If our own administrators and teachers don't believe in the school, why am I in it? Sure, we're being allowed to finish our degrees, but is that the same as having something valuable that will get us jobs when we graduate? It doesn't look like it. Not that I don't think revamping the j-school is a bad idea. I think it's a good one. It just leaves me - and other students halfway (or more) through a degree - in a strange spot.
The good news is that today, I'm going forth. Not in a Levi jeans (Yes, I'm also an English major, I know it's actually a Walt Whitman kind of way. I'm trying to connect to people my own age.) kind of way, but as in, I want to actually be a journalist today. We had the editor of the Boulder Weekly, Pamela White, come to talk to us in Reporting 2, and she was inspiring, to say the least.
An investigative reporter, White has written stories that initiated a bill passing that prevented imprisoned women from being shackled while in labor, that got her pushed up against a wall during an interview, and that ousted the President of CU.
But what got to me more?
She still cares.
Her eyes watered up when she started talking about the team she worked with on the story that got John Boechner out of the presidency. She quickly named details about each reporter she mentioned (location, paper, kids). She was passionate about truth and justice.
I've been thinking, lately, that journalists are a bunch of sellouts. That the continuous pressure to evolve and become monetized has overshadowed what journalism is: a search for truth. For truths that are bigger than advertisers, truths that bring down a corrupt politician or help up a struggling Samaritan.
To strengthen the weak and weaken the strong.
That's what we're here for.
Tomorrow I've got an interview at the Daily Camera. I'm glad that today, I was reaffirmed about what it meant to be a journalist, because now, when I'm asked the question, I can legitimately answer that I'm excited about the future of journalism, and about my future in journalism.
Update: Just got done with my interview at the Camera. Looks like I'll be sports interning there in the spring. :)
