Of the many bills presented in state legislatures—from strict abortion bans to a teacher pay raise and mandated pre-school—the one that caught my attention came from neighboring Arkansas. Earlier this year a legislator, who also happens to have been a former TV broadcast journalist and with her husband publishes a community newspaper, presented a bill to reinstate journalism as a mandatory elective in all the state’s public high schools. After hearing staunch support from a prominent university journalism professor and articulate journalism students who maintained the scholarly and societal benefits of the course, the Arkansas Legislature summarily killed House Bill 1015, sponsored by Julie Mayberry, R-Hensley. What a brave notion, though, given our politically divisive mass media convoluted by the internet.
To think that in 21st century America an entire state blocked high school students from studying journalism seems … so 1984. When we have a president who calls real news fake and fake news real, it is necessary for high school students to study journalism. Not that any of them would actually become journalists. Only a few will have what it takes: concern for mankind, inquisitiveness, above-average intelligence, determination, audacity, innate organization and solid communication skills verbal and written. Oh yeah, they’ll need to be good creative writers yet with integrity to stick to the facts and present all sides. So the final mark of a good journalist is to recognize what’s fair and just and to spot what’s unfair and unjust.
‘Reporting’ for duty
My appreciation for journalism came from doing the job on school newspaper staffs. In junior high an anonymous teacher placed me on the staff. Looking back I can see why a teacher thought I’d be good at that after-school activity. I did well in English class, won a couple of writing awards, and was sociable and unafraid to chat with teachers and principals. I was an independent worker and respected deadlines. But what really made me stand out as a potential student newspaper reporter, I believe a bit ruefully, was my childhood notoriety as insatiably nosy with a big mouth. Adolescence did a lot to suppress that phase. In time through learning journalism, I became cautious with my words especially in print and tried not to exaggerate or use flowery adjectives or flat out lie. It would take one tough high school newspaper sponsor, but I learned to rein myself in to become a better reporter. Teen-age girl that I was, I still enjoyed creative writing, poetry and songs. But there was no place for that in the school newspaper. However, I managed to put all my writing talents together for features, columns and music reviews.
High school newspaper staffs are an eclectic bunch: the highly intellectual, self-assured photographers, the bookish, a couple of popular kids, the wannabe advertising execs, and of course the brooding nonconformist rebels. The latter fit in perfectly with the newspaper staff. I was somewhere in between, one of the very few who paid attention to cub reporter training: Every story must have the 6Ws and the 1H, and news articles cannot be made up.
We had to wait till tenth grade to take journalism and then by the end of the year may be invited to join the newspaper staff. The course taught the history of American journalism—from the colonies starring Ben Franklin to New York columnist Horace Greeley who summoned city reporters to “Go West,” from Ida Tarbell’s tenacity to stick it to rich oilman John Rockefeller to yellow journalism and sensationalism, from the Associated Press’ journalism standards and ethics to the prestigious Pulitzer Prize. We learned about the contributions from the mass media including radio, TV, film, journals, magazines and tabloids. No cable news or internet yet.
The next year the newspaper sponsor placed me on the news section of the newspaper staff. All the seasoned reporters wanted to write features, columns and critiques. I wanted features, too, but figured I had another year to apply. Delegating me to news writing was the best thing that could have happened to me in many ways. I had to get out of my own experience to report the facts. I could not slant stories. News had to be honest, as best a high school kid could know, find or determine.
My first sponsor let us run the school paper. Next year’s sponsor was completely hands on and did not tolerate errors. Staff photographers were creative and good at their craft. Our editors were shoo-ins for top ten universities. In fact several on the newspaper staff were all-around exceptional students, delivered sardonic wit that kept me in giggling stitches, too smart for their own good, and ended up in the Top Ten graduates at a very large competitive school. That is a notable fact that continues among high school journalists. Journalism produces serious lifelong learners who know about and explore a variety of subjects.
In college I chose not to major in journalism but ended up writing freelance for the town paper and then as a part-time job for the university news service. After graduation I ended up working in the news business, covering mostly government news; writing a lot of enterprise pieces, weekly columns, features, news-features and feature series, performing arts critiques, CD and concert reviews; and shot many photos that accompanied my stories. I survived the demise of a big-city paper and along the way was honored every few years as an outstanding reporter. I took the job of journalist seriously, wanted to do meaningful work and write engaging stories sometimes from the heart but mostly from the head as my old journalism teacher would have liked it.
Journalism seeks truth
Reporters have taken a beating for generations, way before our current president who blasts The New York Times and CNN, both as good as journalism gets. Yes, there have been a couple of sorry jerks masquerading as ‘reporters’ but writing pure fiction. The New York Times in the early 2000s and The Washington Post in the late 1970s have black marks for those hires. But the vast majority of writers who call themselves journalists maintain an integrity few other professionals match. That is the truth.
With the internet, instant news, bloggers pretending to be real-deal reporters and self-styled journalists who play fast and loose with the facts, a young mind needs to learn how to substantiate what’s real news from the heaping mounds of internet pop culture trash, propaganda and misinformation along with dangerous disinformation intended to destroy democracy, free speech and free press. The far right made fun of the mainstream media, calling it the ‘lamestream’ media years before Trump was elected—one of the loudest and most popular among them who used the sarcastic characterization in daily speeches earned her degree in journalism. How ironic.
You gotta pity the high school kids in Arkansas and any other state public education system where journalism is removed from the curriculum, the extracurricular curriculum. Maybe there is still hope for the highly curious, intelligent and easily bored high school youth, the ones who question everything they hear and read, the ones who just want to know the truth historical and in the here and now. Independent intelligent young people need no one to guide them into doing their own research, verifying facts and sources, then coming to their own conclusions—not their own truth but the facts. Even without a high school newspaper and the opportunity to write news and commentary, they could become good reporters. A great journalist once told me, “Everyone should be an investigative reporter.” Ain’t it the truth, now more than ever?