n>[_ x_ 24
id that question catch your attention? Good!
You're perhaps in high school and everyone's asking you
that dreaded question: what do you want to do when you grow
up? If either or both of your parents are from India, it's
quite
likely you know plenty of uncles, aunties and friends who
are
successful medical doctors or engineers. It's easy to be
lulled
into thinking those are the only options. While tending to
the
sick and building bridges or software are perfectly fine
professions, there are plenty of others to consider. After all
you
wouldn't fill your stomach with the first item you spot on a
buffet.
Clearly the answer to the question of what do you want to
do is a nearly infinite range of possibilities that span the
alphabet: from an apiarist to a volcanologist. If you are not
the
timid kind you may get to try your hand at several
professions
in your life time. But what if you had a less risky option
of
tasting different things while being engaged in one
profession? Journalism is the answer!
news organizations that follow a
code of ethics and standards are
more trustworthy -- for the most
part -- than bloggers.
Before you get to produce news,
are you consumers of news? How
many of you have listened to the
National Public Radio or read a
newspaper or watched a news
segment on TV in the last few
weeks? If you're under 16 chances
are that less than a handful of you
did. Yet, fascinating developments
are going on daily in the worlds of
business, government, science, arts,
literature, fashion, sports, music to
name only a few. Someone is
finding out information and
broadcasting or writing about them
and they're affecting your lives in
many unseen ways. Knowing that a
new treatment for an illness is
available may help your relative or
a friend with their health. If you
knew that your state's budget crisis
is going to affect the quality of your
school lunch, you'd probably pack
your own sandwich!
Many of you may be users of
Facebook and obviously well-
versed with text messages, both of
BUT
WHAT IF I DON'T WANT
TO BE A DOCTOR
OR AN ENGINEER?
GOPAL RATNAM
As a journalist you could be writing about the disaster last
year that befell bees in the United States killing off millions
of
insects in a matter of weeks. Did you know that? A few years
later you could be reporting about undersea volcanoes and
earthquakes that cause tsunamis.
So what does it take to be a journalist? You'd need a
curious
mind and a willingness to ask questions even if they seem
stupid, and of course not being afraid of people in power.
But these days everything is on Google and in blogs so do
we still need journalists? Yes, because the content of any
Google search still has to be produced by someone, and
preferably someone reliable and trustworthy, and that's why
Gopal Ratnam is a reporter in the Washington D.C. bureau of
Bloomberg News, an electronic
news service that operates out of 140 news bureaus around the
world. He covers the U.S. military
and the American defense industry for the news service and has
also written about automobiles
and energy issues. He's a member of the board of the South Asian
Journalism Association.
D
n>[_ x_ 25
which are great tools to find out
what your friends are up to at any
moment -- a clear illustration that
human beings are naturally
curious. It could be a matter of time
before you become curious about
the larger world around you,
beyond your immediate friends.
Some of you may be actively
involved in your school newspaper
or television and learning the basics
of news gathering, checking facts,
making sure both sides of an issue
get an opportunity to voice their
opinion and presenting all this in a
manner that your audience would
want to read or watch. And some of
you may have read or heard that the
journalism business in the U.S. is
suffering: newspapers are losing
money, employees are being fired,
and television networks are cutting
back on coverage of international
news.
Despite the financial hardships
that many news organizations face,
media performs an essential
function in a democracy like the
U.S. It holds elected officials at all
levels of government and public
institutions accountable and shines
a light on people and communities
that are i l l served by the
government. In other words media
i s s u p p o s e d t o a f f l i c t t h e
comfortable and comfort the
afflicted! For the most part
American media has lived up to
that goal with some exceptions.
S o m e o f t h e g r e a t e s t
a c h i e v e m e n t s o f A m e r i c a n
journalism have shaped the nature
of the society that we live in,
including the expose of President
Richard Nixon's cover-up of a in,
botched robbery -- which led to his resignation; coverage of
the
wars that the United States is engaged in, and reporting on
the
aftermath of Hurricane Katrina's devastation in New Orleans.
Of course there are glaring disappointments including the
media's failure to question dubious claims about Iraq's
weapons in the run up to the war against that country in
2003.
In an age when many U.S. jobs can be outsourced -- from
airline booking services operated out of India to cheap
sports
shoes made in China -- journalism, because of its nature has
to
be here. It's hard to imagine a Chinese journalist asking
the
Virginia governor about school lunch or poor roads.
If this essay has stirred an interest and you think you may
have a journalist in you, be sure to sharpen your writing
and
speaking skills, and ask about openings in your school
newspaper. In the extremely unlikely event that you find
yourself bored one of these days, pick up a newspaper or
tune
into a news channel on TV.
When the time comes to choose a career your parents and
adults around you are going to ask: Can you make a living as
a
journalist? The answer is: yes it pays enough. But also tell
them
that watching a public official squirm uncomfortably when
you ask a questionthat is priceless!
To find out more about getting started in journalism, check
some of these resources:
The South Asian Journalism Association at www.saja.org.
American Journalism Review: www.ajr.org
Poynter Institute: www.poynter.org
