So, I was talking to this girl at work and she asked what I was majoring in and I told her "journalism."
She then went on a 15 minute (I timed her) rant regarding the media's coverage of the war in Iraq and about how certain things were covered and others weren't and blah blah blah-I tuned her out after 2 minutes because I've heard the rant before, as I'm sure we all have.
After she finished, I told her that reporters can only write about what they know and somethings about what the government is doing are simply not known and won't be told and I asked her if she'd rather the war not be covered at all.
She said, "No. It should be covered, but aren't journalists supposed to dig around for this stuff and try to get it no matter what?" (Not all journalists are investigative, dear.)
We then had a nice trip to wikipedia to research the levels of confidentiality regarding government papers and since she needed someone to blame, she settled on the current government.
But sometimes I think we just can't win. If we don't cover something, then we aren't doing our jobs in the eyes of the public and the people want to know these things, right? But if we do cover it, then it's biased or sensationalized and we aren't doing our jobs.
So what exactly is the job-description of a journalist? What is it we think we are supposed to be doing and what is it the public thinks we should be doing?
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2 comments:
Reminds me of the time my wife wanted me to make dinner. Much like Mother Hubbard, our cubbards were quite bare. When I told her there wasn't anything to make she responded, "Your the professional cook." My response was, "I'm a cook, not a magician."
We can only write about what we are able to learn about, in short our job is to learn as much as anyone can and excite the public to demand more information.
Hey, thanks for the comment. Something that girl also needs to remember, is that journalists are being shot, raped, decapitated, basically murdered just to bring her the news that she has the option to complain about because of the dear old first amendment. Once again, that was also set up by the United States government.
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