Journalism For the People
By Nayelis Vargas
Writers tell stories so that readers can get carried away either by the fantasy of it all or so that readers can learn something new. Essentially that is what journalism has been about since its birth centuries ago. Not necessarily about telling stories, but about informing our audiences the things that we as a community of investigators strive to discover.
Today’s modern day journalism looks like a war zone. Journalists are fighting to protect their jobs from people who feel like journalism is mainly based on “lies” or what our current president has convinced most of our country is “fake news.” Not only that but over the years, journalism, no puns intended, has become a job of life and death. Reporters are going out of their way to investigate serious matters that regard our well being as well as the worlds and being kidnapped or murdered for learning or sharing their findings with everyone else.
Journalism is a biased “sport,” which unfortunately I think is inevitable. But as journalists, we should work to try and keep our bias from influencing how we write, and in fact, strive to tell people the unreserved truth.
For years, I’ve seen journalist defend political parties or certain groups of people, going against what I believe proper journalism should be. It makes me feel like as journalists, they’ve forgotten about the main reason people sacrificed almost everything to report. Journalism began as a way to keep people informed in the most honest way possible and I feel that we should remember that although our opinions are valued, in the end, we have a job to make an effort and serve everyone, not just who we feel will listen to us better or give us better views.
As for a Utopia for journalism in 2019? That’s a joke, because doesn't the whole concept of a utopia, means that something has to be sacrificed in exchange? The most I could say instead that would make journalism better in 2019, would be for our journalists to stop being so blatantly for or against one side of a topic. Again, having an opinion is inevitable and not a thing is wrong with having one. But when you try to cram it down a mass of people, it’s ethically wrong as an organization with the power to sway an audience.
In all essence, journalism was created as another means of survival to mankind. As a way for us to grow, adapt, and learn. James Carey even went as far as to state in his short essay that “One cannot imagine a people surviving if they failed to report and to take account,” (pg5).
Journalism will always be a hard job. But, it is and will always be our responsibility to discover and learn about the things that many do not understand or are afraid to discover. We serve to protect our fellow people and to, all in all, tell the truth, despite the consequences.
