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D 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!
BUT… WHAT IF I DON'T WANT TO BE A DOCTOR OR AN ENGINEER? 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 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 wellversed with text messages, both of
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.
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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 ill served by the government. In other words media is supposed to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted! For the most part American media has lived up to that goal with some exceptions. Some of the greatest achievements of American 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 question…that 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
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