(This is excerpted from an email I wrote earlier this week.)
I don't know if I would say I'm "disillusioned" with journalism, because I don't think I came into it with that much illusion to begin with. I don't think I really had much of an opinion on it. Well, maybe I am a bit disillusioned; I guess journalism has sunk lower in my eyes since starting this job, or at least most types of journalism have. I think the idealistic image of journalism I had in my mind was of an investigative journalist who goes out and sort of snoops around and inconspicuously watches and observes everything until he kind of formulates the story, figures out what's really happening, and reveals to people the truth that was hidden to them before. Obviously I haven't gotten to do much of that (although the story I just wrote today was a little bit like that). I think there are those kind of journalists, but you have to work your way to the top before you have the freedom and expertise to write that kind of story. And of course, that ideal journalist I had in my mind would have been a reporter of complete integrity, loyal to no parties but the truth. The more I do this job, the more I see every day that everyone has their angle. It can be really disenchanting. It breaks down your sense of trust and makes you suspicious of everyone, which may be useful and necessary if you're to survive in the tough, hardened worlds of politics and business and media, but it seems harmful and degrading to one's humanity. It's almost like being a soldier...like you are forced to bite back the better instinct inside yourself in order to do your job, which may be a necessary and even noble sacrifice to make, but still, it's not good for you. Or like carrying the Ring of Power (if you think about it, the media is power...). I'm afraid of what would happen if I stayed in this job for a long, long time.
There is no objective journalism...which makes sense and is unavoidable, because no person can be completely objective. But what disturbs me is that it seems that virtually nobody's even trying to be objective anymore. It's like all the news places have just started letting their completely unobjectivity hang out, without any shame--often they even take pride in being biased. I'm just so not into the politics game, the power plays...I don't want anything to do with it. I'll support causes I think are just, but I feel like so many people in journalism are so caught up in politics, like that's all they can think about, as if it were the be-all and end-all of human action. Actually, the more I follow politics and the more I learn about how things are done in Washington, D.C., the more convinced I am that politics really does very little to help people. It's all a lot of grandstanding with very little actually accomplished. Beyond ensuring that the minimum conditions for security and commerce are met, providing a few basic services, and ensuring that all are treated with the minimum level of human decency, and the political system is pretty much impotent. I mean, it's impotent when it comes to actually making the world a better place. (But just so that you don't think I've gone Republican, so is the free market.)
-Joey
I don't know if I would say I'm "disillusioned" with journalism, because I don't think I came into it with that much illusion to begin with. I don't think I really had much of an opinion on it. Well, maybe I am a bit disillusioned; I guess journalism has sunk lower in my eyes since starting this job, or at least most types of journalism have. I think the idealistic image of journalism I had in my mind was of an investigative journalist who goes out and sort of snoops around and inconspicuously watches and observes everything until he kind of formulates the story, figures out what's really happening, and reveals to people the truth that was hidden to them before. Obviously I haven't gotten to do much of that (although the story I just wrote today was a little bit like that). I think there are those kind of journalists, but you have to work your way to the top before you have the freedom and expertise to write that kind of story. And of course, that ideal journalist I had in my mind would have been a reporter of complete integrity, loyal to no parties but the truth. The more I do this job, the more I see every day that everyone has their angle. It can be really disenchanting. It breaks down your sense of trust and makes you suspicious of everyone, which may be useful and necessary if you're to survive in the tough, hardened worlds of politics and business and media, but it seems harmful and degrading to one's humanity. It's almost like being a soldier...like you are forced to bite back the better instinct inside yourself in order to do your job, which may be a necessary and even noble sacrifice to make, but still, it's not good for you. Or like carrying the Ring of Power (if you think about it, the media is power...). I'm afraid of what would happen if I stayed in this job for a long, long time.
There is no objective journalism...which makes sense and is unavoidable, because no person can be completely objective. But what disturbs me is that it seems that virtually nobody's even trying to be objective anymore. It's like all the news places have just started letting their completely unobjectivity hang out, without any shame--often they even take pride in being biased. I'm just so not into the politics game, the power plays...I don't want anything to do with it. I'll support causes I think are just, but I feel like so many people in journalism are so caught up in politics, like that's all they can think about, as if it were the be-all and end-all of human action. Actually, the more I follow politics and the more I learn about how things are done in Washington, D.C., the more convinced I am that politics really does very little to help people. It's all a lot of grandstanding with very little actually accomplished. Beyond ensuring that the minimum conditions for security and commerce are met, providing a few basic services, and ensuring that all are treated with the minimum level of human decency, and the political system is pretty much impotent. I mean, it's impotent when it comes to actually making the world a better place. (But just so that you don't think I've gone Republican, so is the free market.)
-Joey
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