Chapters 1

First things first, I really enjoyed the very first story told in Elements of Journalism. It really puts journalism in perspective for me, and it does it in a way that makes it real and relevant to someone I can relate with. Not because I have ever been in a situation like that, but I am a teenage girl, like the one in the story.

And I agree with the message the story was trying to convey about what journalism is. It is a way of getting relevant information out to those who need it. I am sure that we could discuss this question for days and still never come up with the absolute, hands down answer that everyone agrees with, and as a class we have had pretty lengthy discussions about it, but this is the one way of defining it that really resonated with me.

Also, I really dislike the discussion all together. Because I know there is no answer! We should throw out some ideas and then we should just leave it up to individuals to decide what journalism means to them. All this ideological talk makes me dizzy.

Moving on to Mind of a Journalist. I enjoyed this reading more, mostly because it was shorter but also because it brought up a topic I had never thought about before. Why DO people decide to become journalists? And then, it answered the question for me without having to go through all these maybes and what ifs. It is interesting to point out that in a lot of ways being a journalist doesn't seem like a rational occupation, and what better way to start out a book about journalists thinking than to explain how one becomes a journalist in the first place!

So those are my thoughts on the reading. Not very deep, I know.