Journalism has always been looked upon with a considerable amount of doubt. The general public never seems surprised if a journalist accidentally misrepresents someone or something, and many people go as far as to openly disbelieve everything the media present to them.
Why does this happen?
The thing is, after it's out in the public, it's out of our hands. The reader is the one who really defines what is right or wrong in an article. And more often than not, the reader's opinion is negative. Not very fun for us journalists, but hey – everyone knows we're too busy to care. Right?
I ran head-on to this problem when I wrote about a new, long-term substitute teacher at Wilcox High School's newspaper, the Scribe. As an opinion writer, I had a considerable amount of freedom. But apparently I took that freedom to a whole new level.
Overall I meant to write a positive article that covered how when the substitute first arrived, I had honestly thought he wasn't the brightest. And then I went on to explain that as time passed, he became really a good teacher with some great ideas. After the column was finished, I sent it in, and the newspaper adviser, a much-loved English teacher, approved the piece and into the paper it went.
However, the principal became agitated by my use of the term "not the sharpest tool in the shed" at the beginning of the article. The principal then put our adviser under a lot of heat, as she had been the one to allow it to slip through. The result? When faced with the ultimatum to change the way she had been running the Scribe for five years, she resigned from the position of adviser.
That was when I got to experience people hating me just for being a journalist. Though everyone continued to assure me that everything was fine, I began noticing them jokingly blaming me for getting the "greatest adviser ever" fired. A chorus of "if only Geneva hadn't written that article" echoed around me for several days. The experience, to be completely honest, sucked royally.
All the negativity toward journalists is one of the main reasons I was originally skeptical about pursuing my love of journalism. It's impossible to enjoy the idea of having a group of people out there in the world who literally hate you – just because you're a journalist!
So, what can be done about this?
Obviously the public needs to recognize that journalists are not out to get them and weren't put on this earth to rip the average man to shreds. We are here to shed light on important issues and let people see the facts, whatever they may be.
A wise man once said, "The truth is rarely pure and never simple." In all irony, Oscar Wilde never spoke truer words, especially when related to the subject of journalism. The truth is a multifaceted thing that is so easy to misinterpret, yet no one seems to reflect upon this when judging the subject of journalism. The general public automatically thinks the truth can be only one thing and if it doesn't believe what is being presented is truth, the public blames it on the one doing the presenting.
This isn't to say that we as journalists need do nothing while the public does all of the work. As a reporter or an editor -- or anything related to the field of journalism – journalists can be diligent in making sure they have both sides of the story, or at least have made a decent attempt to get both sides.
But in the end it boils down to the fact that journalists and the public need better communication if the plan is to allow everyone to win. In an ideal world, unfair judgments would not be made and questionable facts would not be published.
We don't live in an ideal world.
But with a little help from both ends of the spectrum we may be able to fix this problem.