Confessions of a high school media junkie
An aspiring reporter shares what he loves about the news, the journalists whose footsteps he dreams of following, and his take on current issues facing the media landscape.
I’m not your average 16-year-old. While many of my friends are sucked into the “latest and greatest” gaming trends, or wandering around the local shopping centre all day, I feed my craving of consuming and producing many forms of media. I am a self-confessed “media junkie”.
On a normal day, I tune in to The Today Show before school, watch Nine News every evening at 6.00pm (in doing so, I have mastered my recital of Peter Overton’s sign-off lines) and then switch to The Project on Network 10.
Second to television programs are radio and newspapers. In between school and other extracurricular activities, I still find time to read online articles from The Sydney Morning Herald, and will listen to the Evenings program on 702 ABC Radio Sydney most nights of the week. Despite the recent departure of Chris Bath, I still listen to the program and will continue to enjoy it when Sarah Macdonald commences her hosting duties.
I also follow many eminent journalists on social media, including the likes of Mark Beretta, Lisa Wilkinson, Georgie Gardner and Steve Pennells, among others. Podcasts – particularly from the ABC – are great for me to learn about a particular subject when filling in time here & there, and I enjoy reading books on a plethora of subjects, such as politics, history, sport and culture.
But perhaps the biggest way I interact with media is developing my skills in photography. My passion for photography grew from taking pictures and videos of Sydney’s railway network when I was younger which – after about five years – became rather repetitive, so I turned to travel photography. My Instagram page, Australian Perspectives, is where I share my photos and gain inspiration from other people that will, in turn, be applied in some way into my work.
I have always been a media junkie. From a young age, I had a real fascination and interest in one of Australia’s most prominent breakfast television programs, Today. I tuned in almost every day to the successful duo of Karl Stefanovic and Lisa Wilkinson, and digested all the latest news & current affairs. It has been my preferred way of developing an understanding of the world around me for as long as I can remember. Despite those two no longer working together, I still constantly follow their work. I am eagerly looking forward to Karl’s return to Today in 2020, and still regularly watch Lisa on The Project.
In the last few years, I have also taken great interest in watching old news bulletins that have been posted online. I like seeing how much society has changed over a period of 30 years, while also (cheekily) comparing many journalists’ younger selves!
During my years of news consumption, I have found that there is more to journalism than meets the eye.
The act of accurately, legally and honestly reporting the latest social, cultural and political issues is, arguably, at the core of what makes our world tick. But, despite my interest in the field – and aspirations to one day become a journalist myself – recently I have started to question what role “true journalism” will play in our society into the future.
Raids on a NewsCorp journalist and our treasured public broadcaster, put simply, were a severe threat to the health of Australia’s democracy. It bluntly highlighted, to me, the struggles many journalists face when shining a light on issues that matter to Australians, and the hurdles that could come my way in future years. I found it eye-opening – and rather appalling – that we, as citizens of this country, could be told specific details of horrific crimes, yet we are not allowed to know about the abuse and reshuffling of government powers; the neglect of our older population in aged care centres; and even what our politicians are eating for lunch.
Doesn’t that say a lot?
This scandal was certainly not under everyone’s radar at my school. In fact, the mere mention of something like this would be met with confused glances amongst my friends. So much so that I decided to use an in-class assignment in my Geography class – a human rights-focused “mini lesson” – as a platform to not only educate fellow peers on the subject, but also give them an understanding of what rights they have as a consumer of news.
After all, as Peter FitzSimons said in the 2019 Andrew Olle Media Lecture, “It was a disgrace that effectively put fearless investigative journalism in the same postcode as criminality.”
But “true journalism” is not only threatened by press freedom issues. My interest in past journalistic practice has allowed me to see that the style of reporting – and the content being reported – has changed as well. When I look at news bulletins from as far back as 30 years ago, I see more news stories that affect everyone, about such topics as global conflict, political and economic developments, and social change. Now though – and I think social media might have a role in this – I can’t help but notice that a lot of stories reported today take on much lighter subjects. Like reports on people who are “roasted” on social networking sites, any scandal involving the British Royal Family, and even the different personalities individuals have according to how they stack their fridge.
But with that all being said, I am continually impressed with the standard our trusted news organisations set for future journalists. And they are the reason why I have aspirations to study journalism – and become either a sports or political journalist – when I leave school. I want to be able to contribute to the lives of millions of people every day, by keeping them up to date with the world.
In the meantime, I’m going to continue to be a media junkie. Like all my role models are.
Ike Morris is a high school student in Sydney. You can follow his photography on Instagram here.
