Ever since I was a very little girl, all I've ever wanted to do was write. I was addicted to buying notebooks and scribbling story ideas in them. I would pretend to experience heartbreak so I could write a badass breakup song and be the younger Taylor Swift. My first laptop hit its storage limit from all of the poems I workshopped in Word.
I've been in love with writing since before I can even remember. But suddenly, my love and passion for journalism and creative writing is being overshadowed by this era of "fake news."
I entered university with dreams bigger than most, and, now that I'm here, those dreams are slowly being shot down. Instead of fostering me and my peers' passion for journalism, my professors are now having to teach me how to restrict my writing so I don't get accused of publishing fake news.
Since the beginning of his presidential campaign, Donald Trump invoked division in our country by separating national news organizations into two categories: "Real News" and "Fake News." His reasoning for labeling an outlet "fake?"
They called him out on his BS.
Early in January, our president held what he dubbed the "Fake News Awards" in an attempt to expose the liberal media for "dishonesty & bad reporting." Now, what Trump is referring to as "dishonest" is up for debate, but "bad reporting" is not.
The news outlets he targeted in his awards included — but not limited to — the Washington Post, CNN, TIME Magazine, the New York Times.
Ironically, the Washington Post has won eight Pulitzer Prizes, CNN the Peabody award in 2017 (most recently), TIME ranking in 100 years of publication, and NYT winning over 120 Pulitzer Prizes in the categories of Explanatory Reporting, National Reporting, International Reporting and others.
What has Fox News won? None of the above.
Simply because Fox News matches with Trump's ideals, it is viewed as "real" news by the general public. Our president, who is the one we are supposed to look to for advice and guidance, is feeding us biased information. Who's the fake news now, Trump?
In this era of Trump, "fake news" and false information, up-and-coming journalists do what they can to remain unbiased, for fear of being bullied into believing their work is "fake." But, to our president what isn't right-leaning is "wrong," so the concept of "unbiased" has changed drastically within the past couple of years.
Journalists' careers and work have been put into question when they shouldn't be, and the future generation of journalists will enter the workforce being, perhaps, too cautious of judgment to be good reporters.
The idea of "fake news" has too negative of a connotation to be even remotely fair or accurate to the news industry. Behind every story is an opinion, and opinions can't be wrong. They can be different. They can be diverse. Opinions can be anything and everything except wrong.
As someone who is both liberal and strongly opinionated, I'd like to believe that my opinion, although perhaps different from other people, is just as valid as everyone else's based on the sole reason that I am human, and I am allowed to have an opinion of my own.
Every reporter should have their own opinion and be able to back it up with facts. Regardless of whether they, politically, lean left or right (or anywhere in between), they still have a point that deserves to be heard and valued.
We need to stop discrediting journalists and their news organizations for speaking their mind and voicing their opinion — as long as their work is backed by hard facts.
By abolishing the idea of "fake news" and welcoming the idea of diverse thought, we're giving children like younger-Abby a chance to foster their love of writing without allowing them to fear being bullied for being "wrong."
