This started out, in my head, as a post about what's going on in my life. I started with school, then starting writing about this one class, and found myself on a tangent. I love it when this happens.
Reporting & Writing News Stories...*shrug* I'm learning how to write differently--I won't say better, because it's not better, it's just different--and I've been introduced to that wonderful jewel, my new bible, the AP Stylebook. The class itself, though, is usually the reason that the drive in to Manchester just feels like a waste of time and gas and energy.
I wish the teacher was more energetic. She seems to be just taking it as a given that because we are in this class, we care about journalism and will find the excitement on our own. Enter me, and a few others, only taking this class because it's required for some non-journalism degree or certificate. Those of us who are only showing up for the grade could use a shot in the arm--hell, so could those who want to be journalists. Who couldn't use some fucking ENTHUSIASM once in a while, even if it's for a subject they're already crazy about?
Back when I was an Accounting major, I had to take a business elective, and I chose Principles of Marketing. From the very first class, Ms. Waldron came in and woke us all right the hell up. From that very first class, I knew I was in the wrong major. Almost every class had enthusiasm, excitement, ENERGY. The students who were already into marketing ate it up, and those of us who weren't ate it up even more. Every class was "This is how you combine psychology, design, and business to show people how much they NEED YOUR PRODUCT!"
Journalism is an exciting topic, or at least it should be. Reporting the hard facts! Unveiling conspiracies! Digging up the truth! COME ON PEOPLE! Every class should be "This is how you slap people in the face with THE TRUTH!"
Instead, it's "Okay, this is how we write a lead. This is how the second paragraph should look. This is how the newsroom works." All things we need to learn, introduced in the most docile of ways.
We do have to practice what we're taught, which is good. As much as I hate it, I will have to turn in not just one, but TWO articles for the student newspaper this semester, and finish off the class by presenting a story idea for next year's class to work on. I don't want to be a journalist, it's not for me, I don't like having to interview people and all that, but I'm glad we have these assignments. This is how we learn how to be journalists--by acting like one.
Except, again, it's docile. At the beginning of yesterday's class, the teacher invited those of us without story ideas to come to her afterward for some ideas. I managed to pick up an assignment: the Wednesday after next, I get to attend the Meet Your Presidents & Deans meeting, and chronicle what goes on there--the remarks each person makes, and what goes on in the Question & Answer period.
....WOW! NOW we're getting to the SEXY stuff! HOPE I DON'T GET ARRESTED AT THE ENSUING RIOT!
I know, I'm being harsh. But this is the most humdrum introduction to journalism I could ever imagine. I know not every reporter gets to run around interviewing celebrities or politicians, go undercover into a major company's skeevy underbelly, or investigate crime...but this is just...*snore*
I know this subject, this path, is not for me. But there might be someone at MCC who it is right for, and all they need is a wake up call to realize it. If they take this class, they will not receive that wake up call. And that makes me sad.
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Since the two movies do differ a little (though I've only seen a little of the first, all of the second and haven't read the book) do you mean the more recent one?...
ReplyDeleteThere was a time when reporters were, and knew they were, in a different class (in the economic sense, basically) from the usual power-makers, and were never invited to their dinners (or vice versa). Becoming more chummy with the latter may have damped down your average reporter's interest in looking into them much, too, but it's just a generality and a thought.