-old brother and his friends are a different story. If something good does happen, their education will focus on the end, not on the initial years. Slowly, people's perceptions of the war will become composed of facts, not emotions. My knowledge of Vietnam and the Persian Gulf wars is based on the facts that I learned in high school, and they don't teach you how close my friends' fathers came to being drafted or how many lives of kids our age were lost. We become detached. And then we forget. And then we make the same mistakes years later. I don't know how many more mistakes we can afford to make.
I think it comes down to the media's responsibility. Unbiased reporting is the core of any story. Yes, opinions are essential and they are the foundation of this country. But leave the opinions on the op-ed page. We need to give people the facts so that years from now, they'll be able to form their opinions based off of truth and not the opinions of 69 percent of the population, however true they may be.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
