I'm approaching my one-year mark at writing for Odyssey. Most of my articles, at least the ones I cared most about, were about politics and national news. In the future, that will not be the case.

In my time writing, I've always tried to provide a comprehensive, thorough analysis of the topics I discuss. I don't get many views. I don't get many compliments on what I write. I've never even been directly compensated financially for any of my articles. Nonetheless, I can rest easy knowing that when I report on a topic, my reporting is sound and the reader can be informed. Not everyone has these priorities.

For-profit journalism is an interesting business because it will by nature cater to what people want to read. People don't want big blocks of text and information that is difficult to consume. It's far easier to shell it out in minute-long clips with one fact or two in them somewhere, surrounded by "edgy" opinions in bold yellow text. I've come to notice that with the rise of online news, that seems to be the dominant way in which information is being spread right now, at least through social media.

To call this an issue of immense national importance is an understatement. When media is dominated by one-minute segments in echo chambers, you get a population which draws simple and ineffective conclusions to large problems. What's worse, because of the simplification, a condescending tone is bred: "if we could solve this in 40-seconds, why can't the idiotic [insert party/religion/group here] figure this out on their own? It must be their [insert derogatory political buzzword here]." While some very prominent "news" sites come immediately to mind when I describe this, they are by no means the only followers of this trend.

This is a disservice to the American people. The great and terrible issues of our time can't be solved in 60-seconds by a social media intern with a keyboard and knack for phrasing. To say that any of the problems we face is a cause of a single group or people, deride them with a two-minutes hate and use a political buzzword to silence all who oppose you is to perpetuate the problem you claim to face by redirecting the focus from one ignorant, oversimplified stance to another. I'm a 20-year-old male in a private northeastern American college. I don't have all the answers, and odds are neither do you.

I've also received pressure, from several readers, to make my articles more like that format. As my views and exposure go down, and I don't end up getting any credit for what I write because the views are so low, there's pressure to pander to this. Write opinions, but only do them for people who will share them, one person told me. Another suggested making an article comprised exclusively of GIFs. A third outright said she would refuse to read anything I wrote if it took more than a minute to consume. After the Orlando shooting, it was suggested to me to write an article that purposely made people angry to share it. To do that to the community suffering in the wake of that attack is despicable.

I won't do that, even if it means continuing to go essentially uncompensated for my writing (I never have been). I won't knowingly spread lies to give people what they want to hear. I won't remove all of the information from my article. I won't simplify a complex national debate into a minute-long soapbox speech. I won't write an article meant to exploit the fear and dread caused by homophobia and terrorism to get social media shares. I won't, therefore, continue to write national news, because there is no point to it.

If I had a larger audience, perhaps things would be different. I would feel a duty to ask hard questions, expose the truth no matter what the cost. The truth, however, is that if someone found my article on this website, then odds are they're searching the web hard enough to find what I'm writing about anyway. I'm shifting my focus to local news, working to better my college community at the local level and by bettering the lives of my friends and neighbors, because that's where real, meaningful change is made. Change at the local level is what our country was built on, and in a sense it is a foundation of American freedom.

This doesn't mean that, as an American, I believe that we shouldn't consume national news. On the contrary, we should do everything we can to stay up to date on events pertaining to the leaders we elect to our government. We just need to do it with a cautious eye for the extraordinary bias, shaming and slander that has found its way into our news cycle. News, specifically the language of news, is a powerful thing. Those who write it have a responsibility, but those who read it also do as well, to recognize attempts to manipulate our language, the vehicle of our thought, to believe the unbelievable and surrender that responsibility for the ease of a simple yet erroneous opinion. We've always fought the problem that came up last week. We've always thought that your opinion is evil. We've always known we were wrong, and it's up to those with the simple solution to educate we who think differently. And Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.

Read the news. Don't become the news.