Since a very young age, I’ve fostered a passion for storytelling. In kindergarten, I would listen in awe to my teacher as she to read the class countless stories, only to go home to try and re-tell those stories with even greater emphasis and emotion, attempting to leave my listeners (often my unenthused and uninterested trio of cats) hanging on every word.
Over time, my love for storytelling grew. I became involved in my high school yearbook and newspaper and found that journalism was the right fit for me--I could happily recount the stories of others for a living.
So, whenever someone asks me what I hope to be when I grow up, I tell them, point-blank: “A journalist.” Their reactions are often monotonous; I’m greeted with an expression that encompasses pain and discomfort, as if I told them that I’m planning to spend four years of college studying Puppetry, Egyptology, or Medieval French Literature.
“You know that journalism is a dying field, right?”
That has been the foreboding admonition uttered by journalists and non-journalists, alike for decades now. But journalism isn’t dead yet. Rather, it's evolving.
Yes, it's true that, in recent years, journalism has faced countless struggles and hurdles. Between 2005 and 2015, the job outlook for traditional print media was rather bleak. In that ten year time period, 66,490 journalists decreased to 41,400. Sixty-one newspapers went under in 2009 alone. However, there has been an influx of jobs in the digital world. Nontraditional news outlets have been thriving--think NowThis or Upworthy. President Trump's disdain for the "fake news media" has even proved helpful for some news outlets. In fact, the Wall Street Journal and failing New York Times have actually seen an increase in subscriptions under the "Trump Bump."
That isn't to say that traditional journalism doesn't constantly face an inundation of threats. There are citizen journalists who may report the news to the best of their abilities, but fail to tell the whole story or adhere to the journalistic codes of ethics. News media is threatened by its own past blunders--how traditional print media failed to monetize the online transition. News has historically not been free, so when traditional print publications chose to be free online, it spelled trouble for them down the road. Not to mention political powers that pose a constant threat through censorship.
Journalism is evolving simply because it is set against an ever-changing backdrop of media. Though that may scare some, it excites me. If things always stayed the same, then journalists definitely wouldn't have a job. Journalism is there to "afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted;" it is in existence to question authority and to hold those in power accountable for their misdeeds. It acts as a cornerstone for democracy. The goal of journalism is to hold a mirror up to the world when it wouldn't otherwise dare look at itself.
Journalism is also only one of three careers, along with the President and Congressmen, that is guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States (so that's something, right?).
Through journalistic writing, I hope to impassion others, challenge expectations, and develop a sense of interconnectedness that I am confident all people share. I believe that journalism can bring about the loudest battle cries and evoke the most resonant anger, joy or melancholy because journalism is able to shed light on the purest forms of humanity.
I think that everything is a story. I believe that all human beings are more similar than we are dissimilar. Someone needs to be there to tell the stories that show just that.