Blog #13

When I took this course, I definitely had my own ideas of what journalism was like. I write things and read articles all the time and honestly, it seemed at first like a very easy style. I was certainly wrong. Writing an article is much harder than it looks.

Before reading about Libel, I had no idea that journalists could impact people’s lives so negatively. I always thought it was as simple as gathering some information and then making a summary…but there are so many things that you need to consider. A simple “slip of the pen” and suddenly you’ve ruined the credibility of someone you may have never met. It takes a lot of guts and a lot of responsibility to be a journalist. I now have a better appreciation of the saying, “the pen is mightier than the sword.”

As someone who writes fiction as a hobby, I never put very much thought into the news-writing style. It always seemed very boring and more than once I wanted to spice things up and add a few exaggerated details, but I quickly realized that news is not fiction writing…it’s real life. Writing to me is at times like art, and having to stick to a certain style was definitely frustrating. But now that I’ve learned the importance of staying objective, it makes much more sense why it has to be that way. If I was allowed to just add whatever embellishments and details I wanted, it wouldn’t be accurate and that’s part of your job as journalist, to tell people what’s going on.

So overall, after taking this course, I now have a better appreciation of what it’s like to be a journalist. It takes a lot of skill, responsibility and good judgment to be effective and by no means is it easy. A lot of thought goes into an article, much more than I would’ve ever guessed. I don’t intend to ever be a journalist, but I think it’s still good to know because now I can better reflect on my own work as a writer. It was a very valuable experience I think.