“Did she really just post another sh*tty clickbait article on Facebook? That’s not real journalism. That’s not even good writing.”
Stop. All of you. Stop judging me . Stop belittling me as a writer because I’d rather pen an article on the 10 best restaurants in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, than write an article covering the presidential election or the rather upsetting school shooting that just left three dead and two injured.
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While staying informed is so very essential in my field, I don’t desire to report the news with my writing like all the journalists my professors raise on a pedestal in class.
I like to write; I like to craft silly sentences and I like to use a plethora of obnoxious adjectives instead of focusing on the brevity that news stories thrive on. And no, professor, I didn’t watch CNN this weekend — but I did watch E! News. Kim Kardashian did something completely average and yet garnered hours of live TV coverage. Oh, don’t those “non-newsworthy” celebrities just make you cringe? Better yet, don’t all those reporters who cover all this glossy hodgepodge irk you even more?
OK OK, let me explain myself. I’m a third-year journalism student at The College of New Jersey, and while I have a solid background in how to cover an event, how to interview a victim for a story after a tragic event has occurred, and how to write a snappy inverted pyramid lead after news breaks, that isn’t me.
I came to TCNJ to be a writer. My major is Journalism and Professional Writing. Professional writing. My professors have taught me an immense amount of information on interviewing, professionalism and writing substantial stories — and believe me, I’m grateful for that. But I know that deep down they hope all their students move on to esteemed newspapers and digress away from anything magazine-related or any online editorial publications.
They don’t want to see me writing “shitty” BuzzFeed articles, which is why sites and publications like this are never discussed in class. And I understand why; it’s obviously not a journalism site, but it doesn’t mean that the writers that work there aren’t talented individuals. And if you’re going to add the extra two words, “professional writing,” to the title of the major, I think you need to be more open-minded to the fact that we live in a tech-savvy world and newspapers aren’t the only medium people read anymore. There are other writing platforms out there and I intend to explore them.
I began writing for TCNJ’s chapter of Odyssey in August 2015 because it has provided me with a weekly platform to do something that I love — write, and write freely. You know, that thing that I wish we practiced in class. Instead my work is getting annihilated by my professor’s red pen because my source wasn’t credible or my sentence structure doesn’t follow newspaper format.
Odyssey permits writers to literally write whatever he or she may desire (I could write an article on the history of potato chips one week and write an article on ISIS the next), upload it to our content management system (a skill they’d never teach in my journalism classes) and then share it to social media. Every week we are required to write, and that’s what I love, because it keeps me writing and forces me to better myself with my words. And there’s minimal editing done to our work; they're basically all original, untouched pieces. Which is, dare I say, swagtastic?
I may not be writing the most newsworthy articles, and some of my work may constitute as “clickbait” in the eyes of news anchors and reporters, but it doesn’t mean that I’m ignorant of what my major entails or that I disrespect those who yearn to deliver news to the public. I don’t think I necessarily want to report the news with my writing; instead I want to be creative with my work. I want to write to entertain. I want people to enjoy reading my articles just as much as I enjoyed writing them.
This is why I have found my place with Odyssey. I don’t have to worry about dishonoring the Journalist’s Code of Ethics or dealing with confidential sources. Nor do I have to worry about frantically (and accurately) typing up a story in under 10 minutes because news just broke and it’s imperative that my publication be the first to report it. Odyssey is my space each week to write, and to write how I think is right.
