Descargar

Being a Journalist: Expectations and real World

Enviado por natysalinas

    Being a journalist is a profession full of dreams and desires, and since the beginning of the process to become one, the student has to face the contrast between the university and the real environment, because journalism has an advantage, that can be disadvantage too. That is, that everybody can look at the work that a reporter does, because this is the real meaning of journalism, to work for the community and for the public cause.

    Being in the front of the reality and in the center of illusions is the place in which the students can see the roads they can follow in the real world. Money, ethic, ideals, micro or macro-media? That becomes a dilemma when the capitalist world is in front of their face and expectations, and when life and people begin to remind them that, as teachers use to say: "this world can chew you up and spit you out."

    This opportunity to watch the work of their colleagues, for those who are going to be journalists, is a big chance. Not everybody has the possibility to watch what is happening with the professional job, and to look at the work in the real context; it can be also a way to look at their mistakes, weaknesses and strengths, and to build their own future, and to see how they want to be when they become professionals.

    Being a professional is the main goal for those who begin a career, and if it is a journalism student, this professional status must be combined with passion and a big concept about the social importance, and the real manner to do journalism. To have this, is very important, since you are a student, to have a notion about what is the truth.

    To tell or not to tell the truth has been, since the profession began, the main and most complicated dilemma for the people who work in this area. Journalism schools try to set some ethical bases for the students, and, since the beginning, genuineness and legitimacy in the job are the rules for the going -to-be journalist.

    The university, as the place where theory is the basis, is the workshop of dreams about being the best person and the best expert, working transparently and based on the ethic that a profession, like journalism, requires. You want to get your diploma and get a job, and your labor is going to be different, because you are going to change the rules and the environment is going to be better. You are going to transform the entire development of your career, because your ethical job is going to make the difference. There is no way to get permeated by the bad habits and mistakes that old journalists use to make, no; this new professional is going to modify all of humanity, and the way journalists work. Corruption is going to be over. Biased labor is not going to exist any more. There is no way to get bribed for status that makes you lose your ideals and your principles.

    It is normal to spend hours talking to your classmates, and those hours are enough for students to transform the complete profession, because you are going to make the difference, and the real world is not going to stop your dreams. Media is going to work for the people and is going to be directed and led by honest people, and the main principle of journalism, the human being, is not going to change. Being the viewers of the State and political and social process is going to be the major goal. Your entire career is full of projects; some of them very good and the others very mediocre, but all of them missions to accomplish, to change, too, but finally, tasks to develop in the future.

    Teachers are trying to prepare you for a future that may not exist, because the academy must be idealistic, and this is normal because you have to be prepared to be the best and to change the things that are not working in the professional atmosphere, but certainly the world has things that can hardly be changed.

    Then comes the real world. The truth, which was the most important idea and the rule to follow, becomes ambiguous. Contradictions exist in the whole development of the authentic world, and they are impossible to avoid as a journalist. Economic powers are the first interested in your work; how you do it and what you say is your first regulation if you do not want to lose your job, because political and economic interests are after your work. You are supposed to be telling the truth to the entire society, but that truth is full of uncertain and confusing contents, as the society is, so, you have to work to translate those concepts in clear theories. Processing and transmission of the information is not the principle of journalism, but interpretation of it.

    How is journalism born? It is a profession of passion and love, in which being dedicated is the most important requirement. And that is what a good journalist is, at least in Latin America.

    Latin American journalism, as in the entire world, was conceived as the occupation of people who want to be a viewer in the society; to be the "guardian dog" of democracy and good development of the society and community. That is why politics and journalism have very big ties; they cannot work in separate ways even though they fight for their interests every time. It is impossible that this profession hasn’t changed throughout the years, and actually it did, and it is incredible to find out its meaning in each different generation.

    To work in any branch of journalist means nowadays in South American countries, and surely not just for them, to get a job that satisfies the public’s ambitions and necessities, based on what satisfies the reporter’s boss, not being conscious about the fact that media’s power is managing the public or the information agenda, which means that they can tell the audience what they need to know, what to talk about and how to do it, that makes the journalists’ work something really delicate, because is in their hands the publication of information that is going to be part of the spectators lives. These actions are the real preoccupation of teachers, old journalists, and even students in the Latin American context, because of the problem that is affecting the political and social development: There is no citizen’s participation in the processes that affect their societies, because the education’s quality is not as good to form that kind of criteria; and that those countries’ news papers and in general, the media, are not working to educate their viewers.

    The most honorable journalists in the southern part of the American continent, for example Gabriel García Márquez, Ramón Cortez, Alberto Lleras Camargo, Eduardo Caballero Calderón, Mario Vargas Llosa, as too many others, based their work on cultural and social benefits. They were reflected in the journalists’ interests in the daily life, newspapers and media, trying to reproduce in their jobs the abnormal, and even normal things, as interesting stories to tell to their countries. Their work has been taught in the academy as an example to follow, but it has been shown also, and may be unconsciously, as something that could just have happened in the past and that can not be coherent with the new world demands.

    To explain the differences in education, the Colombian Literature Nobel Laureate, Gabriel Garcia Marquez says in his essay "The Best Work in the World" that 50 years ago journalism schools were not a trend as happens nowadays. The vocation was learned in the redaction rooms, in the printers’ office, in the coffee shop in front of the newspaper, at Friday night parties. Every newspaper was a factory that used to inform without mistakes, and generated opinion in an environment that maintained the moral in its place. Because journalists were always together, they used to make a common life, and were such aficionados to their occupation that they never talked about anything different than the profession itself. Empirical knowledge was the one that was born from fervor.

    Garcia Marquez continues saying that the later creation of journalism schools was a scholastic reaction against the fact that the profession had not any academic bases, and now the career is called Communication Sciences or Social Communication. The result, continues Garcia Marquez, is not enthusiastic. The students go out from the university with big illusions, and all their lives in front of them: it seems like they are out of world and realism, out of the vital problems, and their priority is the competition to gain, to have the scoop and be the protagonists.

    It is not easy to find the place where and the year when journalism changed its essence, or maybe it didn’t happen and what changed were the ways to do it. It can be the immediate spirit that new and mass medias have, in the profession in which each effort finishes with each information, as Garcia Marquez said; and because of it, the goal begins to justify the methods. It seems like the students of this career miss the old journalism manner without live it, or, citing the same writer, "… in the case of journalism, it seems like the profession could not evolve as fast as its instruments …", but even though the world has changed, the admirable, the big writers, are still doing their best and reminding what this profession was conceived for, and they do not used to live in another world. It makes me think that the education in the universities is responsible for that, and I don’t want to sound like I have feelings or thoughts against it, but at least it makes me wonder about what kind of professional I want to be.

    But today’s universities are not that bad. The creation of them formed from necessity, and to form journalists too. The media and the hurry to belong to one of the most commercial and acknowledged enterprises is what makes the new professional a person that, what ever it takes, has to work for one of those existing macro-institutions. Having a job is more important than going on with the ideals, because reporters acquire other responsibilities, as family or their own life, and they also need to eat. So, at this point, it is the professional ethic what counts, or the personal responsibilities to take care of their selves and their families?

    It is not easy to talk about a global way to do communications; maybe the mass media is the trend, but the work of each columnist, or reporter, is what makes the media exceptional and unique. Their work can come from their knowledge, but the information that a student of journalism has can be the same, or very similar from the others, but, experience, perspective, principles and awareness to interpret the world are, with no doubt, the origin of that uniqueness that media, which are getting equal from the others, need.

    Studying the reasons that explain why journalism can be differently taught, and even developed in a third world country, as Latin Americans are, from other places, it leaves the conclusion that, because of Latin American countries’ conditions, namely social development and politics; journalism is expected to be the thing that works against the people and the institutions that, even though are supposed to be working for the citizens, are not thinking precisely in it or about the entire society, but them selves. And these exigencies are derived from the fact that the work of the journalist is the most visible in the Latin American society, because their public work makes them face the reality and be responsible of what their work can cause.

    It is that kind of work that makes a journalist special in those countries, because to try to do their job according with the professional ethic and their principles can be really dangerous, and not too recognized.

    We are talking about the kind of countries in which there are armed conflicts and common delinquency, and political corruption and impunity, being a journalist is a risky job, it is even more so you are doing your job with out any conception of evil. Only the accomplished labor, as happens in Colombia, shuts journalist’s mouths and stops a honest job. It can sound amazing but is not difficult for some people; it is just a question of paying somebody for killing, and the problem is finished. That is why nowadays Colombia is one of the most dangerous countries to practice the occupation, even to the point that, as the journalist, who is the Colombian vice-president, Francisco Santos assures, some international insurance companies do not want to insure journalists.

    Therefore, it is not easy to find anyone in this occupation who is not afraid, but students are not totally conscious about this problem. It is true that they watch the news about one journalist killed because of a work in which he denounced a corrupt politician. However, most of them do not get touched, because the university seems like a place in which you are in the real environment, even though you are protected from bad things, from society things. There is no way to get contaminated.　But even though as a student you are in a crystal box, it is impossible not to notice about how often a colleague can be killed: Colombia is the country where many journalists have been killed in the last 15 years, and, actually in 2001 there were 37 journalists murdered, and in 2002 there were 19. It makes me wonder whether the amount has diminished because this problem is being controlled, or because there are fewer journalists working against corruption. I do not know about the second one, but I am sure that the first one is not a part of any statistic.

    Colombia’s vice-president, says in his article "The Danger of work the journalism in Colombia" that to understand the situation it is important to know the conditions in which journalists in Colombia work, because the three principal illegal actors in the armed conflict, guerrillas, paramilitaries and narcotrafficants, "are not friends of the truth." And besides, concludes Santos, with a very bad and flexible judicial system, and an impunity average of 90%, journalists have to pay a high price if they say who did what, and who killed who.

    Journalists are frightened and are in a dilemma that puts them in between tell the truth or keep their jobs, or their life, but, in spite of that, to expect this kind of job from the communication professionals is not a crazy thing, and it does not seem either like an impossible utopia, because these people who work in the media have the resources and the power to educate the citizens, and to form them, and to go for a better society for the average person who have their hands tied because they have no power to change the situation. It is not impossible to dream about a journalism that cares more about the people than money, but it is not easy to ask to the economic emporiums the same thing, because that is the way they work, and as they own the media they own the information, and worse, they "own" the journalists. That is just talking about money, but talking about political interests is not less complicated, because image and personal benefits are committed, and the topic is getting really confusing.

    <> Taking a look to the facts, it is very normal to see the young people, who are being prepared to accomplish with this hard labor, having career crisis, and even refusing the system and the media’s way to work; and dreaming about new kind of enterprises, such as micro medias, but independent from advertisers and people who try to manage their work and their principles. Finally ethic and soul cannot be sold, and if they can, good work and satisfaction are not going to be in the statistics.

    I do not know if I have told you that I am going to finish my studies in Social Communication and Journalism, and I do not know if I am going to be able to talk about honesty and ethics and accomplished dreams in a few years from now, but I just know that this kind of discussion are the things that keep the career alive from catastrophe to be running of ideals and get out of its main reason: think for the people, work for them and for the principle of democracy: everybody has rights and responsibilities, in which life and free speech are fundamental, but also political decisions. I wonder, even if a country’s educational system is not good, cannot journalists and communications professionals, whose work is getting to every place, transmit the information required by the society to permit them to achieve their rights and accomplish their responsibilities?

    Concluding, it is important to say that if the media does not work according to the Constitution of their country, how can they expect the common people to work according to it? For my country and my next job this might be the rule to trace, contained in the Republic of Colombia Political Constitution, article 20: "Every individual is guaranteed the freedom to express and diffuse his/her thoughts and opinions, to transmit and receive information that is true and impartial, and to establish mass communications media. The mass media are free and have a social responsibility. The right of rectification under equitable conditions is guaranteed. There will be no censorship."

    BIBLOGRAPHY.

    <>

    Natalia Hernández Zuluaga

    Estudiante de Comunicación social

    Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana

    Medellín – Colombia.

    Trabajo hecho en la Universidad de West Virginia (West Virgia, EEUU)