It has been the symbol of free expression and the voice of pop culture. It can be intricate, researched. It can also be irreverent and opinionated. Some say it is the "Great Equalizer" -- the people's voice. Many others find it slanted and cancerous. Whatever form it takes and whatever fact or fantasy it fulfills, it is certain that the entity of journalism, like every one of us, is evolving.
Today -- all judgment aside -- the "news" is defined less by the talking heads on our local broadcast stations and more by the anonymity of the internet/amateurish ingenuity of up-and-coming writers and web developers. We live in a perpetual BuzzFeed quiz: our life and, by extension, our blossoming networks creep ever outward based solely on our individual interests. We are choosing our own paths more than ever before; the way news reaches your friend from college is completely different from the way news (and, what news, for that matter) reaches your mom. Your friend may be drowning in the ever-popular, visually rich social justice features while your mom might be hearing more about her home state's governor re-election. Audience matters more than ever before.
In a world like this, it is hard to imagine that some of our best and brightest were journalists. I know, I am treating the term 'journalists' as if the concept itself were a damning disease. Unfortunately, thanks to numerous demoralizing national crises like the Vietnam War involving the press's collective trustworthiness, the discipline of journalism has taken hit after hit. A practice that manifested only to unite and inform a body of people has become reduced to a seemingly corrupt, insincere career fit especially for crooks, gossipers and liars. Benjamin Franklin or William Randolph Hearst or Nellie Bly could not have possibly stood for the same things many journalists stand for today. Or could they have?
One of our innate flaws as human beings is our continued denial of evolution even when we have evidence of its omnipresence in our world. The discipline of journalism is no exception. Audience needs change as human technology changes and those "doing the news" and writing about / broadcasting life in this shifting world must adapt. The fact that journalism -- in all its flexibility over the years -- has evolved (perhaps not so gracefully...or at least not yet) from a primarily print-based universe to a web-based one is pretty admirable. The fact of the matter is that people will always look to reliable, effective communicators for information. Individual voices will always be valuable in some capacity. We just must not forget in our rapidly changing world of media that honesty, intelligence and headstrong passion for seeking and conveying good stories takes precedence over anything else. In the words of Ray Bradbury, "Journalism keeps you planted in the earth."
