I’m a journalist. At the very least, I tell myself I’m a journalist – I wrote articles for The State News for a week and a half, and then I had to quit until next fall. I’m a journalism major, and I’ve hunkered down an internship. But what is journalism? Is it the art of informing people through the media? Educating citizens? Being advocates? Relaying what matters most to the community? Journalism is all of the above, and more.
Not too many professions have such skepticism, and this does take a toll on journalists because they wind up having to prove themself more than they should have to. “Fake news” is a phrase thrown around often so flippantly and yet more than often not, this claim lacks substance. Journalism takes an enormous amount of practice and has various rules and steps. Grammar rules must be mastered, interviewing must be deep-digging with “critical” questions, research must go through credible sources, statistics, scientific data, and other data, sources must be quoted or paraphrased accurately etc., etc., etc.
A few things I’ve learned from being a journalist are as follows:
- Objectivity is crucial to journalism, but I don’t believe in it
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Objectivity leads to “both siderism” that allows systems like racism and sexism to stay in place. Real truths don’t lie in the “middle”, they lie in science and straight facts. Science progresses over time and is heavily based in equity. Facts come from groundbreaking research, not just antiquated research. Don’t have preconceived notions when sniffing out a story, but also know facts don’t lie in the middle and not every side deserves a voice in a story.
- Good stories are new stories
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Part of why being a journalist is so important is the creation of a story. You create something out of bits and pieces and that’s an art. If you’ve already read or seen the story you want to write, then it’s not NEWs. Finding an idea that affects people from new angles is super important.
- Interviewing is a skill that takes practice, and one I’m not fully proficient in yet
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Asking questions that have complicated, thought provoking answers is vital to journalism. So is asking hard questions that put people in power in a place where they might feel uncomfortable. Journalism is powerful when used for accountability.
While we need journalism to hold those in power accountable, it is essential when it comes to storing the facts. The average American might not be able to analyze scientific research, so journalists are the messenger between what’s happening and the people. If journalists don’t convey the information, who will? Could democracy die? It’s very possible. We never interviewed sources before the 1890s. Journalists wrote long essay-type pieces about their thoughts on current events and political theory.
So, how do we make journalism a trusted source again? The public has the main task with this dilemma. We need to discern fact from fiction. I suggest using a fact-checker such as Snopes, PolitiFact, or Media Bias Fact Checker as well as googling images sent to you. If you don’t believe an independent bipartisan fact-checker and you don’t notice how often you use a logical fallacy, it might be hard to discern real life from fiction at that point.
Lastly, journalism does matter and in lots of places is dying. I urge you all to buy local newspapers or subscribe to them digitally. It’s easy to read them incognito, but without news and news representation, we could lose a part of our freedom and democracy.