Monday, November 19, 2007

To be a thoughtful journalist

"To be a thoughtful journalist!"--This is the slogan of a competition named "Mr. and Ms. Journalists" I ever took part in when I was in China.

It was a competition held by our university for the university students from the whole province (Hubei Province) when I was in my second year, I defeated more than seven hundred other competitors to get into the final and received the Third Award. But years later, the result which made me glad at that time has become no more important. Finally, what remains in my heart is its slogan: To be a thoughtful journalist!

After graduation, most of my classmates chose to work at the media, mostly at newspapers
(Cause it's very difficult to enter into TV stations in China). Sometimes I chat with them in OICQ or MSN, they always tell me that being a journalist in China is really becoming more and more difficult.

The competition has become more and more serious, because whatever your major is, you can be a journalist as long as you'd like to . This situation results in the increasing of the number of journalists, and lots of Journalism professional graduates cannot find jobs in media, and those who get the opportunities to work there have to work harder to keep their jobs.

The futher conclusion is that being a good journalist is much more difficult, because the first problem the journalists have to face is their their own survival issues, and the standard in which they judge the news value has been changed accordingly.

For example, They may think more about the government's policy in the reporting restriction and try not to breach it, in order to avoid doing work without economic benefits.

Of course, not all journalists work like this, it's just an occasion that they may have to undergo.What I mean is that you should have to refuse the temptation of money, to sacrifice time together with your family and to spend more time thinking about how to report news if you really want to be a good journalist, then you should do it!

Well, there might be lots of discussion about how to act as a journalist, I'd like to end my opinion with some words I ever used in my personal statement when I applied for my university:

"I have always believed that anyone fortunate enough to combine earning a living with following his or her own personal interests is very fortunate indeed. I intend to do my best to be such a person."

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

very cool....

Unknown said...

Good job is hard to get anywhere, so just be tough, and you will be well rewarded.

Anonymous said...

seven hundred competitors, good job! being a thoughtful journlist, I think you can