My Thoughts on the Journalism Program

When coming into this program, I had no knowledge of Journalism at all. I'd never taken a Journalism class before and I've certainly never had a story published. I barely even READ the Papercut, which was my CEGEP's campus newspaper. Everything I currently know about Journalism I learned from my Journalism classes at Concordia.

When entering the Journalism program at Concordia, you are required to take JOUR201: Writing and Reporting I. This course is a year long, but it teaches you all the basics of Journalism: How to write a story, how to write a lede (yes, it's spelled L-E-D-E), how to conduct an interview, etc. If, like me, you don't know anything about Journalism, than this course will teach you a lot. It is NOT however, a slack off course. You get assignments every week (usually a story of about 500 words to write) as well as some larger projects. You can't miss more than 3 classes or you fail (although I've never met a teacher who actually enforces this, I still don't recommend skipping a lot of classes. Attendance is always taken).

I happen to be fairly shy, so Journalism has definitely been a challenge for me at times. I love to write, so writing the story has always been easier for me than interviewing. If you're horribly shy, than this course will be difficult for you. There is a lot of calling around and a lot of asking questions to people you don't know. Once you get into it, it does get easier however, so don't worry.

For everyone who wants to go into Journalism but who has trouble with Formal Essays, then worry not! You can throw all that useless crap out the window! Journalistic writing is VASTLY different than anything I've had to write for my other classes. You'll never need to write another "thesis statement" again, and boy, does it feel good! Journalistic writing is much simpler and to the point. I'm not going to go into the details of journalistic writing, but basically, all of your most important facts should go at the beginning of your story. Also, you should never use adjectives. This makes adding words to your story much more difficult if you are under your required word length.

One thing that the Journalism program teaches you that can really come in handy, is how to do research. As a Journalism student, you get a lot of access to online newspaper databases. When you learn how to navigate these effectively (I still haven't, but maybe one day), then you can find just about anything that's been printed in a major newspaper. In my required Computer Assisted Reporting class, we even learned how to find all sorts of information on complete strangers (kinda scary, ain't it?). I have used my access to different databases for more than one project for various different courses.

One thing I really learned from my Journalism courses, was just how biased Journalism can really be. Now, I'm sure just about anybody will be able to tell you that some Journalists are biased, but I don't think people realize just how often they are and to what extent. A lot of stories out there have a very specific and narrow minded focus. The search for the truth has become a distant second to that interesting hook which will attract readers. Let me make it clear that I'm not saying newspapers print lies! I'm not trying to dissuade people from buying newspapers. There are a lot of good Journalists out there who are not twisting the truth for an extra buck. I was just taken off guard when I first learned how manipulative newspapers can be. It's for this reason that if I stay in Journalism, I'll probably focus on Feature/Magazine Writing.

Now that I've just slammed Journalism, let me try to renew your faith in it. If you are interested in Journalism, then you can be going into a profession that can actually help people. Journalists like Nellie Bly have brought about social change which has helped millions of people. You can reach a lot of people with Journalism and change society for the better. That may be an idealistic view of Journalism, but since it's happened in the past, I feel that I could happen again in the future.

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