Week One: Instant Journalist

Journalism is very strange to me. It’s like nothing I have ever studied before. In a bachelor of science I would go in knowing how to count things and in the end I come out as a scientist of some description; in a bachelor of Laws I would study the law for a period of time and at the end I would get a certificate that meant that I could be a lawyer; in journalism I was a journalist from the moment I walked through the doors of the Schonell lecture theatre.

Perhaps this is because journalism is not so much about learning content, but rather practicing an art. It sounds pretty pretentious to call journalism an art, but ‘art’ is a good word to use for things that you can’t quite define. A simple Google search will yield a definition along the lines of “the activity or profession of writing for newspapers or magazines or of broadcasting news on radio or television.” That’s like saying that the term ‘artist’ can be defined as a profession in which someone uses paint to make pictures on a canvass. Perhaps Google’s definition of a journalist would have been fitting in the 20^th century, but technology has expanded at such a rate that the identity and role of a journalist must change accordingly. Journalists don’t have to write for newspapers , journalists don’t have to have a degree in journalism – some people are, by definition, journalists and they don’t even know it. So what the hell is journalism?

“It's all storytelling, you know. That's what journalism is all about.” - Tom Brokaw.

Dr Redman seems to agree: whatever it is, journalism is about telling factual stories. And I think that is the most important thing I learned this week.

There is an art to telling factual stories; you have to get a balance between informing and entertaining the audience. A good journalist can do both. Unfortunately, I gather from my eighteen years of interacting with the media that too many journalists put their emphasis on the latter. Perhaps a wiser version of me from the future will disagree, but in my humble opinion the primary goal of a journalist is to eloquently inform. Entertainment is unquestionably important but it should come later. Let’s say an article is informative but boring; the audience may lose interest. However, if an article is a riveting wad of superficial rumours, the journalist loses both their credibility and their role in society. Oscar Wilde reminds us that “by giving us the opinions of the uneducated, journalism keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community.”

This week I also realised the importance of journalism in democratic societies. People need to know what is going on in the world – the good stuff and the bad stuff.  I found an interesting quote by Charles Kuralt: “I don't have any well-developed philosophy about journalism. Ultimately it is important in a society like this, so people can know about everything that goes wrong.”

I’m glad that I decided to study journalism. Language can be hard tool to use, but I like using it – especially when I get to use it for the purpose of informing the public about what’s happening in the world. Moreover, I’m glad that I decided to complete my journalism degree in tandem with a bachelor of science; telling factual stories seems to be intrinsic to both. Dr Geoff Garret, Queensland’s Chief Scientist and guest speaker at UQ last week, reminded the audience of the imperative role of scientists as good communicators. Scientific research is fairly useless unless people know what is being discovered. As an aspiring scientist, I can practice communication right now, so welcome to my blog - my little space on the internet where I can tell you about all the nerdy science things that I like and reflect upon my first baby steps into the big, nebulous realm of journalism. Enjoy.