What does it mean to be a journalism student in a post-Snowden world?

It’s become pretty cliché to say it, but it’s a difficult time to be a journalist. Amidst a tangle of new technologies, vanishing jobs, and changing roles and demands, many of us don’t know what our field will look like in the future.

Many of us also don’t realize that our watershed moment has already passed, and most of the US media found themselves squarely on the wrong side of the issue.

I recently saw Lauren Poitras’ documentary Citizen Four and read Glenn Greenwald’s book No Place to Hide. Both are remarkable pieces of journalism that tell the story of Poitras and Greenwald’s encounters with whistleblower Edward Snowden, the NSA documents he shared with them, and their devastating impacts on the civil liberties of Americans and those around the world.

In the days after that story broke, American journalism failed a fundamental test. In its wake, we all must consider what it means to be a journalist post-Snowden, and how we can redeem our profession’s legacy.

Although the story Snowden tells is incredibly powerful and important, there’s another one told through the coverage that is just as deep and disturbing. It’s the story of how American news media abdicated its responsibilities.

In his book, Greenwald describes the extraordinary reaction of the mainstream news media. Instead of supporting these journalists, who had broken an incredible story at great risk to themselves, news networks and major papers sought out any tactic they could find to discredit them.

The story became about Snowden’s “patriotism”, as if it mattered, minor details of his educational background, the journalistic credentials and alleged personal views of Poitras and Greenwald. Anything for news anchors to avoid looking their audience in the face and admitting that their sources had lied to them and their government had acted illegally. They strove for the principle of “equal time” by giving government lies and obfuscations more time than the truth.

This reaction allowed for the continuing indifference of the American public to government surveillance. However, it was also the product of the same system from which those programs sprung, the same one that has long rewarded compliance and silence on the part of journalists just as much as average citizens.

The NSA and the surrounding apparatus of government surveillance sometimes operate almost paradoxically. The ever-increasing level of surveillance is necessary to protect against the possibility that journalists might expose surveillance. When that fails, the resulting disclosures are reason not to examine the government’s role, but to step up the level of monitoring so that it does not happen again. The machine has become self-justifying. And central to its success is the believe that if journalists are fearful enough of retaliation, of being branded as biased, dissidents, or threats, they simply won’t tell the story.

That belief is usually true.

All of us now choosing a career in journalism need to be aware that we are making important moral choices. The fields we go into, the stories we write and the people we write them for are not neutral choices or matters of personal preference.

I’m a sophomore at the University of Missouri, a school whose professors and students often proudly refer to as the best journalism school in the world. In one of my current classes, Career Explorations in Journalism, we often talk about the different interest areas and career fields we might go into. We take personality tests to find out our strengths and values, assured that no one value system is more helpful than another to journalism. We choose what we will look for in future jobs from a list that includes “helping people” and “making money” as though both are equal.

Even the structure of the journalism school, which includes “strategic communications” (advertising and public relations) as though its aims and practice are remotely similar, is antithetical to the idea that ethics matter most in journalism.

We refer to our lower-level journalism classes as “weed-out” classes, because they are supposed to encourage those who can’t handle the coursework to change majors. It’s concerning that they do nothing to “weed out” those who want to practice journalism as an apolitical, personally beneficial career with no special ethical responsibilities—the kind of people who have damaged the profession and will continue to do so.

Investigative reporting is not a special interest, it’s not a single choice among many equally worthy ones; it’s not optional. It’s a philosophy, one that should be the core and foundation of all good journalism. Without investigation, without that willingness to go where the story takes us regardless of how the truth may be perceived, we play into the hands of the powerful. Parroting the dominant paradigm isn’t neutrality, no matter how much more comfortable it is for us.

The future of journalism doesn’t come down to new technologies, social media, or elaborate paywell structures. It comes down to whether we still value our ethics enough to attempt to preserve them in the face of a world whose norms they profoundly threaten.

If you want a career in journalism, it’s time to decide which side of its future you’re on.