What Journalism is all about, and all the jazz it apparently 'majors in', might turn out to surprise you.
A senior executive of English newspaper The Morung Express who participated in an exposition in Northern Ireland on Journalism recently narrated to me a starkly fascinating anecdote: Celebrated reporter Eammon Mallie dared the gathered journalists with a query. “Why do people become Journalists?”
You could almost hear unabashed, spontaneous and unworried answers leap from the Journalists’ minds in response to Mallie's seemingly innocuous query:
‘People join journalism to fight corrupt governments’
‘Encourage citizenship’
‘Be the voice of the people’
‘Be the ultimate microphone for Freedom of Speech’
‘Change the world’
‘Block Climate Change’
‘Impress that gorgeous girl next door’
‘Stir dad into buying you that swanky car, a Chevrolet no less, and Etcetera and Etcetera.
None so.
So why do people become journalists?
“Vanity!
"Vanity!
"Vanity!” thundered Eammon Mallie, to the stunned Journalists.
I believe no less that the gathering had answers far more surprisingly Utopian than what Ms. Mallie fished out for them. And definitely not something that had suspicious association with the spelling 'F-A-M-E.' Or even more surreptitiously, 'M-O-N-E-Y.' So what is Journalism? Read Here.
Al Ngullie is a Senior Sub-Editor, Reporter and Columnist with The Morung Express, an English newspaper based in India.
©2012 Al Ngullie
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