Isn’t it funny that when someone writes something that is deemed untrue how the work that was put into writing the story can be taken for granted?
People can take things too serious sometimes. But the real problem is that some people have no idea what it is like to face a deadline. That’s the truth.
As an individual word, “journalist” gets thrown around like a beach ball. And to be honest, if you haven’t been in the shoes of a journalist then you don’t know what it is like to face that deadline.
On a newspaper staff, there are codes of ethics that one follows in order to be as accurate as possible. One of those codes is to get the information out to the public as quickly as possible.
But in some cases, an individual, or in this case an entire staff, could face the wrath of one’s own Student Body Vice President who is seeking to be elected as Student Body President.
Yes, it’s true.
Yet, people don’t understand the pressure, the blood, sweat and tears that it takes to be a journalist and the hard work that is put out to be informative and unbiased.
The first thing that you should know is that it takes commitment from everyone who decides to be a journalist.
Next, it’s those commitments that for a student-run college newspaper, it is for that entire semester that you, the journalist, decided to write news items that your opinion is left out.
Our job is to be observational, not intrusive.
Another job of a journalist is to provide information to students who should know what is happening. If we don’t, then why bother having a student newspaper at all. I mean just look at what happened to Cal State Dominguez Hills.
It was because of the lack of funding.
However, that is not the point. The point is that people think that writing a story is easy, that it all it takes are key strokes to get the job done. In addition, the thought of ‘How hard can it be to write a story?’ comes up.
Trust me if you have to ask, then it’s because you don’t know. You have it easy because all you have to worry about is coming to school, attending your classes and leaving when you have to.
And for those who are on a newspaper staff, it is worry about what needs to be covered such as student government meetings, events and so forth. There is a worry of how many pages to go for the issue, where stories are going on what page,etc.
You see, you don’t have to worry about things like this; a newspaper staff does. You don’t have to spend hours on end thinking about it. If you were in the position, I’m sure you wouldn’t be able to handle it, much less with other classes on your schedule.
Do you want to trade places? Do you want to see what it’s like? Do you want to face deadline once a week?
If the answer to any of these questions is no, then stop complaining that there was something written that was untrue. Stop complaining that you were misquoted. At least someone had the decency to care and write about what happened.
