Journalists continuously learn how to be accurate and respect personal moments

by Cary Robbins

Mary Schmich can remember the first time her morals were put to the test.

Working for a paper in Palo Alto, California, at the beginning of her career, Schmich wrote a story about a young boy who died after falling from a cliff during a mudslide near San Francisco.

As she entered his memorial service, she was moved by how many people came together to celebrate his life. Wanting to capture the sorrowful moment, she decided to include a very personal detail: how his mother’s mascara was running down her face.

When the article was published, a reader sent a letter to the editor, asking how dare Schmich walk into that moment of grief and describe the boy’s mother in such a way.  “I was very defensive,” Schmich said. “That’s a telling detail.”

Now, decades later, Schmich who previously worked for The Chicago Tribune and other publications for decades, said when she first started reporting, she “didn’t even have a really good sense of what the ethical issues were.”

“I didn’t understand clearly for a while that…you’re giving them something by telling their story, but you’re taking something from them as well,” Schmich said.

Throughout their careers, journalists will at some point be faced with a task of writing stories about tragedy.

The Society of Professional Journalists published a resource guide for reporters to use when writing about survivors or grief. However, it is hard for journalists to understand where to draw the lines of reporting those personal stories until they are faced first-hand with the task of writing it themselves.

Schmich said now she understands that while the child’s memorial service was a public event, some moments are personal and do not need to be shared.

“If it’s going to hurt someone pointlessly, why are you doing it?” Schmich said.

Throughout her time reporting, Schmich learned that descriptions of people can sometimes be harmful. She said she often had to ask herself, “Are you pointlessly embarrassing someone? Are you playing into stereotypes?”

“I think a lot of physical description plays into stereotypes,” Schmich said.

Over 40 percent of Black adults said news “coverage largely stereotypes Black people,” according to a 2023 Pew Research Center study.

Some descriptions, Schmich said, do not make or break a story. Towards the end of her career, Schmich learned that sometimes describing people was not fully accurate.

“You do want some physical description sometimes,” Schmich said. “So, what I do now is I ask people how they would describe themselves.”

Above all, journalists have to continue trying to learn, she said. Journalists learn throughout their lives how to be respectful when sharing others’ stories.

“Whatever you just wrote is not everything. Whatever you just learned is just a piece of the puzzle….just stay curious, stay pure,” Schmich said. “But you also gotta meet that deadline.”

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Are You Recording? Dave Dellaria on Media Integrity’s Unraveling and Fragility

By Anna Retzlaff

“I never would have guessed in a million years … that I would be called an enemy of the people.”

For over 40 years, photo and broadcast journalist David Dellaria has been behind the camera on shows most households know well, like “60 Minutes” and “COPS”. Though these shows have remained consistent, the world around them is has significantly changed.

Dellaria remembers what it was like when he was first starting out. “There was something called ‘journalistic integrity’, and you couldn’t lie about what you said.” With the internet providing seemingly endless news platforms and sources, Dellaria says no one knows or trusts the source of information anymore. When there were only a few channels on cable, things were much different.

Dellaria earned a broadcast degree from San Jose State University and started at a local Bay Area newspaper. “It was like starting a marathon every day,” he said. Dellaria would spend his workday running in and out of the darkroom, eating lunch at the typewriter as the film developed. Later, a whole day’s work of constant rushing and delicate film handling would all go towards a minute-long segment for the five o’clock news.

Still, a small mistake could ruin the product of those tedious steps. If the projector was not working well, “then your entire story never aired, and they’d say, ‘Oh, well. We had some technical difficulties,’” Dellaria said.

Now, creators can take digital videos with fewer steps. “Some producers will just roll the whole camera for four hours,” then find the usable parts later. Dellaria remembers when all they had was 150 feet of film—enough for four minutes, not hours. The time and resource challenge created a need for packed, efficient interviews. Dellaria found that these bygone challenges were valuable to him. “I know for a fact that made me a much better cameraman,” Dellaria said.

Now, it is simpler and more universal than ever to create and share video work. A smartphone owner could take, edit, and share video faster and with more room for error than producing a film reel. “That’s a means to put out a story, but the problem is: what’s the source? It’s up to you to decide what to make of it,” said Dellaria. He believes this is the biggest downside to the modernization of video production. Though, Dellaria also sees good potential in making it universally possible for people to deliver information.

Regardless, the treatment and perception of journalists have changed across quite a few fronts. Camera operators used to have more freedom to film what they wanted. In Dellaria’s experience, institutions prioritize protecting their curated image over anything else. What journalists can film is now more restricted than it used to be for Dellaria.

“They don’t care if you’re ‘60 Minutes’ or the local, you know, NBC station. They’re going to make sure you don’t come anywhere near their property and don’t film anything that they don’t control,” Dellaria said. “Everybody has figured out they want to protect their image.”

Quite aware of what has changed, Dellaria is not sure what the future of journalism will look like. He finds it “unfathomable” that people have made enemies of the free press in America. Seeing journalists in a place that he finds hard to believe, he does not feel like he can predict which direction the industry is going.

Dellaria, having experienced so many changes over the course of his career, wonders along with the people who ask him what the future of journalism will look like. He wants to remain positive. “I know that there are young people capable of doing all of these jobs and more,” Dellaria said.

It seems no one can give journalists the comfort of a predictable future. However, those about to enter the field may find comfort in hearing what those before us have braved through. There are unknown struggles rising journalists will go through, yes. But, if we look at stories like Dave Dellaria’s, we can clearly see we will not be the first ones to survive going through major change.

(At least we will never have to deal with typewriters or developing film. I think we can do it.)

Has Social Media Taken Away the Essence of Reporting In Sports Journalism?

By Adit Jaganathan

Jim Litke, who has more sports coverage under his belt than your favorite team has wins, witnessed the evolution of the journalism industry firsthand. But the internet and social media have made him want to stop.

“I’ll be honest. I’m glad I’m not doing it. I think it’s a much different game and I think it’s a young man’s game, in that regard. You have to do way more and I think there’s way less engagement on the receiving end. I don’t think people read,” he said.

Litke started working for the Associated Press in 1978 and was around for the advent of social media. He always had his doubts about its use in the sports journalism industry. “I thought it was going to be really bad at the beginning. I was more convinced of it than ever. Just in a social sense. The media part of it is actually phenomenal. The idea that you can communicate in real time and with your audience is unbelievable. You would kill for that. We had to send out a newspaper and wait to see it the next morning in a tangible form. I think it’s impacted more by the social side of it.”

Litke believes the focus has shifted from in-depth reporting to sensationalism and engagement. The emphasis on creating viral content has overshadowed the essence of journalism. Journalists are almost encouraged to provoke reactions on social media rather than deliver nuanced and well researched stories. The genuine interest in sports has died down due to the amount of information that is immediately accessible to fans.

Social media has also had an impact on how journalists research a story. Writers seem afraid to go against the general consensus and allow it to influence their stories. A lot of writers don’t even watch games before writing a story, opting just to find highlights online and scour social media to find out what happened in a game.

Litke explained, “We’ve crowd sourced opinions. So, it used to be, there was almost eighty percent news and twenty percent opinion. Now, it’s completely flipped.” He continued, “You know when people go, ‘Oh, I read some research. I’m not going to get the vaccine.’ Well, you’re a truck driver. You’re not a doctor. The guy that was recommending it to you went to medical school. He’s got degrees. And yet people feel like they know something because thirty other idiots said something. So, it’s dangerous to crowd source not just information, but we’ve crowd sourced opinion.”

However, the internet isn’t the only reason why sports journalism has lost the essence of reporting. Sports teams have restricted journalists’ access to the athletes and are tailoring the stories that are put out into the media. The days where a reporter could have a one-on-one conversation with an athlete before a game are long gone. Nowadays, you’d be lucky to catch an athlete without a PR official within ten feet of them. This could be the reason why people turn to social media for help.

The internet has forced the sports journalism industry to adapt, but that hasn’t necessarily benefitted the industry as a whole.

Why newsroom layoffs extend far beyond journalists

By Lilly Keller

This morning, like every morning, I reflexively checked X after my alarm buzzed me awake. The initial tweet, its details still blurred by the remnants of sleep, broke the startling news that Vice Media would cease publication on Vice.com, leading to the layoffs of hundreds of employees.

However, Vice and its journalists are just the latest victims in a year marked by widespread newsroom layoffs. In January, the Los Angeles Times slashed 20% of its newsroom, The Messenger, a news startup, shut down entirely in early February, leaving over 300 employees jobless and recently, Time laid off 15% of its staff, roughly 30 employees.

As a young journalist entering the industry, I find that the recurring layoffs create a sense of insecurity and uncertainty. While no career is immune to spontaneous downsizing, journalism attracts this prospect like a moth to a flame.

According to Axios, the recent layoffs in the news industry stem from decreased advertisement revenue, consolidation-related debt and subscription fatigue.

While these reasons are largely out of individual journalist’s control, it offers little comfort.

Julie Bosman, the Chicago bureau chief for The New York Times, has observed the impact of layoffs on journalists at all levels throughout her career in national news.

Growing up in Kenosha, Wisconsin, Bosman remembered her local paper, the Kenosha News, as small but robust, with dozens of reporters consistently covering everything from high school sports to local government and human interest stories. However, when she returned to her hometown in 2021 to cover the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse, who fatally shot two people during a period of civil unrest, she described the paper as a shell of its former self.

“It was a great example of local news,” Bosman said. “It was so striking to see up close the difference in how many reporters were working there…I think you can probably count on one hand the full-time reporters who worked there at the time.”

The harsh reality is that the Kenosha News is a single piece of a larger puzzle, illustrating a widespread trend of layoffs and downsizing in local news nationwide.

Having harbored a passion for local news since before college, I’m grappling not only with the uncertainty of my professional future but also with the broader implications for our democracy.

A recent Knight Foundation poll revealed that 60% of Americans trust local news over national news for information applicable to their daily lives. Additionally, nearly 78% express greater trust in local news for information necessary to engage with their community.

As newsrooms, whether local or national, shrink, the societal cost increases. A functioning democracy relies on accurate, trustworthy information for informed voting. Gaps in news coverage create cracks, fostering the spread of fake news and misinformation.

Bosman emphasized that downsizing not only lowers the quality of reporting but also robs reporters of valuable learning opportunities from their colleagues.

“I know that when you’re around more people, when you have more colleagues who are at all stages of their careers that really helps you understand how to do your job. At The Times there are there are journalists who’ve been reporters for 30 years who have covered everything from, you know, metro to style to national news, sports and have just amassed a wealth of knowledge that they can then share within the newsroom,” Bosman said.

However, remaining in a constant state of anxiety over an unknown future will not change anything. For Bosman, the best approach is to focus on what can be controlled within the industry rather than fixating on factors beyond one’s reach.

“Well, one piece of advice that I was given by one of my mentors was, if you feel like you’re stuck and you’re not sure if you’re going in the right direction on something… and if you if you’re getting a little overwhelmed with like the direction of your career or the direction of the news industry, just go one story at a time and that will be a way out,” Bosman said.

Despite the current instability in journalism, my desire to pursue this career path remains steadfast. I recognize that even in the industry’s most uncertain moments, journalists are indispensable for a more just future. Society will always need journalists, whether acknowledged or not. As long as we maintain our passion for accountability and democracy, we will always have a purpose, regardless of where or how long we end up.

Sensationalism: A growing threat to sports media

By Max Rayman

Turn on a sports network and more than likely it will be some type of debate format. ESPN’s First Take, which started to embrace that system in 2012, has become the poster child.

Now, most sports shows have the host in some capacity yelling at their co-host or the listeners for dramatic effect. Entertainment and sensationalism have started to take precedence over analysis and statistics, with more and more sports shows following suit.

Longtime CBS sports broadcaster Greg Gumbel was vocal in his disapproval of how sensationalism has taken over sports media.

“First of all, it’s not journalism. It’s sensational by all means,” Gumbel said. “It seems that someone in the genre comes up with something off the wall to say every day. After a while, you tend to realize that’s the point. The point is to be surprising and amazing and something you’ve never heard before. Then 24 hours later they take the complete opposite approach.”

Despite his displeasure with how the sports media landscape has begun to embrace sensationalism, viewership continues to increase for these programs. According to the Sports Business Journal, in December of 2023, First Take averaged 611,000 viewers, which was a 24% increase from the prior year.

Not to be outdone by their rival network, Fox Sports (FS1) posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, that three of their shows all had record months in December of 2023. Both The Herd and First Things First recorded their most-watched month ever, while Speak had its second most-watched month ever.

But what exactly about these programs, is leading to viewers continuously tuning in? Why are spectators allowing sensationalism to take over the sports media landscape?

Gumbel is also baffled at how invested viewers have become.

“What is with the people who are listening in who feel that they are learning something?” Gumbel said. “That this is something they need to have and want to track and follow.”

Recently, during the 2024 NBA All-Star Weekend, the All-Star game was under heavy scrutiny due to a lack of effort from the player’s side. For the first time in NBA All-Star history, a team recorded over 200 points in the game. Stephen A. Smith, the host of ESPN’s First Take, on his show, called the lack of defense a “travesty”. Other sports hosts repeatedly agreed that the event was borderline unfixable, and few offered possible solutions.

Once again, sensationalism was present, which wasn’t necessary – but that has been the issue. How do sports hosts toe the line between being entertaining and not at the expense of compromising accuracy? Gumbel wasn’t sure if that was possible.

“Who’s toeing the line?”, Gumbel asked. “I don’t think hosts care if they are toeing the line or not. That means you would lean on their superiors to know if they are toeing the line or not and you know what, if they are getting ratings they don’t care if they are toeing the line. They are doing what they are supposed to do. It’s this wicked circle that comes back around looking for what you’re trying to accomplish. If that’s what you’re trying to accomplish and you know that’s what they’re trying to accomplish, then whose got room to argue?”

Sensationalism is growing and continuing to sneak its way into sports media, and sadly for now, there is no possible solution on the horizon.

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Careful what you ‘Post’: the future of social media for journalists

By Violet Smale

The internet acts as a sort of formaldehyde preserving who we used to be. We swipe, we post, and we repost, mindlessly accumulating a digital footprint that cannot be erased.

Surely, this is an issue at the forefront of many Gen-Z minds as we enter a cut-throat job market. As we send in our job applications, we ask ourselves: what’s out there that will resurface when my name is Googled?

For present and future journalists, our looming “digital footprint” is a daunting thought.

I am haunted by stories such as Emily Wilder’s 2021 termination by The Associated Press. For anyone unfamiliar with Wilder’s story, let me summarize: the 22 year-old reporter was fired after just two weeks of reporting for the outlet on the grounds of “violating the news outlet’s social media policy,” the Poynter Institute for Media Studies reported. While the details remain somewhat fuzzy, Wilder suspected the surfacing of her past tweets supporting Palestine led to her termination. The AP refutes that claim, instead stating Wilder violated social media guidelines while she was employed by the company.

Whatever instance led to Wilder’s controversial termination by the AP, the case raises an important point for all journalists to consider: we cannot use social media in the same way as everyone else. When one becomes a member of the press, they forsake certain privileges of everyday life. Posting is one of them.

Frankly, I believe it’s unfair that our past follows us around (assuming said “past” isn’t anything discriminatory or harmful). We can’t look into the future to see how one 250-character post will impact our future career. But this is our reality. We have to stop and think: in an age in which the internet has become a mindless pastime, how do we as journalists proceed more thoughtfully?

To clarify what is expected of a journalist’s social media conduct nowadays, I turned to the The Washington Post, a publication that has also had its fair share of social media controversy.

Among The Post’s thorough guidelines, one sentence stood out to me: “Our newsroom’s diversity strengthens our journalism, and Post journalists can bring their backgrounds, identity and experiences to their social accounts. It is not appropriate to use your social media account to advocate for causes, issues, governmental policies or political or judicial outcomes. Also, avoid curating your feeds in ways that suggest you have a partisan point of view on an issue The Post covers.”

When you are hired by an outlet as renowned as The Washington Post, of course you expect to forsake some of the autonomy you have over your social media presence. However, I don’t think we should wait to be hired by a national news outlet to become more conscious and professional in our social media habits. I believe in order to become more consistent journalists, this precedent must be set now, regardless of where one stands in their career.

We cannot erase the past, but going forwarrd we can set—or must set—a new precedent.

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The Burden of the Paywall Falls on Innocent Shoulders

By: Anna Retzlaff

In the 1990s, the early days of the internet, most sites were free to visit. For news outlets, print subscriptions and advertisements brought in all the cash. Very few asked their online audience to pay.

The Wall Street Journal was the first major publication to implement a paywall for its online newspaper. In 1996, the yearly fee was $49, or $29 for print subscribers. The WSJ remained an outlier for charging their audience — until about 20 years later.

In the 2010s, print subscriptions continued to decline, and online advertisement revenue was not cutting it. More and more people were turning to screens for their daily news. Then, readers started to see paywalls instead of articles.

For years, people had access to the information they wanted from the outlet of their choice for free. Now, some of the largest publications like The New York Times operate on a subscription model. Full access to their website now costs $25 per month. Today, the WSJ charges $39 per month. Subscribing to just these two publications could put a reader back $768 a year.

The problem here is paywalls prevent people from accessing information.

The news is for the public, and journalists work to serve them. For the newspaper to function, they need to cover what it costs for journalists to get that news to the public. This is a big issue, but the answer is not paywalls.

We are in a whirlwind of misinformation, lack of trust towards news outlets and poor media literacy. So much quality, trustworthy news is locked away from those who cannot pay. Publications with a reputation of integrity and truthfulness are the ones many people want to look to for information.

It is a tragedy that only people who can pay are able to access the news outlets they want to go to. News that people feel they can trust is less accessible. That fact undermines the entire basis of what journalism means. Journalists work hard to report what people have a right to know.

The news was never meant to be hard to get, and the public should not be limited in the information they can access from newspapers. Who are the newspapers for, if not for everyone?

Pursuing an Unforgiving Career Path: Journalism is Witnessing Increasing Layoffs

By Max Rayman

In 2018, I graduated with a degree in Criminal Justice, but decided to pursue a different career path. With an open elective, I took an advanced sports writing class which put my life on a completely different course. That summer I started writing for a sports blog and by January of 2020, I had become a site-editor for FanSided’s Washington Nationals site.

Fast forward to now, and I am five months away from graduating with a master’s in journalism. Despite not having any prior journalism experience, I took a leap of faith and have yet to regret my decision.

Unfortunately, I have started to notice an unsettling trend. More and more journalism publications have begun downsizing. Just this past weekend, the Wall Street Journal made cuts to its Washington bureau. In January, Sports Illustrated announced they were going to lay off most of their staff. The LA Times also reduced its personnel last month, cutting almost 20% of its newsroom. In 2023, both the Washington Post and The Athletic made cuts to their organization, and sadly this is just the beginning. According to Kierra Frazier of Politico, over 500 journalists were laid off in January alone.

“The job cuts come after an already bleak year. The news industry shed 3,087 digital, broadcast, and print news jobs in 2023 — the highest annual total since 2020, when 16,060 cuts were recorded,” Frazier wrote.

Selfishly, when I read that statistic, I became fearful. But not fearful for the journalism industry, but for myself. As a 28-year-old who will be starting the job search soon, how do I get my foot in the door, when I am competing against plenty of talented reporters and journalists who have more experience but were unexpectedly let go? I dedicated the majority of my early to mid-20s to chasing a dream and I don’t want the last six years to go to waste.

Pushing my personal fears aside, what’s next for the industry? How can these publications continue to work at a high level with a reduced workforce? I am not the only one with these worries.

“What concerns me is with all of these losses and this loss of coverage is that it’s only going to fuel more misinformation and disinformation into communities,” Tim Franklin, senior associate dean at Northwestern’s Medill journalism told Politico. “How do you then combat that challenge?”

In addition to mounting layoffs, multiple publications held walkouts over the past 12 months due to pay issues and the pending layoffs. The LA Times had a 24-hour walkout after it was announced they were going to downsize – the first time since they started printing in 1881. Unfortunately, the higher-ups still went through with the layoffs despite their employee’s vocal disagreement.

There will always be a need for journalists, and I am excited about what the future holds for me, yet this is an unforgiving industry. The ongoing layoffs shouldn’t be seen as a deterrent, but instead as a brutal reminder that this career path can be at times remorseless. But if everything in life was easy, then where would the fulfillment come from?

With great power comes great responsibility: A journalist’s role in reporting the truth

by Lilly Keller

One of the first lessons I learned as a student journalist was only to report what I could unequivocally verify. At the time, I found it funny that my professor dedicated an entire lesson to such an intuitive concept. Wasn’t the very essence of journalism to make the truth accessible to the public?

Before winter break, the idea of resorting to deception to sell a story had never crossed my mind. Then I began reading “And the Band Played On” by American journalist Randy Shilts.

Published by St. Martin’s Press in 1987, the over 600-page book is one of the first comprehensive histories of the AIDS epidemic. Built on Shilts’s relentless reporting at The Advocate and San Francisco Chronicle, the book delves into the people and politics that played a crucial role in bringing the AIDS virus under control.

Although dense at times with complex medical terms and harrowing images of young men whittled away by disease and ignored by their government, I couldn’t put the book down. However, the narrative of Canadian flight attendant Gaétan Dugas haunted me.

Characterized by Shilts and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as “patient zero,” Dugas is depicted as deliberately spreading AIDS and eventually labeled as “the person who brought AIDS to North America.” Without a second thought, I, like readers in 1987, bought into the narrative and felt contempt toward Dugas. Why would Shilts make up something so horrific?

Shortly after the book’s publication, Dugas, who died in 1984, became synonymous with front-page headlines. “The Appalling Saga of Patient Zero” read TIMES magazine, “The Man Who Gave Us AIDS” announced The New York Post and “The Columbus of AIDS” displayed The National Review. However, Shilts’s portrayal of Dugas is knowingly distorted. From omitting anecdotes of Dugas refusing sex due to his AIDS status and telling friends, whom Shilts interviewed for the book that he would keep Dugas anonymous, Shilts constructed a version of Dugas that diverged from reality, presenting a characterization so sensational that it would capture the attention of the general public.

Trust from sources is essential for accurate news, especially when portraying marginalized communities. By betraying sources’ trust without warning, Shilts perpetuates a cycle of apathy and insensitivity—an attitude that prevented the media from taking the epidemic seriously.

Furthermore, the CDC study that Shilts relied on initially identified Dugas as patient O, indicating his origin as outside California rather than as the virus’s epicenter in North America. However, a typo turned O into zero, contributing to the confusion in the paper trail. Still, without fact-checking or contacting the study’s lead investigator, Bill Darrow, Shilts reported on the information at face value, contributing to the confusion and distortion of the truth.

Years after Shilts’s death in 1994, the book’s editor, Michael Denneny, would confess to consciously vilifying Dugas in the book and its publicity campaign to stimulate sales.

“It’s the worst kind of yellow journalism. I admit I got my hands dirty,” Denney said in an interview with Xtra magazine. “Randy was horrified. He didn’t want to do it but I pointed out to him that if we didn’t no one would read the book and we’d sell 5,000 copies that would end up collecting dust on the shelves.”

As journalists, we must acknowledge our position of power and consider it critically. Shilts’s reporting for “And The Band Played On” rendered visible an illness and the hundreds of thousands of lives it took yet perpetuated a false narrative. When readers cannot trust journalists and their work unequivocally, society risks embracing misinformation, rendering our journalistic purpose useless.

In the 36 years since “And The Band Played On” was published, there has been no correction or official acknowledgment of Shilts’s and St. Martin’s Press falsehoods beyond Denneny’s admission. Gaétan Dugas’s exoneration through genetic testing doesn’t negate the harm depicted in his narrative, serving as a stark reminder of the damage caused when journalists prioritize acclaim over truth.

 

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Chronicles of Tomorrow’s Storytellers: Students Need to Pursue Journalism

By Adit Jaganathan

 There is a certain power in crafting stories that keep readers engaged while giving them valuable information. Imagine having the ability to inform the public about events that could potentially change the course of their lives. That’s what journalists do every day.

The world we are living in is characterized by urgency and impatience. Everyone wants everything at the touch of a button, and that includes information. The role of journalism has never been more crucial. As we navigate the intricate web of news and narratives, the need for more students to pursue journalism is urgent. An influx of budding journalists is necessary for a society that seeks to stay informed, engaged, and empowered. So, hopefully, this blog will at least make some of you consider pursuing a career in journalism.

Journalists Are Warriors

At its core, journalism is the pursuit of truth. This world is rife with the spread of misinformation, and journalists are the defenders of the truth. We are trained in the art of ethical and factual storytelling, and we are armed with the power of words. We shield our people and the democracy from manipulation by acting as watchdogs for those in power. We hold them accountable for their actions, with our impartial and unbiased reporting. We have to be cutthroat in our pursuit of the truth, sifting through all the guff and delivering compelling stories, no matter what kind of backlash we may suffer.

Journalists Can Bring Change

Journalism has the transformative power to change a society. Journalists bring attention to a society’s problems. Our stories of injustice, inequality, and other issues can spark conversations that lead to change. We tell stories about the human experience, which resonate with readers who suffer in the same way. This helps bring people together to stand against the injustices they have faced.

Journalists Are Globetrotters

Journalism can take you around the world. We pursue stories that can take us to every corner of the globe. We meet people from various backgrounds and nationalities and tell their stories. We look for stories that aren’t being told by people who aren’t being heard.

Journalists Are Multifaceted, Adaptable, and Creative

Journalism students are equipped with a host of different skills that help them do their job. We learn how to create different forms of media that help us tell our stories. Whether its text, photos, videos, or audio, studying journalism gives you the opportunity to learn new skills and hone your craft. It also allows you to report about whatever you want to. There’s an abundance of stories to be told in every industry, and it’s a journalist’s job to find them and inform the public in creative, accurate, and compelling ways.

The reason more students should pursue journalism is because of the industry’s relevance and transformative power. Journalists aren’t merely talking heads; we’re architects of public discourse and opinion. As guardians of democracy, champions of truth, and storytellers of the human experience, we navigate and adapt to the complexities of the digital age with integrity. We pursue stories that matter, commit to accuracy, and serve as catalysts for change.