It’s a Tuesday evening and my family and I have just gotten back from our trip to the store, a friends house, or a long awaited trip to the dairy bar across town. With nothing planned to watch on T.V we flip through the channels and land on the news. With a groan from my step-dad it is no surprise to see him to get up and leave the room for a late night trip to McDonald's, to do some laundry, or simply go watch T.V. in a different room.
“I hate the news,” he mutters, “it’s always so depressing.”
“This is my future,” I yell back, echoing through the house.
As a journalism major, I watch the news regularly to stay up to date on current events; but, within the last year it seems like you must avoid all social contact to not hear about the world’s newest tragedy. I know how you feel when you see a law you don’t agree with get passed, or that your favorite celebrity has just passed away, but that is news.
It never fails that at a Christmas party, job interview, or mid-day visit when I mention I'm going to school to be a journalist I hear “can’t you make sure the news is a little bit happier?”, “Make the news a little better will ya?”, or my favorite “You’re only going to report on the good stuff right?”
No.
I will report what is going on in the world, who is involved and what we can do to stop it. It may hurt your feelings. Trust me, if I was spending tens of thousands of dollars a year to change what the news is, I’d be a lot happier about my student loans.
We are at a tough point with society currently. Whether it be the lovely choices we have selected to run our country, the crappy job we are doing at stopping those trying to destroy our country, or the sad fact that most entertainment icons are at the ends of their time (not to mention our choices to replace them include Kanye West). However, do not blame journalists and the media for sharing this news with you.
It drives me absolutely crazy seeing posts just after the story is released with “the news didn’t want you to know such and such happened” or some new crazy tabloid satire theory that the news cannot report on simply because it has not been proven yet. We live in a world ahead of the game, the internet finds things out before our news stations do but instead of attacking them for not having the information, help a girl out. Give me your information. Make my boss like me more, please?
Tomorrow turn on your news channel, watch it, pay attention, heck – take notes. Appreciate that those anchors woke up at 3 A.M. and reported news (some all day) for you to know what is going on around you. If you don’t like what you hear, get outside and change it! Trust me, as a journalist I would much rather be writing stories on a local graduate running their own business rather than a local graduate gone missing.
Do well in the world. Make me and everyone else proud of our generation.
