Define and Re-defined: A Journalist’s Reality
Journalism is an industry constantly in motion.
New innovations are being created to better report and consume news media. Not to mention, society as a whole is ever-evolving; changes are not suggested to cease anytime soon. THIS is both the challenge and the curse of being in the media. Not only is it already grueling to break into the business, but now journalists are expected to work twice as hard to maintain their credibility as well as consistently emphasize their qualifications. Today, there are more elements working against journalists than those working for them.
This can be heavily disheartening for aspiring journalists on a surface-level viewpoint. However, there is light regarding the current state of journalism affairs- it presents a greater opportunity to live out each of the industry’s values, in a whole new way:
- Seek the truth and report it
- Minimize harm
- Act independently
- Be accountable and transparent
No one said being a journalist was going to be easy, in fact, if you talk to any established journalist they will tell you “it’s not as glamorous as it looks.” Then why do people pursue journalism? It’s because the reward is far greater than the challenge.
Journalism is what we need to make democracy work.
- Walter Cronkite
Journalist is synonymous with “storyteller.” Being a journalist is about being a collection of the people you meet and being propelled to share their stories, openly and honestly. If there is one thing that is arguably unchanging about the society you and I live in is that there is a need to know. Thus, there is a need to fulfill it.
Journalism has once been defined. Now, it is being re-defined.
Moving forward, the new generation of journalists must have thick skin, ready to push through adversity. There is a need to maintain the values of “old-school” journalism values especially in a world that heavily scrutizes the media for “faults” or simply, “disagreements.” Journalists no longer compete with just one another, now they compete with consumers. Decades ago, this wasn’t the case. The internet has drastically shifted how the news operates.
Due to the internet, “citizen media” now exists, where respectfully pronounced “non-professional journalists”can take the web and write opinion as fact and vice versa. This produces more skeptism than trust; that is the world that we live and work in today.
The goal of today’s journalist should be to be unphased by change, a desire to grow with the industry and be as monumental as the papers in the Cronkite museum; to produce journalistic pieces as it is history in the making.
Good journalism leaves a mark, it speaks volumes. Breaking news becomes tomorrow’s hot topic and then eventually, the article once read, can and will still be talked about years from it’s birth.
